Pages

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Cover Trend: From the Back

Here's a set with girls facing away. There's like eleventy-billion more, as this is such a classic pose, so I've only featured what I think is the best and most recent of them.


Betrayed 
by P.C. and Kristin Cast 
St. Martin's Griffin 
October 2007

Fledgling vampyre Zoey Redbird has managed to settle in at the House of Night. She’s come to terms with the vast powers the vampyre goddess, Nyx, has given her, and is getting a handle on being the new Leader of the Dark Daughters. Best of all, Zoey finally feels like she belongs--like she really fits in. She actually has a boyfriend…or two. Then the unthinkable happens: Human teenagers are being killed, and all the evidence points to the House of Night. While danger stalks the humans from Zoey’s old life, she begins to realize that the very powers that make her so unique might also threaten those she loves. Then, when she needs her new friends the most, death strikes the House of Night, and Zoey must find the courage to face a betrayal that could break her heart, her soul, and jeopardize the very fabric of her world. -from Goodreads


Torment 
by Lauren Kate 
Delacorte Books for Young Readers 
September 2010

Hell on earth. That's what it's like for Luce to be apart from her fallen angel boyfriend, Daniel. It took them an eternity to find one another, but now he has told her he must go away. Just long enough to hunt down the Outcasts - immortals who want to kill Luce. Daniel hides Luce at Shoreline, a school on the rocky California coast with unusually gifted students -Nephilim, the offspring of fallen angels and humans.
At Shoreline, Luce learns what the Shadows are, and how she can use them as windows to her previous lives. Yet the more Luce learns, the more she suspects that Daniel hasn't told her everything. He's hiding something - something dangerous. What if Daniel's version of the past isn't actually true? What if Luce is really meant to be with someone else? -from Goodreads

So Shelly 
by Ty Roth 
Delacorte Books for Young Readers 
February 2011

Until now, high school junior, John Keats, has only tiptoed near the edges of the vortex that is schoolmate and literary prodigy, Gordon Byron. That is, until their mutual friend, Shelly, drowns in a sailing accident. After stealing Shelly's ashes from her wake at Trinity Catholic High School, the boys set a course for the small Lake Erie island where Shelly's body had washed ashore and to where she wished to be returned. It would be one last "so Shelly" romantic quest. At least that's what they think. As they navigate around the obstacles and resist temptations during their odyssey, Keats and Gordon glue together the shattered pieces of Shelly's and their own pasts while attempting to make sense of her tragic and premature end. -from Goodreads

Entwined 
by Heather Dixon 
Greenwillow Books 
March 2011

Azalea is trapped. Just when she should feel that everything is before her... beautiful gowns, dashing suitors, balls filled with dancing... it's taken away. All of it. The Keeper understands. He's trapped, too, held for centuries within the walls of the palace. And so he extends an invitation. Every night, Azalea and her eleven sisters may step through the enchanted passage in their room to dance in his silver forest. But there is a cost. The Keeper likes to keep things. Azalea may not realize how tangled she is in his web until it is too late. -from Goodreads

Shift 
by Jeri Smith-Ready 
Simon Pulse 
May 2011
Aura’s life is anything but easy. Her boyfriend, Logan, died, and his slides between ghost and shade have left her reeling. Aura knows he needs her now more than ever. She loves Logan, but she can’t deny her connection with the totally supportive, totally gorgeous Zachary. And she’s not sure that she wants to. Logan and Zachary will fight to be the one by her side, but Aura needs them both to uncover the mystery of her past—the mystery of the Shift. As Aura’s search uncovers new truths, she must decide whom to trust with her secrets…and her heart. -from Goodreads

Die for Me 
by Amy Plum 
HarperTeen 
May 2011

My life had always been blissfully, wonderfully normal. But it only took one moment to change everything. Suddenly, my sister, Georgia, and I were orphans. We put our lives into storage and moved to Paris to live with my grandparents. And I knew my shattered heart, my shattered life, would never feel normal again. Then I met Vincent. Mysterious, sexy, and unnervingly charming, Vincent Delacroix appeared out of nowhere and swept me off my feet. Just like that, I was in danger of losing my heart all over again. But I was ready to let it happen. Of course, nothing is ever that easy. Because Vincent is no normal human. He has a terrifying destiny, one that puts his life at risk every day. He also has enemies . . . immortal, murderous enemies who are determined to destroy him and all of his kind. While I'm fighting to piece together the remnants of my life, can I risk putting my heart—as well as my life and my family's—in jeopardy for a chance at love? -from Goodreads

Hereafter 
by Tara Hudson 
HarperCollins 
June 2011

Can there truly be love after death? Drifting in the dark waters of a mysterious river, the only thing Amelia knows for sure is that she's dead. With no recollection of her past life—or her actual death—she's trapped alone in a nightmarish existence. All of this changes when she tries to rescue a boy, Joshua, from drowning in her river. As a ghost, she can do nothing but will him to live. Yet in an unforgettable moment of connection, she helps him survive. Amelia and Joshua grow ever closer as they begin to uncover the strange circumstances of her death and the secrets of the dark river that held her captive for so long. But even while they struggle to keep their bond hidden from the living world, a frightening spirit named Eli is doing everything in his power to destroy their newfound happiness and drag Amelia back into the ghost world... forever. -from Goodreads


Anna Dressed in Blood 
by Kendare Blake 
Tor Teen 
August 2011

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead. So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay. When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home. But she, for whatever reason, spares Cas's life. -from Goodreads


Sweet Venom 
by Tera Lynn Childs 
Katherine Tegan Books 
September 2011

Grace just moved to San Francisco and is excited to start over at a new school. The change is full of fresh possibilities, but it’s also a tiny bit scary. It gets scarier when a minotaur walks in the door. And even more shocking when a girl who looks just like her shows up to fight the monster.  Gretchen is tired of monsters pulling her out into the wee hours, especially on a school night, but what can she do? Sending the minotaur back to his bleak home is just another notch on her combat belt. She never expected to run into this girl who could be her double, though. Greer has her life pretty well put together, thank you very much. But that all tilts sideways when two girls who look eerily like her appear on her doorstep and claim they're triplets, supernatural descendants of some hideous creature from Greek myth, destined to spend their lives hunting monsters. These three teenage descendants of Medusa, the once-beautiful gorgon maligned by myth, must reunite and embrace their fates in this unique paranormal world where monsters lurk in plain sight. -from Goodreads


Any that I missed? Let me know in the comments.

Friday, May 6, 2011

An Owed to the Spelling Checker


This week I helped a kid on one of our library PC's, by showing her how to automatically spell check on a paper she was working on for school. She must have been in 3rd grade or so. Her eyes boggled, and she exclaimed, "It's like I'm cheating!" She was hesitant to check the rest of her document, but I assured her that her teacher, and most adults really, use spellcheck all the time. Of course, there are times when the spell checker is of little use... such as the following poem.

An Owed to the Spelling Checker
by Jerrold H. Zar

Eye have a spelling chequer.
It came with my Pea Sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye strike the quays and type a whirred
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am write oar wrong
It tells me straight a weigh.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your shore real glad two no.
Its vary polished in its weigh.
My chequer tolled me sew.

A chequer is a bless thing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right all stiles of righting,
And aides me when eye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The chequer pours o'er every word
Two cheque sum spelling rule.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Ferdinand Pendant

I love this pendant featuring children's book classic, Ferdinand, the peaceful bull, by Munro Leaf. Available on Etsy. So sparkly, so tempting!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

I Must Have Bobo review

I Must Have Bobo
January 2011

This tale of a boy and his favorite toy, a stuffed monkey called Bobo, has a classic and timeless feel. Marc Rosenthal's illustrations which typically hearken back to the 1950's, especially in Phooey! and the madly wonderful picture book, The Runaway Beard feel slightly updated here, with more close-ups and a looser, sketchier feel. The husband-wife, writer-illustrator team do a great job of pairing fairly simple text with expressive illustrations. The emotional intensity and devotion that the little boy feels towards Bobo clearly come across. Whether he's playing with blocks, braving the extra-tall slide at the park, sneaking past the big dog down the street or snugging into bed, Bobo is a necessary companion. Unfortunately, the family cat, Earl, has other plans. I loved that the cat didn't have a "typical" cat name like Fluffy. I loved seeing the boy scowl, grimace and yell as he gets up on the wrong side of the bed, and finds Bobo (whom he must have by his side!) escaping from him time and time again, courtesy of Earl. I liked the surprise ending, too. The boy finally finds Earl and Bobo curled up on a jumbo armchair. He curls up with both of them for a nap, and the story could have ended very sweetly, right there. Instead, on the next page turn, we get a tongue-in-cheek humorous ending, seeing once the boy is asleep, Earl brazenly sneaks off with Bobo, once again! Recommended for ages 3-5.


I borrowed this book from the library.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Unearthly review

Unearthly
by Cynthia Hand 
HarperTeen
January 2011

I must confess that I haven't been a huge fan of the gradual shift in paranormal romances from vampires and werewolves to including angels... so I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy this one. But, the cover was really captivating, and any online images I've seen of the cover simply don't do it justice. I was pleasantly surprised. A lot of angel fiction features a perfect, yet brooding, male angel. This story stars a teen who feels the pressure to be perfect, but knows in her heart she's anything but.

Sixteen-year-old Clara Gardner finds herself whisked off to rural Oregon when a series of visions reveals that she has a purpose... she is a quarter-angel, from her mother's side. It seems that she is meant to rescue a handsome young man from a forest fire. Arriving in town, she soon finds him, a classmate at her new school, named, appropriately enough, Christian. While she's immediately drawn to him, she knows that she's got a lot of work to do if she wants to get to the place she sees in her vision. She needs to improve her flying, and get good enough that she can carry a person to safety, not an easy feat, considering she's only just discovered her ethereal wings, which appear or disappear at need.

Clara's younger brother Jeffrey is none-too-pleased about having his life disrupted, and with burgeoning angelic powers of his own, he finds it impossible to resist using his superhuman strength to nab a spot on the high school wrestling team. Clara finds an unexpected ally in Angela, a half-angel at her school whose drive to discover everything she can about her heritage opens Clara's eyes to some of the intrigues that are going amongst the angelic elite.

Make no mistake, this is a love-triangle book. Clara is pulled between distant, mysterious Christian whom she thinks she's "supposed to be with" and surly, yet loveable, redneck Tucker. I loved how gradually the story revealed various facets of each of the boys, leaving the reader equally torn between Team Christian and Team Tucker.

Most of the angel-lore in this book is original and well-thought out. The Christian god is distant and unknowable, with the angels left to battle amongst themselves for power. Pure angels are male-only, and their offspring by human lovers are almost always female. I hated that the angels wings changed color depending on their allegiance: white for good, black for evil, with many shades of gray in-between. There seemed to be something subtly racist about this. And, I hated that Clara's decision to save lives, which slightly alters the events that she's seen unfolding in her vision is somehow accounted evil, causing her wings to turn ashy gray. There is a real art to writing a book with an ending that is simultaneously satisfying, yet leaves you wanting more. There's a very surprising twist at the end, which I shan't spoil, but it makes you question everything you've read before. And there are so many important questions left unresolved... I can't wait for the sequel, Hallowed, due out sometime in 2012. In the meantime, check out this amazing book trailer.





I borrowed this book from the library.
I read this book for the 2011 Debut Author Challenge.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Manners Mash-up review

Manners Mash-up: A Goofy Guide to Good Behavior
February 2011

This collection by renowned children's illustrators covers proper etiquette for a wide range of situations: on the bus, at dinner, on the playing field, at the theatre, at the supermarket. Most of the tips are dispensed with humor. As an adult, I found the transition from one illustrator to the next quite jarring, but I know that when I was younger, I would have loved the variety.

In his Bus Manners segment, Bob Shea (of Dinosaur vs. the Potty fame) pairs advice such as: "Don't practice your trombone" with a monkey heedlessly noodling away in the backseat much to his fellow passenger's dismay, "Don't soak your seatmate with sleep drool" shows a bear drooling on an unfortunate owl, while "Say 'excuse me' when you make a smell" shows a unapologetically grinning skunk.

Leuyen Pham, probably best known for Freckleface Strawberry, offers a sweet lesson in Playground Manners with advice as "No throwing sand in the sandbox" and "Always watch out for little ones" and "It's nice to share" with cute animals all playing happily at the park.

Contrast this with Adam Rex, the author/illustrator of Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich who gives us a macabre scene of a three-headed boy, greedily wolfing down disembodied feet, as a mad scientist cautions them to chew with their mouths closed, don't talk with your mouth full, and no elbows or feet on the table.

Tao Nyeu, creator of Wonder Bear and Bunny Days presents a beautifully hand-stitched cautionary on a disgusting topic: Please Dont Pick in Public showing the hazards of picking one's toenails, scabs, teeth, nose or wedgie in public.

The book is appended with a question, "What was your goofiest manners mishap?" with amusing anecdotes from each contributor. Recommended for ages 5-8


I borrowed this book from the library.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Cover Trend: Apples

Heartbeat 
by Shannon Creech 
HarperCollins 
March 2004

Amazing narrative poetry of a very self-aware young girl. Annie is a runner and an artist. Her mother is expecting a new baby, her grandfather has Alzheimer's and is slowly slipping away, and she spends a lot of time with her neighbor and competitive friend Max. The novel makes charming use of footnotes and grammar. It's a poignant and beautifully told tale, with simplicity and heart.

The Magician's Nephew 
by C.S. Lewis 
HarperCollins 
May 2005 (first published in 1955)

The classic prequel to the beloved Narnia series. The magic wardrobe that the Pevinses children eventually pass through is constructed of apple wood.




Twilight 
by Stephenie Meyer 
Little, Brown and Co. 
October 2005

Unless one has been living under a rock for the last several years, you'll have heard of this one. Teen girl falls head over heels for a cold, sparkly vampire.




Miss Spitfire: Reaching Helen Keller 
by Sarah Miller 
Atheneum 
July 2007

A re-telling of the Helen Keller story from her teacher, Annie Sullivan's point of view.





The Poison Apples 
by Lily Archer 
Feiwel & Friends 
September 2007

Cinderella, Snow White and Rapunzel's stepsisters get sent to a boarding school.





Peeled 
by Joan Bauer 
Putnam Juvenile 
May 2008

A girl journalist wants to get to the bottom of stories of hauntings in her small town.





Girl to the Core 
by Stacey Goldblatt 
Delacorte Books for Young Readers 
July 2009

After she catches her boyfriend kissing his ex, fifteen year-old Molly finds solace for her broken heart in an unusual venue... the Girl Corps., a Girl Scout-like group for little girls.





Bad Apple 
by Laura Ruby 
HarperTeen 
October 2009

High-school junior art student Tola Riley finds herself amidst a swirl of rumors that she's had an affair with her art teacher.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails