I just finished this really exciting book yesterday afternoon.
The story involves Thomas, a 15 year old who wakes up in a strange, dangerous world with no memory of his past. As he struggles to understand the rules of his new home, he learns about the Maze, the Grievers, and the terrifying life he must now endure. He's soon struggling to understand, to save lives, and to solve the mystery of why this is all happening.
With short chapters, lots of action, and tons of mystery and adventure, this is a quick, exciting read. If you liked the Hunger Games, the Young James Bond series, or the Alex Rider series, this book may be just what you're looking for!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
New Books!
Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles - Carlos Fuentes doesn't want any part of the life his older brother, Alex, has laid out for him in Boulder, Colorado. He wants to keep living on the edge, and carve his own path - just like Alex did. Unfortunately, his ties to a Mexican gang aren't easy to break, and he soon finds himself being set up by a drug lord. When Alex arranges for Carlos to live with his former professor and his family to keep him from being sent to jail, Carlos feels completely out of place. He's even more thrown by his strong feelings for the professor's daughter, Kiara, who is nothing like the girls he's usually drawn to.
Dark Life by Kat Falls - Ty has lived his whole life on the ocean floor, helping his family's sub-sea homestead. But when outlaw's attacks threaten to destroy the underwater territory, Ty finds himself in a fight to stop the outlaws and save the only home he has ever known.Joined by a girl from the Topside who has come subsea to look for her prospector brother, Ty ventures into the frontier's rough underworld and begins to discover some dark secrets to Dark Life.
White Cat by Holly Black - Cassel comes from a family of curse workers -- people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail -- he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.
A Kiss in Time by Alex Flinn - From an acclaimed author comes a contemporary and original retelling of Sleeping Beauty, in which Jack discovers the babe of his dreams. The only problem is she's 316 years old--and Jack must smuggle her out of Europe to Miami
Gimme a Call by Sarah Mlynowski - A new life is just a phone call away! Seventeen-year-old Devi's life isn't turning out at all like she wanted. She wasted the past three years going out with Bryan-cute, adorable, break-your-heart Bryan. Devi let her friendships fade, blew off studying, didn't join any clubs . . . and now that Bryan has broken up with her, she has nothing left. Not even her stupid cell phone-she dropped it in the mall fountain. Now it only calls one number . . . hers. Her 14 year-old-self's number, that is!
The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - It's war time, and the Carver family decides to leave the capital where they live and move to a small coastal village where they've recently bought a home. But from the minute they cross the threshold, strange things begin to happen. In that mysterious house still lurks the spirit of Jacob, the previous owners' son, who died by drowning. Can they save themselves from a similar fate?
Sources of Light by Margaret McMullan - 1962. Jackson, Mississippi. A broken camera lay in the dried out pine needles of the wood. Samantha finds it and thinks nothing of it. She'd never thought that it could possibly belong to someone so close to her heart. Sam and her mother view the world through a very different lens than the Southern folks around them. People like the McLemores fear that Sam, her mother, and her mother's very close friend, Perry, are in the South to "Agitate" and to shake up the dividing lines between black and white and blur it all to grey.
My Invisible Boyfriend by Susie Day - Heidi has come up with the perfect solution to her popularity problems--a fake boyfriend. She’s even made him a real-life Internet profile that makes him look like a motorcycle-riding bad boy who reads poetry for fun. *Swoon* Heidi’s friends are impressed. So impressed that they start e-mailing Heidi’s fake boyfriend for advice about their own problems. Including their problems with, um--Heidi. And as if that isn’t bad enough, a mysterious, rather delicious, and possibly single person who calls himself "A Real Boy" e-mails Heidi to say he knows the truth.
Thirteen Days to Midnight by Patrick Carman - what if you had a superpower? If you had the ability NEVER to be injured again? What would you do? How would it change your life? What if someone died to give you that power? Would you be able to use it to do good? Could you share it? Or would it turn out to be the ultimate curse?
The Karma Club by Jessica Brody - Madison Kasparkova always thought she understood how karma works. But when Maddie's boyfriend cheats on her, nothing bad comes his way. That's why she starts the Karma Club, to clean up the messes the universe leaves behind.
My Boyfriends' Dogs by Dandi MacKall - If only boys were more like dogs. On a stormy night in St. Louis, Bailey Daley finds refuge in an after-hours diner. Bailey, a girl with three dogs in tow, wearing a soaking-wet prom dress, obviously has a story to tell. See, she wants what every girl wants from her boyfriend: enthusiasm, loyalty, and unconditional love. And Bailey is always falling in love — with boys, and with their dogs. And each of her dogs came from a relationship that didn’t quite work out. But don’t worry: in this fun, clean romance, true love is never far away—it just waits until you stop looking for it.
The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet by Erin Dionne - Eighth-grader Hamlet Kennedy, so named by her slightly obsessed Shakespearean-scholar parents, works hard to be normal and fit in at school. This becomes even more difficult when her genius seven-year-old sister begins attending her middle school. Hamlet offers her guidance and is stung not only when her advice is rejected, but also when Desdemona befriends two mean girls who have picked on Hamlet for years. On top of everything else, her teachers announce a special Shakespeare unit, and Hamlet is assigned the starring role in A Midsummer's Night's Dream.
Hawksmaid by Kathryn Lasky - The Robin Hood legend spreads its wings in this new retelling, all about Maid Marian and her hawks, by "New York Times"-bestselling and Newbery Honor author Lasky.
Graphic Novels:
Shonen Jump Vol. 8, Issue 7, July 2010
Superman. The Coming of Atlas - Superman faces off with Atlas, the lost God of myth, when he tries to claim Metropolis as his own.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? vols. 1-2 of 6 - this is the sci-fi classic story that became the cult-classic movie "Bladerunner".
Inu Yasha vol. 47
Dark Life by Kat Falls - Ty has lived his whole life on the ocean floor, helping his family's sub-sea homestead. But when outlaw's attacks threaten to destroy the underwater territory, Ty finds himself in a fight to stop the outlaws and save the only home he has ever known.Joined by a girl from the Topside who has come subsea to look for her prospector brother, Ty ventures into the frontier's rough underworld and begins to discover some dark secrets to Dark Life.
White Cat by Holly Black - Cassel comes from a family of curse workers -- people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail -- he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.
A Kiss in Time by Alex Flinn - From an acclaimed author comes a contemporary and original retelling of Sleeping Beauty, in which Jack discovers the babe of his dreams. The only problem is she's 316 years old--and Jack must smuggle her out of Europe to Miami
Gimme a Call by Sarah Mlynowski - A new life is just a phone call away! Seventeen-year-old Devi's life isn't turning out at all like she wanted. She wasted the past three years going out with Bryan-cute, adorable, break-your-heart Bryan. Devi let her friendships fade, blew off studying, didn't join any clubs . . . and now that Bryan has broken up with her, she has nothing left. Not even her stupid cell phone-she dropped it in the mall fountain. Now it only calls one number . . . hers. Her 14 year-old-self's number, that is!
The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - It's war time, and the Carver family decides to leave the capital where they live and move to a small coastal village where they've recently bought a home. But from the minute they cross the threshold, strange things begin to happen. In that mysterious house still lurks the spirit of Jacob, the previous owners' son, who died by drowning. Can they save themselves from a similar fate?
Sources of Light by Margaret McMullan - 1962. Jackson, Mississippi. A broken camera lay in the dried out pine needles of the wood. Samantha finds it and thinks nothing of it. She'd never thought that it could possibly belong to someone so close to her heart. Sam and her mother view the world through a very different lens than the Southern folks around them. People like the McLemores fear that Sam, her mother, and her mother's very close friend, Perry, are in the South to "Agitate" and to shake up the dividing lines between black and white and blur it all to grey.
My Invisible Boyfriend by Susie Day - Heidi has come up with the perfect solution to her popularity problems--a fake boyfriend. She’s even made him a real-life Internet profile that makes him look like a motorcycle-riding bad boy who reads poetry for fun. *Swoon* Heidi’s friends are impressed. So impressed that they start e-mailing Heidi’s fake boyfriend for advice about their own problems. Including their problems with, um--Heidi. And as if that isn’t bad enough, a mysterious, rather delicious, and possibly single person who calls himself "A Real Boy" e-mails Heidi to say he knows the truth.
Thirteen Days to Midnight by Patrick Carman - what if you had a superpower? If you had the ability NEVER to be injured again? What would you do? How would it change your life? What if someone died to give you that power? Would you be able to use it to do good? Could you share it? Or would it turn out to be the ultimate curse?
The Karma Club by Jessica Brody - Madison Kasparkova always thought she understood how karma works. But when Maddie's boyfriend cheats on her, nothing bad comes his way. That's why she starts the Karma Club, to clean up the messes the universe leaves behind.
My Boyfriends' Dogs by Dandi MacKall - If only boys were more like dogs. On a stormy night in St. Louis, Bailey Daley finds refuge in an after-hours diner. Bailey, a girl with three dogs in tow, wearing a soaking-wet prom dress, obviously has a story to tell. See, she wants what every girl wants from her boyfriend: enthusiasm, loyalty, and unconditional love. And Bailey is always falling in love — with boys, and with their dogs. And each of her dogs came from a relationship that didn’t quite work out. But don’t worry: in this fun, clean romance, true love is never far away—it just waits until you stop looking for it.
The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet by Erin Dionne - Eighth-grader Hamlet Kennedy, so named by her slightly obsessed Shakespearean-scholar parents, works hard to be normal and fit in at school. This becomes even more difficult when her genius seven-year-old sister begins attending her middle school. Hamlet offers her guidance and is stung not only when her advice is rejected, but also when Desdemona befriends two mean girls who have picked on Hamlet for years. On top of everything else, her teachers announce a special Shakespeare unit, and Hamlet is assigned the starring role in A Midsummer's Night's Dream.
Hawksmaid by Kathryn Lasky - The Robin Hood legend spreads its wings in this new retelling, all about Maid Marian and her hawks, by "New York Times"-bestselling and Newbery Honor author Lasky.
Graphic Novels:
Shonen Jump Vol. 8, Issue 7, July 2010
Superman. The Coming of Atlas - Superman faces off with Atlas, the lost God of myth, when he tries to claim Metropolis as his own.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? vols. 1-2 of 6 - this is the sci-fi classic story that became the cult-classic movie "Bladerunner".
Inu Yasha vol. 47
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Hot New Book - Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
A new series is starting by the author of the Percy Jackson novels... 14 year old Carter Cane and his 12 year old sister Sadie have lived apart (he with his Egyptologist father, she with her grandmother) since their mother's death six years ago. But when they're reunited with each other and their father at the British Museum, he promises to them that he'll "set things right". Unfortunately, when he attempts to summon a mysterious figure, things go badly wrong. He's banished, there's a fiery explosion, and the siblings learn that the Egyptian Gods are awakening. If Set awakens and sets his plans in motion, they learn, their futures will never be the same!
If you loved reading Percy Jackson, you'll find this tale of Ancient Greek Gods, mysterious family origins, and high adventure just your style!
If you loved reading Percy Jackson, you'll find this tale of Ancient Greek Gods, mysterious family origins, and high adventure just your style!
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Book Review
Unwind by Neil Shusterman - I just finished this VERY intense, rich and somewhat disturbing novel yesterday. In the world Shusterman creates, parents or guardians of a teen may choose to "unwind" a teen at any time, for any reason. Essentially this means that the teen is dissected and his/her body parts are given to other people to replace damaged/diseased parts of themselves.
Of course, most teens consider themselves unlikely to be unwound, but this story follows three young people who, for various reasons, find themselves in danger. Connor is too unruly for his parents; Risa is a ward of the state whom they can no longer afford; Lev's parents have raised him as a "tithe" from birth, to meet their perceived religious obligation. When their paths cross, the repercussions may change their world.
This novel presents a LOT of things to think about, but it isn't preachy. It's exciting, a little scary, and very fun. Give it a try! I'm plunging into Shusterman's Skinjacker trilogy, next! And don't be afraid to post your reactions to this book for all of us to share...
Of course, most teens consider themselves unlikely to be unwound, but this story follows three young people who, for various reasons, find themselves in danger. Connor is too unruly for his parents; Risa is a ward of the state whom they can no longer afford; Lev's parents have raised him as a "tithe" from birth, to meet their perceived religious obligation. When their paths cross, the repercussions may change their world.
This novel presents a LOT of things to think about, but it isn't preachy. It's exciting, a little scary, and very fun. Give it a try! I'm plunging into Shusterman's Skinjacker trilogy, next! And don't be afraid to post your reactions to this book for all of us to share...
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Teen Volunteer Fair this Saturday!
Join the Teen Library Crew!
Saturday, May 15
2-4 PM
Central Library
There will be fun activities and refreshments!
Ages 13-17 may sign up to volunteer.
Application Forms will be available - please bring your parent or legal guardian! A background check will be required, and paperwork must be notarized (a notary will be available on Saturday).
Volunteer activities include: Movie Days, Angel Paws, Saturday programs, Summer Teen Performers, Summer Reading Club Sign Ups, Game Night Assistants, and more...
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