Eternal – Cynthia Leitich Smith

Eternal is nominated for the Teens’ Top Ten list for 2009.

Zachary is a guardian angel.  Miranda is his assignment.  He has been her GA for all of her live.  And now, she is dead.  She should have died naturally, but Zachary stopped her intended death, and what happened was worse.  Now she is a vampire.  And Zachary is wingless.

Miranda arises as Dracul’s heir needing to learn all the pomp and circumstance that the role entails.  Luckily she can hire a personal assistant.  Who do you bet gets the job?

This novel is set in the same parallel world as Tantalize, which I haven’t read yet, but which is going on my list right now.  I expect that there will be more vampires and were-whatevers.

Pulse It

Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing and Simon & Schuster Digital have created a free social networking website called Pulse It.  On this sight you get to choose between two books a month (some newly released books, some not yet released) to read exclusively on-line.  Then you can write a review, or comment on a message board, or many other things including participating in author discussions.  How very cool!

The website is www.simonandschuster.com/pulseit. You must live in one of the 50 United States (sorry all of you from elsewhere…) and be between the ages of 14 and 18.

I am not going to lay out all of the details here, because they did a pretty fantastic job of doing it themselves.  So, for more information, head on over here.

I  know that a lot of you want to read particular books on-line, but you may find something new on Pulse It that will hit the spot.  Once you select a book you have 60 days to read it.  I am going to stop giving details now.  Go.  Look for yourself!

Express Yourself @ Your Library

Our 2009 summer reading program began yesterday and will end July 31, 2009.  Head on in for a packet at the Main Library or one of the branch libraries. U.S. Bank is once again donating 6 $50.00 pre-loaded charge cards to be used almost anywhere. All you have to do to be eligible is to come in and pick up a packet and start reading.

There are two new options for the Teen Reader Card this year. One is to make a flip book. I want to see these puppies, so please bring them in. The other option is to do something to “Express Yourself.”  Do something creative and either bring it in to show us or tell us about it.  You may also send us an e-mail with a video or photo attachment to webmail@duluth.lib.mn.us so that we can add it to our website and show how Expressive our area teens are.

The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman (illustrations by Dave McKean)

Nobody Owens, Bod for short, lives in the graveyard on the same street where his family was murdered when he was a toddler.  Because his family is dead, and the killer, the man Jack, is still looking for him, he is being raised by ghosts.  And a guardian.

Bod has been given the Freedom of the Graveyard and as such can see in darkness as well as a bunch of other neat and handy tricks.  He learns his alphabet and numbers with the help of  gravestones.  He learns history from those who had lived it.  But one thing the graveyard can’t give Bod is the experience of being with the living.

I always find Neil Gaiman’s writing to be wonderful, and Dave McKean’s illustrations add to the enjoyment.  I even like how the text is arranged around the art.  Unfortunately, Bod’s clothing in the book doesn’t match up with the clothing in the drawings of him.  Where is the grey winding sheet?  There.  That is my one gripe.

The Graveyard Book is nominated for the Teens Top Ten list for 2009, because a bunch of teens love it.   Not only that, but it won the Newbery Medal for 2009, as well. That means a lot of library people thought it was the best book written for kids and teens last year.

My question to you… What would you have written on your gravestone?

Jellicoe Road – Melinda Marchetta

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta is the winner of the Michael L. Printz award (excellence in young adult literature)  for 2009.

After Taylor Markham was been abandoned by her drug addicted mother in a parking lot when she was eleven,  she was picked up by a woman, Hannah,  who took her to a boarding school.  Now Taylor is seventeen and is in charge of one of the houses in the boarding school on Jellicoe Road.  Her task is to lead her school in the territory wars with the Townies and the  Cadets.

Why did the wars start?  Where is Taylor’s mother?  Who is her father?  And where did Hannah disappear to?  And, for my own part, who is who in the book?

I found this to be an interesting read.  There are mysteries to be solved and this is one of those books where when you get to the end, you just want to go right back to the beginning to pick up on what you missed the first time through.

Dope Sick – Walter Dean Myers

I am not sure what to think about Dope Sick by Walter Dean Myers.

Lil J. painfully makes his way into a run down building (crack house) in Harlem after being shot in the arm by police.  He can’t figure out how to get out of the building without being caught.  He hears voices and finds his way to an apartment where a young man is watching TV with a spectacular remote.

With this remote, not only can you see what is on broadcast television, but you can also see what is going on outside of the apartment building.  You can see what will happen in the future, and what has happened in the past.

Will Lil J. find a way out of his predicament?  He wasn’t the one who shot the cop when the drug deal went bad.  Where did his life go wrong?  If he could change one thing, would that make his life better?

Bloodhound – Tamora Pierce

Tamora Pierce’s second book about Beka Cooper, Bloodhound, is as adventurous as the first.

Beka has completed her Puppy training and is now a first year Dog (a full-fleged member of the realm’s police force, actually called the Provost’s Guard).  Alas, she is unlucky in her partner assignments.  Each time a partnership fails, she is sent back to work with Tunstall and Goodwin, her training Dogs (see book 1, Terrier, for Beka’s Puppy training).

Shortly after Beka is returned to her old partners for the fourth time, they hear fellow Dogs blowing the General Alarm on their whistles.  She, Goodwin and Tunstall run to the Nightmarket where a riot is breaking out due to the rise in prices of day old bread.  Why is the price rising?  Much of the grain crop has developed rot, and there are many more counterfeit coins in circulation then usual.  What can business do but raise their prices to cover the costs of their losses?  It is too bad that the bad coin could cause the realm to fall.

Beka still has her informants in the ghosts that ride the pigeons (oh, Slapper!) and she can hear whatever snatches of conversation the Spinners have intercepted.  From that information, and from what others have sniffed out, Beka and Goodwin are sent to find out where the bad money is coming from.

There are a number of helpful lists in the back of the book to help with the large cast of characters and glossary to help with the unusual and/or old fashioned terms.  Beka also picks up a new companion, a scent hound named Achoo, and we are given a list of her commands.

Expect good Dogs and bad Dogs, good Rogues and bad Rogues, good coin and bad coin, and all in all a good tail.  Er, tale.

“Achoo, mencari.”   (”Achoo, seek.”)

2009 Teens’ Top Ten Nominations

The Teens’ Top Ten Nominations list was released a few weeks ago.  This year the voting will be from August 25 to September 18, 2009 and the results will be released in time for Teen Read Week in October.

Cashore, Kristin Graceling
Cast, Kristin & P.C. Untamed
Clare, Cassandra City of Ashes
Collins, Suzanne The Hunger Games
Fukui, Isamu Truancy
Fukui, Isamu Truancy: Origins
Gaiman, Neil The Graveyard Book
Green, John Paper Towns
Harris, Joanne Runemarks
Hopkins, Ellen Identical
Lockhart, E. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Marriott, Zoe Daughter of the Flames
McMann, Lisa Wake
Meyer, Stephenie Breaking Dawn
Moran, Katy Bloodline
Ness, Patrick The Knife of Never Letting Go
Noel, Alyson Evermore
Palmer, Robin Geek Charming
Pierce, Tamora Melting Stones
Scott, Elizabeth Living Dead Girl
Smith, Cynthia Leitich Eternal
Smith, Sherri L. Flygirl
Weingarten, Lynn Wherever Nina Lies
Werlin, Nancy Impossible
Yee, Lisa Absolutely Maybe

Wintergirls – Laurie Halse Anderson

Lia needs to be weighed every week.  Before each weighing she gulps down as much water as she can and dons her yellow robe with the quarters sewn into the pockets.  She stands on the scale in front of her stepmother and she tips the scales at 107 pounds.  That number is too low.  (According to her stepmother.)

When she goes back to her room and uses her own scale, after peeing out the water and removing the robe, she weighs 99 pounds.  That number is too high.  (According to Lia.)  But it is goal number 1.

The book starts out with Lia being told that her old best friend Cassie was found dead in a motel room, all alone, early Sunday morning.    Lia tells no one that Cassie had called her many times starting late Saturday night.  Lia was too angry at Cassie to answer the phone.  And really, why should she answer a call from a person who abandoned her 6 months ago?

33 times Cassie called.   And now she is haunting Lia.

Lia has anorexia.  Lia is starving herself in control. Except she doesn’t know why Cassie was calling her, or what she wants now. Wintergirls is another riveting book by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Streams of Babel – Carol Plum-Ucci

When Cora’s mother dies of a brain aneurysm, she is embarrassed that people will know how she has been living for the past three years.  Her mother had been addicted to morphine since her injured return from an accident overseas four years ago.  When a neighbor suddenly falls ill and dies the same night, with similar symptoms but no drug addiction, Scott, the neighbor’s son and a paramedic in training, becomes suspicious.

Shahzad, a sixteen-year-old virtual spy in Pakistan who is working for the United States Intelligence Coalition, finds chatter about water poisonings in “Colony One.”  He is determined to find out where Colony One is and who is responisible.  But, once he leaves Pakistan, he can only do as much as his American handlers allow.  For a country that talks up freedom, his freedom to research is seriously curtailed once he enters the United States.

Streams of Babel is set in February and March of 2002, shortly after the attacks of 9-11; shortly after the anthrax outbreaks. This attack is centralized and only a few people fall ill.  But how are they falling ill from poisoned water when all the water towers have been tested and found to be safe?

This novel is suspenseful, exciting and mysterious.