Little Red…

I love how many new interpretations of the fairy tales are around right now-from Grimm on television to Snow White and the Huntsman movie to BOOKS (!). These reinventions brings us back to childhood, but in a whole new gory/mind-bending way. I recently started reading Maria Tatar‘s history of the Grimm Brothers and found it fascinating. Here are some other books to explore (with links to the author’s websites):

Eva Perry Library Teen Advisory Group

This week, Eva Perry Library’s Teen Advisory Group (TAG) is meeting on Thursday, October 4, 2012 at 7 p.m. to plan some awesome events for the library and community teens.

The three big events on the agenda are the Rock the Vote program on October 11, 2012, the Super Smash Video Game Tournament on November 3, 2012, and the Hunger Games Festival on November 29, 2012.  Teens meet, help plan events, and earn volunteer credit.    Here’s how one library did the Hunger Games event.  What events would you like to see?

Hot Books for 2012?

The Eva Perry Mock Printz Book Club is hard at work choosing the best book of the year.  While the group is far from reaching their decision, I wanted to share a few titles that the group has talked about a lot.  Some of these are loved/liked by everyone, and some of them are controversial and the teens either love them or hate them.  But these are the books we are talking about on a weekly basis.  (You can find a complete list of our initial favorites here.)

The List by Siobhan Vivian

It happens every year.  A list is released.  No one knows who writes the list.  On it are the names of the prettiest and ugliest girls in each grade.  Each of the girls reacts differently to being put on the list.  We get to hear all of their stories.  Teens cite enjoying how realistic the book is.  They feel like the characters really exist in the people they know at school.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Hazel has terminal cancer, but she has managed to survive all this time with her wit and humor intact.  During a support group, she meets August, who also has cancer in the leg, and he is handsome and charming, and for some reason, instantly falls crazily for Hazel, despite the fact that she has a tank.  This character’s voice will get you in the gut.

Children and the Wolves by Adam Rapp

A controversial book for sure, Children of the Wolves is about three cruel teens who kidnap and hold a child named Frog in captivity in a basement.  While she’s there, she’s playing a video game where wolves are paired against children.  The teens are holding her captive so they can raise money to purchase a glock weapon.  What is the world coming to?  This is an unusual and violent book.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

She always considered herself brave, until she was captured by the Gestapo, held, and tortured for information.  Now she’s telling them everything, absolutely everything if only they won’t torture her any more.  Her writing is a confession and a tale of friendship about her friend, the pilot, who may be dead.  Ultimately, this narrator is more than meets the eye, as we don’t get the full story of who she is until the very end.  What is truth?

5 Funny Words and My Thoughts On Them

Well, after a rather long absence, I’m back and ready to write. I was playing Scrabble the other day when I realized that there was a rather unusual word on the board, just played by my brother. I check the dictionary, and he gets 20-something points off of “bumf”. What exactly is a bumf? I check online, and there it is: “dull and useless documents”. After a bit of poking around the net, I felt a burning need to share these words with the world so that never again will a conversation be boring!

26 letters never looked more intimidating.

Book Review: Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard

I’d like you to meet my good friend Alex. He’s really just like you and me. He’s seventeen. He’s a high school student. He has a crush on one of his teachers.  Sometimes he does the right thing, and sometimes he just messes things up.  He writes down everything in his diary and… I read it. Actually, that’s how I know so much about him.

Mind Over Matter. Or the Other Way Around.

Have you ever had that itching feeling? The one where you’re on the edge of some momentous discovery or creation, an instant before a breakthrough, so close that a heavenly choir is preparing to sing in the background? If you’re anything like me, that instant-before moment is right about when you lose your train of thought.

The other night I was doodling my own book cover for Lois Lowry’s The Giver. Everything was going well, the  images were flowing freely from my mind to my pencil to the paper. My fingertips were throbbing, but it was that pleasant soreness of effort and accomplishment. The two-dimensional graphite on my paper grew a magical depth and form, reminding me of the real magic that came out of Clary Fray’s illustrations. Okay, maybe my surprisingly decent drawing of a finger sandwich couldn’t actually become a finger sandwich, like Clary’s could in Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones, but it could make my soul soar.

Series Review: The Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale

I love Shannon Hale’s books. They have just the right touch of romance for girls, and the right touch of action for guys. I’ve always enjoyed reading books with magic, fairy tales, or any of that sort, mostly in part because, well, you don’t really see that much around here.

I remember reading these maybe four years ago. I still read them over and over again today. It’s amazing how they never get old. Just recently, I listened to all three of the audiobooks, thanks to the convinent Overdrive Media Console that Wake County Libraries offers They’re recorded by Full-Cast Audio, which has to be the  most amazing audiobook company ever. They have different voices for each character and music and sound effect and everything.

It’s the End of the World as We Know It

Last week I had the pleasure – and terror – of reading Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi (to be published in November 2011). In her debut novel, Mafi paints a rich, gorgeous, and terrifying post apocalyptic dystopian world that left me trembling and eternally grateful for free speech and ice cream. But while I hurriedly checked to be sure that my books and pets were safe and reassured myself that I wouldn’t incinerate if I stepped outside, Mafi’s vision lodged itself into a small but growing knot of anxiety in the back of my mind. I speedily ingest dystopian fiction, from the recent Hunger Games trilogy and Divergent, to the classic 1984 and The Giver. Okay, perhaps I’m taking all of this a little too seriously. How likely do you believe it is for the government to remove color from the world, as described by Lois Lowry?

Book Review: Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

If you’re looking for a book that’s interesting, well-written, full of detail, and long enough to keep you occupied for a few weeks, this is the book for you.

This is The Great American Novel, written by Margaret Mitchell while she was bedridden. Published on June 10, 1936, it instantly became a best seller, and, in 1939, one of the most popular movies of all time, Gone with the Wind, starring Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara and Clark Gable as Rhett Bulter, premiered.

The copy that I’m reading, the version published by Pocket Book Fiction, is 1448 pages in all. I think it’s the longest book that I have ever read, and also one of the best as well. But don’t let the page number keep you from picking up this book. It’s definitely worth your while to read.

Book Review: Outliers

Since summer started, I have had the opportunity to finally relax and catch up on my reading. One book that really stood out from the other books I recently read is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

The book is an analysis of why people achieve high levels of success, but it isn’t a book that tells readers what and what not to do in order to achieve the success.

Eva Perry Reads: A Visit to Highbury

*This blog post got Greta tickets in the prize drawing for our Teen Summer Contest. Click here to find out how to enter!*

A Visit to Highbury: Another View of Emma by Joan Austen-Leigh

If you liked Jane Austen’s Emma, you’ll love A Visit to Highbury by Joan Austen-Leigh. She continues in the family tradition (being Jane Austen’s great-great-grandniece!) by writing this excellent companion novel to the story of Emma without actually changing anything. If you’re like me and want the author to stay true to the original story, this one is for you. Austen-Leigh simply adds another layer to the story (rather than a sequel; afterthought sequels can mess things up in a story), and makes it seem more real to the reader. It’s a good idea to read this right after reading Emma, so the story all comes together. Enjoy!

Teens’ Top Ten 2011: Demonglass (Hex Hall #2)

Demonglass (Hex Hall #2) by Rachel Hawkins is one of the Teens’ Top Ten nominations for 2011.

MAJOR SPOILERS for Hex Hall. You have been sufficiently warned.

As if killing her demonic grandmother, watching a friend die & losing the boy she loved to a society bent on destroying her kind wasn’t enough, now Sophie Mercer is spending her summer vacation in England at the council headquarters…with her dad. Fortunately James is feeling generous, allowing Sophie’s pink-loving, vampire best friend Jenna tag along. Oh and he’s also bringing along the dashing healer Cal.

West Regional Reads: Running Out of Time

*This blog post got Julia tickets in the prize drawing for our Teen Summer Contest. Click here to find out how to enter!*

Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix

I have read a million books in my years. Running Out of Time is a book I read years ago, but still enjoy. In this action-packed historical fiction, a normal 1840′s girl named Jessie gets the thrill of a lifetime. An outbreak of Diphtheria threatens the life of many people in Clifton.

Teens’ Top Ten Nominee Review: Hex Hall

Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins is one of the Teens’ Top Ten nominations for 2011.

Sophie is painfully aware of the fact that she doesn’t fit it. Not only is she the daughter of a college professor obsessed with all things paranormal, Sophie has never met her father in person, she’s lived in more states than she has celebrated birthdays; oh, and she’s a witch.

Eva Perry Library Reads: Outcast

*This blog post got Evelyn tickets for our Teen Summer Contest. Click here to find out how to enter!*

The book Outcast, by Rosemary Sutcliff, is full of historical adventure. The setting is near the end of the Roman empire, when barbaric hunting tribes inhabited Britain. Beric, the main character, landed as an infant on the coast of England, the sole survivor of a violent shipwreck. A kind couple took him in and raised him as their own. Fifteen years later, when the tribe’s crops failed, and sickness started spreading, the elders blamed Beric, who was of Roman descent, a nation despised by the Brits. He was thrown out of the only family and community he had ever known, never to return. The book follows the journey and engrossing adventures of Beric.  Outcast was an intriguing novel, filled with twists and turns.

Teens’ Top Ten 2011: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

*This blog post got Cheenu book bucks for our Teen Summer Contest. Click here to find out how to enter!*

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins is one of the Teens’ Top Ten Nominations for 2011.

Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins, is the last book in the Hunger Games Trilogy. The background of this book is the country of Panem, the result of a devastated and ruined North America. The country of Panem is made up of the Capitol (the center of Panem) and thirteen outlying districts whose job is to supply the Capitol with various goods and products. Before the Hunger Games Trilogy began, a civil war broke out in which the districts revolted against the Capitol. The districts were eventually crushed and District 13 was supposedly demolished. As a penalty for the rebellion, the districts are forced to send one male and one female representative from each district to fight to the death on live television. Everyone is forced to watch this battle to show how weak they are.

Teens’ Top Ten 2011: Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce is one of the Teens’ Top Ten Nominations for 2011.

Scarlett and Rosie March are hunters. They eat, sleep, and breathe hunting. We’re not talking about rabbits & ducks; these girls hunt Fenris–wolves. These monsters take on men’s forms to lure in young girls who they devour. After a horrific Fenris attack that left Scarlett horribly scarred with an eye patch & their grandmother dead, the girls began training with the Pa Reynolds, their neighborhood woodsmen. Growing up with Pa Reynolds’ son Silas, the girls do their duty to protect their homeland.

Teens’ Top Ten 2011 Nominations

The 25 titles nominated for the Teens’ Top Ten for 2011 have been announced.  The Teens’ Top Ten is sponsored by YALSA (The Young Adult Library Services Association.  Each year, selected teen groups from all over the country read teen books published this year or in the previous year to come up with a list of nominated titles for the Teens’ Top Ten.  Then teens all over the country get to vote on the nominated list to pick the final ten.  The national vote will take place in August and September of 2011, with the winner being announced during Teen Read Week, October 16-22, 2011.  Teens’ Top Ten is the only booklist nominated by teens and chosen by teens for teens.

These are listed in alphabetical author order.  Click on the links to request the books and see a book cover.  Just a tip:  This summer the nominations will be the list for teen summer reading, so plan on reading as many of the titles as possible.  Many of the titles are also available on downloadable audio or audio CD!

Drought by Pam Bachorz

I am J by Cris Beam

Book Review: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

I was going through the available downloadable audiobooks when I found this: an extension off of Eclipse. Do you remember that newborn vampire that the Volturi killed at the end of the book? Yeah, it’s that Bree Tanner. It’s the short second life of Bree Tanner.

It starts out with Bree hunting in Seattle. She’s one of the careful ones, one of the ones who only feed upon the ones that won’t be missed. But unfortunately, not everybody is that careful. Not everybody listens to Riley, their leader. But on that night, Bree meets somebody that, perhaps, she can…trust:

Teen Newsletter needs you!

Did you know that West Regional Library has a teen newsletter called The Splash and they’re looking for contributors?  All content is authored by teens, and the library’s teen advisory board puts it together.  All teen, all the time.  Check out the latest issue here.  The Splash features artistic and written work by local teens. They accept:

• Poetry
• Short Stories
• Digital or Traditional Artwork
• Photography
• Book Reviews
• Riddles/Jokes
• Comics
• Questions for Ask Elizabeth, an Advice Column

There are two easy ways to submit your work. Email thesplashsubmit@gmail.com
OR
Drop off your work in person in the Teen Section of West Regional Library in Cary.  Please include your Name, Title of Work, Age and/or Grade.