I know that I promised to post a review a day this summer. However, there are two reasons why I won't be posting a traditional "review" today. I've been reading books that fall into two categories: already published, and soon-to-be published. (1) The books that won't be published until September and beyond, which I have been enjoying, I didn't want to review because you wouldn't be able to get your hands on them yet! I'll save their reviews until closer to the actual publication date. (2) The books that are already published that I've read lately, well, to be honest, I haven't really liked...at all. And I don't really want to waste the time to tell you about books that I didn't like. So, in honor of JK Rowling's birthday (and the birthday of her most famous character, Harry Potter), I thought I would show you the new book covers that Scholastic will be using for the paperbacks published on August 27th. What do you think???
Many of us at Evergreen are very excited for the upcoming Maze Runner movie! If you haven't read this series, you should take the summer to devour it in time for the February 2014 release date. Recently, MTV (and then everyone else) published stills from the movie production. Click hereto check them out! And to say up to date on all the Maze Runner news, keep up with author James Dashner on his blog.
Elite 8 voting has ended and we have our FINAL FOUR! A couple of upsets and one complete blowout mark this round of the tournament. Hunger Games, the number 1 seed, crushed it's competitor this round (Matched, the number 9 seed). Red Pyramid (20) continues it's run through the tournament by upsetting another competitor, the 5th seed, Beautiful Creatures. Lost Hero (2) beat another one of my favorites, and the last non-fiction book in the tournament, Iron Heart (7). It was a good run for non-fiction this year. I really thought Iron Heart had the stamina to go all the way. In the final match-up, Maze Runner (3) was stunned in a buzzer-beater by Wimpy Kid #7 (11). I was quite honestly shocked by this result, though I do love both books equally so would have been happy with either book moving forward. Now we are on to the Final Four voting: Hunger Games (1) vs. Red Pyramid (20): Can this underdog continue it's run through the bracket and upset the undeniable favorite? Lost Hero (2) vs. Wimpy Kid #7 (11): I actually have no idea how this "game" will end up. Will it be #1 vs. #2 in the finals? Cannot wait to find out. To vote online, click hereor grab a bracket from the library. Ballots are due no later than end of school on Friday, 4/5. Winners will be announced here and our Facebook page over spring break! Stay tuned...
Yes, March Madness has swept through the library at Evergreen! We are doing our part to contribute to the craziness that comes with filling out a bracket and rooting for your favorites. Now, to be honest, this is the first year in I don't know how long that I haven't filled out a college basketball bracket. Chemo brain just didn't allow me to think clearly enough to compete. And since I know better than to pick my favorite Bulldogs, I wouldn't have been too disappointed with my bracket. But March Madness at the library is almost as crazy! There have been blowouts, buzzer beaters, and upsets! We started with 32 books, all determined by the top circulations in our library since the start of school. Adjusting for series: only the top circulating book in a series was "allowed" into the tournament as decided by the tournament official (me). First round: Some very interesting outcomes! --8th seed Leviathan battled 25th seed Unwind. In the end, the winner was determined by the FINAL VOTE, with Leviathan prevailing.
--The 20th (Red Pyramid) and 21st (Chomp) seeds upset their competitors.
--Two of my favorite books were paired up against each other, so I knew from the start I was going to lose one of my favorites in the first round. False Prince battled to the win over A Long Way Gone. --3rd seed Maze Runner did not crush it's competitor (Breaking Dawn) quite like you'd expect of a 3rd seed, but it did come out victorious in the end. Sweet 16: --9th seed Matched upset Leviathan in the closest matchup in this round. --My FAVORITE book in the tournament, Swim the Fly (4) was upset by Red Pyramid. I am crushed...my bracket is blown. It's all fun and games until your favorite "team" loses. Now we are on to the Elite 8. Voting is open until Tuesday, 4/2 at 3pm. You can vote online here, or get a paper bracket from the library. Will your favorite book(s) make it to the Final Four??? Stay tuned...
It seems appropriate that our 6th graders will be reading Award Winners (and Honor books) this quarter, being that most of the major reading awards were just announced this week. It was the American Library Association's Midwinter meeting, and this past weekend it was in my own backyard (Seattle). Unfortunately, because of my chemo treatments, I was unable to attend. AAAAH! It was so hard not to be there, as I've been at almost every meeting for YEARS, having served on many of ALA's award committees in the past. One of the best parts of Midwinter is getting up early Monday morning and being in the audience as each award is announced live. Okay, well, getting up early isn't always that great, but it is so fun to be in a room of fellow book nerds cheering as books are announced, especially when one of your favorite titles wins. To find links to all the recently announced award winners, click here. There is also video clips from the ceremony. To find teen specific awards, click on YALSA's award page. I have served on many of these award committees including Best Fiction, Popular Paperbacks, and am now serving on the Excellence in Non-Fiction award committee.
For this quarter's 6th graders, you can find my book list of suggestionshere. If you are also a fan of the library's Facebook page, you will see I posted my favorite recommendations from all the titles listed. I will be recommending them here over the next week. Let me know which book you choose...and I can't wait to hear how you liked it. Not a 6th grader? Tell me what your favorite award/honor title would be. Or which award you look forward to hearing each year.
I know that many of Evergreen's students are anxiously awaiting the release of Christopher Paolini's "Inheritance" (coming in November). For those of you that are, here is a short trailer to keep you excited about the book!
In case you missed the announcement, there will be a new Shel Silverstein book this fall! This will be the second Silverstein book posthumously published. "Every Thing On It" contains previously unpublished poems and arrives in bookstores in September, 2011.
In honor of this new book, I thought that I would post my favorite Silverstein poem. When I used to teach storytelling and coach speech team, I knew it by heart and would present it to students to show them how fun words could be. Now, I can remember the first two stanzas and the last line but I still love it!
Pinocchio (From the book "Falling Up")
Pinocchio, Pinocchio,
That little wooden bloke-io, His nose, it grew an inch or two With every lie he spoke-io.
Pinocchio, Pinocchio, Thought life was just a joke-io, ‘Til the morning that he met that cat And the fox in a long red cloak-io.
They cried, “Come on, Pinocchio, We’ll entertain the folk-io, On puppet strings you’ll dance and sing From Timbuktu to Tokyo.”
Pinocchio, Pinocchio, Got sold to a trav’lin’ show-kio, Got put in a cage by a man in a rage With a stick to give him a poke-io.
So Pinocchio, Pinocchio, Out of that cage he brokie-io To the land where boys just play with toys And cuss and fight and smoke-io.
Pinocchio, Pinocchio, He finally awoke-io With donkey ears and little-boy tears, And his poor wooden heart was broke-io.
So back home ran Pinocchio, As fast as he could go-kio, But his daddy, he had gone to sea, So off to sea went Pinocchio.
Pinocchio, Pinocchio, He got quite a soak-io When he lost his sail and got ate by a whale, And it looked like he was gonna croak-io.
But Pinocchio, Pinocchio, A fire he did stoke-io Inside that whale, who sneezed up a gale And blew him out in the smoke-io.
Pinocchio, Pinocchio, Next mornin’ he awoke-io, And he had no strings or puppety things, And his donkey ears had disappeared, And his nose– – surprise– – was the normal size, And his body filt fine, not made of pine, And he cried, “Oh joy, I’m real boy, And everything’s okey-dokey-o.”
So, are you excited for this new collection? What is your favorite Silverstein poem/book?
It has been awhile since I have posted. And there are several reasons for that including the holiday season, a lovely vacation in Hawaii, and some sketchy Internet connections...and a new found addiction to Plants vs. Zombies, but that's a story for another day.
But the biggest reason that I haven't posted lately is that I've been READING...A LOT! No really, I have! As part of YALSA's 2011 Best Fiction for Young Adults (BFYA) award committee, I spent the last month reading, reading, and reading. There were 191 books nominated for the award, and I managed to leave a number of them until Winter Break. Perhaps too many of them. There are some days that I'm very vague about the details: did I take a shower? Eat? Did the kids get to where they needed to be? I was kind of in a reading haze.
But it was all worthwhile last week when our committee met in San Diego at the American Library Association's Midwinter Convention. Sitting in a room all day, for 5 days talking about books was great fun. And then we finally voted on which books should make the list. Very interesting!
Here's the proof: The 2011 BFYA List You will see all the titles that made the final award list, as well as a link to the Top 10 (which is a GREAT list of books in my opinion). Please note my name on the list of committee members...the only proof that I really was busy reading and not lost in Plants vs. Zombies on my iPad!
Are any of your favorite books on this list? Pretty soon I'll post my own personal Top 10 from the list, as well as those books that I LOVED but just didn't make the cut.
By the way, nominations for the 2012 list open on February 1st. I have a few weeks to read what I want until the next award cycle! Funny thing though, the only thing I've been reading are all the galleys (advance copies) that I picked up at Midwinter. There were so many good ones...more on those later, I promise!
Every year, the National Book Foundation determines nominees and winners of the National Book Award. There are several categories of awards, including Young People's Literature. I am so excited by the five titles nominated in this year's Young People's Literature category! And I wish I was near New York City today to see the National Book Award Teen Press Conference.
Middle- and high-school students from New York City public and private schools are invited to the Schomburg Center of The New York Public Library for the Foundation’s popular National Book Awards Teen Press Conference. According to the NBF website, students prepare for the event by reading one of the five Finalists' books and drafting questions based on the text, the writing life, and what it means to be a National Book Award Finalist. At the event, each participating student will receive a professionally designed press kit with biographical information on each author, excerpts from their books, and materials related to the National Book Awards.
Authors read from their work and then the floor is turned over to the students for the Press Conference. Students have the opportunity to meet the authors and have their books signed at a reception following the event. I am so jealous!
So, who are these amazing authors and which books are nominated? It is quite a prestigious group, and I am quite proud to say that I have actually read 4 of the 5 books! That is amazing. And the 5th one is in my suitcase for my Thanksgiving road trip (at least it will be...I not really packed yet).
And the nominees, in alphabetical order, are: Ship Breaker by Paolo BacigalupiMockingbird by Kathryn ErskineDark Water by Laura McNeal(the only one I haven't read yet)Lockdown by Walter Dean MyersOne Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia If you want to read a GREAT article/interview with all the authors about what it was like to find out their books were nominated, read The Fab Five in a recent edition of School Library Journal.
So, who should win? Which ones have you read? I'm reserving judgement until I read Dark Water. But I'd hate to be the person with the final say because they all such strong contenders!
New books are always exciting! And news about new books is often more exciting. Last week, one of my FAVORITE authors released the cover for her new book. I know, I know...I never pick favorites. I promise though, Sarah Dessen is one of my top 5 favorite authors EVER (in the #2 spot behind Chris Crutcher). For me, "favorite" means I have read everything they have ever written, maybe more than once. And that is saying a lot, because as a rule, I do not re-read books. Honestly, I just don't have the time.
Ms. Dessen was scooped in her own release of the cover to readers by Amazon.com and a fellow book blogger, but it does not make the announcement any less newsworthy. According to the book summary on Goodreads.com, "What Happened to Goodbye is about a high school senior who, after her parents’ divorce, has taken up the practice of assuming a new identity in each of the four towns she’s lived in."
It is times like this that I am so incredibly grateful to get advance copies of books. Please, oh please, let this be one of the books that arrives one day in my mailbox. If not, I will have to wait until MAY 2011. My students will agree that this is a painfully long wait.
Excepting for The Hunger Games trilogy and Percy Jackson, Dessen's books are the most popular books at EJH. So, what is your favorite Sarah Dessen title?
With less than 20 days to the release of "Mockingjay," Scholastic (the publisher) has been doing it's best to keep the story's secrets. However, they are also promoting the heck out of the book (a Facebook page, a book trailer, activity kits sent to bookstores for release parties, a countdown clock, and more).
Although I was able to get advance copies of both "The Hunger Games" and "Catching Fire," I was not able to get an advance copy of "Mockingjay." And neither was anyone else, so I don't feel too bad. (Well, that's not true...I'm still bitter. And so is Mr. Kaneko, and just about everyone else who knows I can score books before they are published).
As with the last four "Harry Potter" titles, Scholastic skipped the process of printing advance reader copies for Mockingjay. “I’ve never worked on a project that was so top secret,” said David Levithan, v-p and editorial director at Scholastic. “I actually had to wipe the file from my laptop when I was done with it, for fear that I’d be the guy who leaves his laptop in a taxi and ends up ruining it for everyone.” (From an interview printed in Publisher's Weekly).
I actually sat next to David Levithan at a dinner in June (he is also an author, and an exceptional person to spend an evening talking to), and he was introduced as "the only person in the room to have read Mockingjay."
So...what do you think is going to happen in Mockingjay?
Move over Jeff Kinney, Stephenie Meyer, and Rick Riordan! Another author has recently signed a publishing mega-deal. Alyson Noel, author of the popular "Immortals" series, has signed a deal with St. Martin's Press for a new "Soul Seeker" series to debut in 2012. According to the Wall Street Journal, the deal is a "healthy seven-figures with additional performance bonuses that could double that." The exact amount was not revealed but confirmed to be a “multi-million” dollar advance. WOW! And well-deserved!
Noel's "Immortals" series is currently #5 on the New York Times Children's Series list, behind "Twilight," "Percy Jackson," "Pretty Little Liars," and "Diary of a Wimpy Kid"...good company I would say. Many of our EJH students cannot get enough of the "Immortals" and there was groaning at the end of the school year when it was discovered that the 4th book, "Dark Flame" was not published in time to check out before school got out for the summer.
As you have heard Mrs. Yusko say several times, I am not a huge fan of the Twilight series...I know, I know, something is clearly wrong with me! However, I am in love with the "Immortals" series. I picked up "Evermore," the first book in the series, last summer because it was recommended to me by a student. (No, I would not have picked it up on my own...remember, supernatural romance books typically are not my thing). I was drawn to Ever and her story, and the tragedy that brought out her supernatural ability. For those of you that have not read it, I won't spoil anything other than to tell you that Ever's entire family (mom, dad, sister, and even the family dog) are killed in a car accident. Ever is the only survivor. And since the accident she can see people's auras, read their thoughts, and know all about their life by simply touching them. Obviously unnerved by this ability, Ever shuts herself off from the world. It is at this point in her life that we first meet Ever...and that she first meets Damen.
Are you a fan of the series? Do you want to find out about the next book? Do want to read other books by the author? Check out her websites and blog!
Author website: http://www.alysonnoel.com/
For those of you that have read the series, you will know that her sister Riley factors into the first book. I have just read an advance copy of "Radiance" which is a new spin-off series featuring Riley and her journey after the car accident. It was WONDERFUL and I will post my complete review soon. I have loaned it to a neighbor girl, but if you would like to be next on the list, comment here and let me know!
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