I could not wait.

So I put up all the Eliot Rosewater Contest stuff upstairs!

I know, I know. That's just me. I don't like waiting for exciting things to happen. For example--I always end up trying to give people their birthday presents as soon as I buy or make them. I just can't wait.

I have a little arrangement of books for you to look through on the low shelf by the CD's, along with the Legendary Re-Purposed Coffee Can, some entry slips (that double as bookmarks), and a brochure that tells you exactly how the contest works.

You will find that there are many Rosie books already checked out. In my deluded mind, this means that all of you are excited at how wonderful this fantastic contest will be and already is. However, I think it also might be because some of these books are rather popular in the first place.

But that's cool too.

Just know that you can put any or all of them on hold at the circulation desk--just grab one of those brochures and flip it over. On the back, you'll see the full list of Rosie books. The ones in italics are not at our library--yet. I ordered them as soon as I got this brilliant idea. The other titles we do have. Those can get put on hold.

Feel free to ask, we're all used to putting things on hold. We like it. It changes things up a little. In fact, I could go for putting something on hold right now. Maybe I will...

Make sure to fill out those little entry slips all the way, and put them in the Legendary Re-Purposed Coffee Can, so that I can collect them! Give me something exciting to do!

Because I am very excited

Oh, everyone! I am so excited!

Of course, by now you've all realized that it doesn't take much to make me transcendentally happy (look it up), but this is New Book Happy, and it is a special kind of joy.

No, I'm not holding the book in my hand. But I completely wish that I was. Really. But I have to wait. I have to wait for September 1 (my dad's birthday) for it to be released. Because I'm talking about...


This book!

Catching Fire, the sequel to the fantastic novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins!

Seriously, I am so excited that I made you all bookmarks. They are on the table upstairs in the YA section. You will note that I had a duplex printing problem, but they are colorful and I don't care so you shouldn't either.

To top off all that happy--September 1 is also the day we are kicking off our Eliot Rosewater Book Contest! So I will have all kinds of info for you upstairs to look at. I'll put out entry forms and rules and stuff before I leave on Friday, so you can have a head start looking at them. But no repurposed coffee can (for entries). Not until September 1.

If you have questions for me September 1--you won't be able to ask them. Why, you ask?

Well, that is because I am going away for a few days. To visit John Green. That's right. The author of Paper Towns, An Abundance of Katherines, and Looking for Alaska.

John Green.

I admit, I love authors. I love John Green in a harmless, nerdy girl sort of way. In that, I read his books and wish I could write half as well as he does. Sigh.

So go get a bookmark and share in my joy. I'll have pictures of the John Green thing as soon as I'm back...

Book Review; Rosie Edition: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian

This is the second Eliot Rosewater Nominee book that I have read this year, officially beginning my doomed quest to read all of the nominees.

Behold, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie


I say doomed because I doubt I will make it through the boy soldier one, because it will make me cry until my eyes swell shut and I can't get any air through my nose or into my lungs at all. And I really, really won't make it through the Colts coach one. I doubt I'll even try that one. I hate sports.

Number of times this book made me cry while reading it: 1

Number of times I tracked my dog down, pulled her fluffy sheltie form into my arms, and hugged her because poor puppies should never have to be sick: 3

Number of times I cried because I thought about the part of this book that initially made me cry: 4

Number of times I "forgot" this book at work, asked my mother to hide it from me, carried it around without opening it, or left it in a hidden place where I wouldn't see it: I lost count.

That being said, this was a fantastic novel. I loved it. It was incredible, written so well...it's no wonder its a National Book Award winner.

Partly autobiographical, the novel follows Junior's transition from the reservation school (triggered by his discovery that his mother was the former owner of his geometry textbook and subsequent collision of said textbook with the face of his geometry teacher) into the all-white high school of the community outside.

The novel dealt with some difficult issues, racism, alcoholism, abuse, and bulimia to name a few. That being said, some of the content and language was a bit crude, so this is a book for mature readers that are prepared to deal with that kind of thing. Junior's friends and family don't really lead happy lives, and Alexie presents that clearly for those of us who haven't grown up in that kind of environment.

Still, leaving out those sections would have sugar-coated the very real challenges Junior's tribe (along with many others) deal with every day.

A major part of the novel is the conflict Junior faces when he decides to leave the reservation school. He compares himself to an apple: red on the outside, white on the inside. His tribe hates him, he's beaten up, booed, and generally mistreated. To top it all off, his best friend feels betrayed--resulting in an argument that ends their friendship.

Junior doesn't feel at home on the reservation; he doesn't fit in at the high school. He pretty much doesn't have a place in the world. So he has to make his own.

And that's what makes the novel so good.

Coming up...Eliot Rosewater Book Award Contest!

Behold! Our fall plans are ready for you to see, sign up for, and discuss amongst yourselves! You can pick up a brochure in the YA section, or at either of the circulation desks.

We're kicking off a contest beginning in September, so get ready to read!

I put all the covers of the new Eliot Rosewater Book Award Nominees on the bulletin board upstairs. Every year high school students all over the state nominate these great books--and YOU get to help pick the winners!

Some of this year's nominees include Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz (vampires!)...


The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian (no vampires!) by Sherman Alexie...


Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin (I love this book)...


And Deadline by Chris Crutcher (I have not read this book!).


There are LOTS more to choose from. I'm going to try and read them all! But I think I might fail, since there are sports ones...Sigh.

Go here to see the complete list! This is a Word document, so don't freak out if it asks you if you want to open or save the document. We are not fencing virus-ridden Trojan horse stuff around here.

Read at least four of the nominees, and when you finish each one, fill out one of the fancy little entry forms I'll have upstairs for you. When you're done, pop your paper into the eager little re-purposed coffee can I'll have out for you.

Sneakily, I will collect all the entry forms, scuttling out late at night in the dark, like some kind of nocturnal creature. When you've turned in four, I'll enter you in a drawing for a prize!

Sorry everybody!

I wasn't very specific about my last post, assuming that the entire world worked all day with children's and young adult literature, as I do.

You don't.

So...

Scout asked, "Who's percy jackson?"

Percy Jackson is a young man who discovers in The Lightning Thief that his proclivity for blowing up schools, or just being kicked out of them, has little to do with his being a terrible child and a great deal to do with the fact that his mom, twelve years prior, had met and fallen in love with Poseidon, the god of the sea.

He was the result of this match-up. Also--since his dad is a god, Percy is a "half-blood" or demigod. He's got special powers, most of which he discovers as the series goes on, and he also has dyslexia and ADD. Dyslexia because his brain was made to read ancient Greek and nothing else, ADD because as a half-blood, he's wired to be ready for anything...like, say, being attacked by his maniac algebra teacher who happens to be not...quite...human.

Percy discovers his true nature after his algebra-related disaster, then is whisked away by his mother and friend Grover to Camp Half-Blood, a summer camp (that for some kids is a year-round home) designed to train kids like Percy to survive past childhood, since so many monsters are trying to kill them.

Once there, Percy is given a quest, and that's when the real fun starts!

Also, rumor has it, the powers that be are making a movie...let's hope it's as good as the series!

Happy Birthday, Percy Jackson

Ladies and gentlemen, I just had a very happy (month?) time reading through all of Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. Visit today (August 18) and you'll see what I'm talking about...later

Oh, those books are fun. We have them in the Children's Room, but it seems there is no age limit on the series. I have adults putting them on hold, little tiny kids listening to the audio books...the list goes on.

We've had the last two books on hold for someone, and I was ready for...you guessed it--the last two books. So, sitting here in terror that the person who wanted them would show up demanding them, I read through the last two at top Laura Speed.

And seconds ago, I finished The Last Olympian, and much to my amusement, I discovered that Percy's birthday is on August 18--and that is today. The day I finished the series. So visit now.

That is my kind of coincidence.

Or maybe it was The Fates...

I do love knitting!

Socks, even (see The Lightning Thief). Hey...maybe that's a bad sign for me...

I get it, really.

When I was young, my mother always told me that there were no books for girls to read. She used to say that when she walked into the library, she was shown neatly over to the Nancy Drew books, and that was that. The 60's were a cruel time, apparently.

But those days have most decidedly ended. Walk through our YA section upstairs and you will find scores of brightly colored books, most directed at teen girls. It's marketing, really. Make a book bright enough, and countless readers will look at it. Chick lit is a big deal now, and so the world is laden with bright pink, purple, blue, even green books meant to make a girl say, "Oooh...what's this?"

Interspaced between them, camoflaged sometimes, are the multitudes of great books we have for guys to read.

Have you all read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams? It's a nice book, all friendly looking, with the words "Don't Panic" encouragingly printed across the cover.


How about Airborn by Kenneth Oppel? It's the first in a series, set in an imagined past where giant airships are the mode of travel. The protagonist, Matt Cruse, is a cabin boy on the Aurora, a 900 foot luxury airship. He fearlessly rescues a man from a failing hot air ballon, and as the old man dies, he tells Matt about strange creatures dwelling above the clouds. Later, when Matt crosses paths with Kate, the two of them decide to prove if the creatures are real.


Also, there is Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. This book is set in our not-so-distant future, and our cyber-punk hero, Marcus, decides to cut school (evading facial and gait recognition software as well as tracking devices in library books--ick) in order to get a head start on his favorite game, Harajuku Fun Madness.


Unfortunately, the book takes him to the wrong place at the wrong time (with a group of equally unfortunate friends) and Marcus ends up bound, gagged, and taken into custody after a terrorist attack rocks the area he and his friends were in. The government's behavior, made legal by the Patriot Act, makes it just peachy for their officers to torture, starve, and interrogate the teens.

When the group finally is released (after being told they will be under constant surveillance) they discover their homeland has become a police state with civil rights suspended until such a time as the government decides it's safe to give them back.

And Marcus, along with other hackers from throughout the city, decides to take a stand.

Also, grab our copy of Paper Towns by John Green. I've become a John Green junkie since reading that book. He's a fantastic author, and once you've read one of his books, you won't be able to help reading them all. If you want to know more about that novel, look here.

And sometimes it seems hard to find books, but what you're really My advice: don't judge a book by its cover. Sometimes novels look like they are too girly for words--and they aren't. Authors don't always get a say in what their book's cover looks like. Since they don't get to decide what their book looks like, the cover doesn't always accurately represent what lies inside.

Paper Towns is a great example. Here are the two hardcover editions. The blue-toned one with the depressed girl is edition one. The yellow background with the happy girl (so not Margo) is edition two. Both say very, very different things about the book. Girl A looks chronicly depressed, hopeless even. Girl B is happy, she has no misery in her life, and she's not about to run away from her family after leaving whole fish on the doorsteps of several former friends.


I like this cover, the upcoming paperback edition.


See what I mean? Totally different. The only way to know for certain if a book is something you will like is to do what my dad always told me to do. Read the first chapter, then open up the novel somewhere in the middle and read another few pages. If you are not bored, disgusted, etc, then it isn't all that bad. If you're interested in finding out more: buy/check out the book!

Picking a good book can be luck, sometimes. But I think of it as a finely honed skill. It would be so much easier if salespeople weren't trying to market to us all the time.

If you want a more in-depth view at fiction just for you, look at Guys Lit Wire. They've got a great selection of titles just for guys, including manga.

And if you're interested in something I don't have on the shelf (yet) make sure to let me know!

Back to the grind!

I know this is on our teen page, but this is special and important and may have even led to me not having a nervous breakdown in Algebra II, had I known it existed at that time. So, without further ado, let me bore you with a public service announcement.

Did you know that right here in Indiana we have an awesome school called Rose-Hulman for all the super-smart math and science-ey people?

Well, we do. And because college is expensive and work experience is priceless, those sweet, fantastic college students actually take time from their studies to man a phone line: the Homework Hotline.

So basically, you can pick up the phone and dial 1-877-AskRose or go online to www.askrose.org and get FREE math and science homework help.

Meaning that all the time I spent trying to teach myself statistics was more effort than I needed to put in. Because someone was sitting in some call center waiting for me to call in and give them something to do with their evening (or week, because it certainly would have taken them that long to teach me stats).

Well, at least I spared them that.

Seriously, though, this is a really good thing and you should all use it before you do what I did and get behind, then fight to catch up while everyone is visiting the Cartesian Plane and you are on some other plane altogether, contemplating the meaning of the universe and drawing Dragonball-Z cartoons all over your test paper.

Not that I did any of those things. I was too busy being studious with my Cliff's Notes Statistics manual.

The things I let people talk me into...

It doesn't take much to get me to read a book. So when April tossed The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne on the circulation desk and told me to read it, I did.


The story follows Bruno, who is an incredibly naive nine-year-old boy living in Germany (Berlin) with his family. He talks about the Fury and discovers that his father's work (as Commandant) will now take his family to a new home. His understanding is so limited on certain subjects, that he confuses words we all know--names, for example. The Fury is Hitler. His new home is Out With. In Poland. Think about it.

His father takes charge of what we all easily recognize as a concentration camp. But Bruno doesn't get it. Nor does he understand why he is not supposed to talk to the waiter who he finds used to be a doctor, who lives behind the fence mere feet from Bruno's home.

I found Bruno's ignorance frustrating. But at the same time, he showed insight beyond his years. The author was trying to show us how Bruno's innocence allowed him to see beyond the prejudices and politics of those older than him, including his sister the Hopeless Case, who throws away her dolls and replaces them with maps with each battle depicted with different colored pins. At times, though, I found him annoying.

Bruno needed a lack of understanding for the novel's ending to work, and for it to be as meaningful as it was. And the novel does have a good ending. Sad, but very good.

What I liked about the novel was that it showed the Holocaust from a different viewpoint than the norm. I grew up reading novels about young Jewish children being smuggled out of their homelands or surviving horrific conditions at concentration camps, or even about young German or Polish children helping young Jewish children their parents are trying to smuggle out of the country.

This novel shows us (through the eyes of someone as unbiased as is possible--through ignorance) what the reactions of average people in Germany and Poland were to the actions of the German government. In a way, it was very much like The Sound of Music--a military man and his family placed in an impossible situation. Refusing "The Fury" meant death, going along with his orders meant duties you would rather not have.

I hate reading about the Holocaust. But this book was well written and meaningful, as well as original. So I liked it. Meaning I both hated and loved this book.

So with great personal conflict: I recommend this book to you.

Oh, you have to read this!

I confess I put off reading The Hunger Games. It's had rave reviews, fans are waiting on tenterhooks (this is a word; look it up) for Suzanne Collins to finish Catching Fire and its as yet unnamed follow-up. But for me, reading a book about a battle to the death between 24 teenagers seemed a bit excruciating.

I am not one for brutality.

But I finally broke down, picked up a copy, and started reading and I tell you, this book won me over.


Firstly, it is beautifully written. Each character is clearly developed, three-dimensional, and engaging. We all want Katniss to survive, just as we want her to fall for Peeta, the baker's son who once gave her a loaf of bread to keep her and Prim, Katniss' sister, from starving. Seriously: we all want Katniss to fall for Peeta...and I'm not saying anything else about that. Period.

Secondly, this is one of two books I've read recently (the other was Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac) that had a believable romance. Sure, sparks flying and the world going hazy while you look at the incredibly good-looking vampire that is trying with all his might not to kill you might make some girls swoon. But I am not one of those girls. I read Twilight for Alice. She was cool.

But The Hunger Games has real characters, believable ones that have arguments like normal people, and all that makes a romance between them more real.

And the best thing about this novel, the thing that makes me glad I bought it and didn't wait for the person who has it checked out right now to return it, is that it escapes the greatest trap in fiction: the cliche.

Have you ever read a book and said: "Wow, I think I read this before," and then said: "Oh, no, that was a different book." That is cliche. Ever heard a phrase that sounded contrived, stood out from a paragraph in a freaky way? Like: "red as blood" or "old as dirt." We use phrases like that all the time when we're talking to each other. And since I want this blog to be conversational, I use them here.

So you can really feel like I'm ranting at you. Which is my goal.

See, the problem is most people don't stand still for this kind of thing in real life. Or they think I'm frightening. And we don't need any restraining orders just because I want you to read a few good books.

Back to my earlier thought: cliche, in fiction writing, is bad. We don't like it. And in literature courses, we pick apart novels that have them and leave the stripped bones for other scavengers to sneak away when we're not looking.

And the best part of The Hunger Games is that it has no cliche. Nothing is fake, all is beautiful, interesting, fast-paced.

I never got bored. I never wanted to read something else. I never got grossed out (that kind of thing could happen with a book about a battle to the death), or wished that I didn't know about something the characters were doing or saying.

In short, this book is perfect. I mean, it's not the only perfect book I've ever read, but it is the most recent.

We're waiting for this one to come out in paperback, then this is going to be a book discussion. It might take a while.

But our next discussion, in case there is any doubt, will be Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, scroll down to take a look. I'll have scheduling details up as soon as I make up the schedule...I've got lots in the works!

Newbies

Today we have a few new books for you to enjoy...

First up is another in the paranormal romance catagory: Once Dead, Twice Shy by Kim Harrison.


Madison failed to make it through prom alive (I have felt that way before) and the reaper (evil guy, bent on dragging her soul away) lost his fancy necklace in the process, an amulet with strange powers that make Madison appear alive. At least as long as she still has it.

As the reaper tries to take it back and finish what he got started, Madison tries to find out why he was after her in the first place, enlisting the help of a good reaper, her guardian angel. Oh--and her crush.

We also have a novel by Rachel Cohn, of Nick and Norah fame, You Know Where to Find Me.


Miles and her perfect cousin Laura grew up like sisters but were driven apart as they attended different schools (public and ritzy private), grew from nearly-identical to complete opposites (Miles overweight with hair she dyes jet black, Laura thin, beautiful, blonde), and entered different worlds (social outcast, popular crowd. When Laura commits suicide, Miles is left to deal with the aftermath.

And she falls apart, finally arriving at the same choice Laura made, to fix her life and become strong on her own, or to escape from the world she thinks doesn't want her in it.

We've also added Kelley Armstrong's The Summoning, book one in her Darkest Powers series.


Chloe talks to dead people, they talk back, and she is not at all happy about it. Especially when it lands her in a home for troubled teens, since no one believes her.

But soon she finds out that Lyle House isn't as innocent a place as it seems, and there is much more to each of the residents than meets the eye. And she has to find out all that she can before it's too late for her and the others to get out alive.

Ivy is the youngest in a family of theives, overlooked and considered a waste of space by her father. But Ivy is more than meet's the eye, and she has a talent for drawing people close, like the artist Oscar Aretino Frosdick who wants her as his model and his muse.


Behind Ivy's looks, though, is a dark past filled with secrets--because it wouldn't be interesting without them--that could get her expelled from her new life, back to the streets she used to know.

Pick up Ivy by Julie Hearn (and all our other new books) upstairs in the YA section on our new book cart!

Catching Up

I've made it my quest since starting work here at the library, to catch up on all the things that Polly did with you before I was here. I read little brochures she made up, all of the blog before I took over, entries from contests, letters to teachers, and so forth.

I looked through the Murderous Melodrama, I tried my hand at a magazine bowl (at home, just for fun, and it failed, horribly, due to the wrong type of glue), and I used all of this to help in my brainstorming for new things that we can do together.

And I have read, read, read--so many of the books upstairs that you wouldn't believe. This is in addition to all the ones I'd read before. I love that kind of reading. You have a list, get started, and by the end you've finished the lot.

Not that I'm there yet...

So I decided to prioritize the reading list, and today I finished Maureen Johnson's 13 Little Blue Envelopes.


Having been to most of the places Ginny visited (and a few more) I can tell you that she had a nice first trip. Going through Europe alone is not something I advise, ever, because the language barrier alone is depressing, especially in conjunction with the immense feeling of dread and terror one gets when you realize everything you own in Country X is in your bag, in your hand, and you may as well be a refugee.

As for London--Harrods is not my idea of a good time. I didn't meet Richard, though, so it could have been better. I bought a lovely piece of cheesecake with a dollop of custard on the top and a perfect, immense, red raspberry right on the top and took it outside because there was no place to eat in the huge market. And there were too many people to eat around, even if I had wanted to. And then there was the seafood market, stinking up the place in a way landlubbers like me are unused to.

So I sat down with my raspberry cheesecake and it hit the dirt almost instantly. My perfect, wonderful cheesecake. What did I do, you ask? I burst into tears. Not because of the cheesecake, because of the raspberry, burst on the dusty English ground in front of me.

And my mom, who was with me on that trip, picked the cheesecake up surgically removed the top layer and part of each side, and we ate it.

Just like that. And I told her about the perfect raspberry, and she said it was fine, because a squirrel or bird would come and snatch it up, and enjoy our treat with us. After that, she famously said, "Laura, I'll always be there to scrape the dirt off your custard."

And that is why you should always travel with friends.

In Italy I famously stemmed the tides of a flood spreading out over the marble floors in one of my hotel rooms, using all our paper-thin towels to keep water from taking over the bedroom, as one of my four roommates cried about how the trip was not what she'd wanted it to be, with all the flooding bathrooms and Europeans.

And I, clad only in a towel from the bathroom as I tried to save her belongings from water damage, laughed at her and told her to grow up, and tossed her another towel.

This was after, of course, I came about a foot from falling off an Alp. One of the French Alps, in case you were wondering. All because those Romans didn't clean up after themselves, and marble is slippery when wet (see hotel, above).

Everyone picks up tragedies like that when they travel abroad, tragedies you should never try to avoid, because they will happen no matter what you do. And you should all travel, especially in college. There will never be an easier time for you to pull it off. Besides, some schools will actually help you pay for it.

Visit this place.

And that's a good thing. We should all have an international experience so that we know, in addition to what we think of France, what France thinks of us.


For the record, here's the mountain I almost fell from, to my death, and my friend Jaren who tackled me to save my pathetic life. Thanks again, Jaren!

Mmmm....Goooood Booook....

Sometimes I read books, love them, and want to write papers about them. These are scholarly books. And I don't always love the plot. Sometimes I even hate the characters and find myself wishing there was someone nicer to read about. But the author's masterful writing keeps me tuned in until the end.

Other times I read books like the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson, and I say, "These books are so superficial. Lit majors should not read these books." And then I laugh because I am not that kind of literature major, and I read the rest of the series.

The best books, in my opinion, read like pop-fiction and are as deep and moving as any serious fiction novel I had to analyze in my many, many literature classes, pen gripped in my white-knuckled hand. Not because of nerves. I write really, really hard. It dents paper halfway through a notebook.

Why use braille? Use my handwriting.

Anyway. The book of the day is Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin. Our protagonist, Naomi, takes a bad fall and in soap-opera-worthy consequence--loses the last six years of her memory.



Instead of being corny, as this sounds, the author takes this as an opportunity to explore what gives us definition as individuals. What makes us who we are? Is it our past, our relationships with others, the way other people see us? And, if we have the opportunity, can we completely redefine ourselves, or will the people around us force us back into being who we were before?

It's quite philosophical. Which is probably why I liked it so much.

Naomi, having lost the last six years of her life, is forced to return to the existence she had before, only without her mother (affair, divorce) and with her father's new fiance. She also has to deal with her new sister. And a host of (former) friends. And some new ones. And her boyfriend (named, shockingly, Ace) and the guy who saved her life, James. And her best friend, Will, who wears a smoking jacket, calls her Chief, and claims to know everything about her.

I refuse to give you anything else, as nothing else was on the book jacket and I believe telling you about the rest of the hurdles Naomi has to overcome will give things away. And I don't want to do that...because it's too much fun reading it for yourself, the way I did.

Also, this is one of those books I liked so much that I went out and bought. So there you are. I'm thinking book discussion on this one...