Back to School: YAY or NAY!!!

So today starts the first full week of school here in Wythe County. I know that school officially started last Wednesday, but for me it didn't really seem like the school year was real until I had been there for a full week. I don't know if you guys are excited or not, but as a grown-up I can honestly say that I miss the beginning of a new school year. I have cousins in middle school and I can say that I think they are going to have such awesome stuff to study this year. The eighth grade reading list is spectacular. Some people would be embarrassed to admit that they are extremely excited about an eighth grade reading list, but I am a NERD and a librarian, so I can be excited. I was at Books-A-Million last week and they had excellent displays titled "On Your School Reading List" and also "NOT On Your School Reading List." These gave me plenty of ideas about displays for the library. So, now you tell us. Are you excited about being back at school? Also, what required reading did you love and what books top your "Not School Reading" lists?

Teaser Tuesday (On a Wednesday)- August 26, 2009

Today's Teaser comes from Beige by Cecil Castellucci.

"She left my dad when I was three because he was just a disaster. Everyone thought he'd be the one that ended up dead, not my mom."

If this teaser doesn't excite you, there are many more here.

ALA Teens Top Ten

Everyone needs to go to the YALSA website and cast your vote for the Teens Top Ten. This is your chance to let your voice be heard and influence other readers! There are a whole lot of awesome books on the list this year including Paper Towns, Graceling, The Hunger Games, Identical, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, and many more fabulous titles by incredible authors. So, sometime between now and September 18 go and vote, then let us know in the comments which three books you picked! The Top Ten List will be announced during Teen Read Week 2009.

Identical by Ellen Hopkins

From Barnes and Noble: Kaeleigh and Raeanne are 16-year-old identical twins, the daughters of a district court judge father and politician mother running for Congress. Everything on the surface of their lives seems Norman Rockwell perfect, but underneath run deep and damaging secrets.

Kaeleigh is the good girl-her father's perfect flower, something she has tried so hard to be since she was nine and he started sexually abusing her. She cuts herself and vomits after every binge, desperate to feel something normal. Raeanne uses painkillers, drugs, alcohol, and sex to numb the pain of not being Daddy's favorite. Both girls must figure out how to become whole, but how can they when their world has been torn to shreds?

Ellen Hopkins is such a beautiful writer that it makes me green with envy. I was immediately drawn into this book and it was extremely hard for me to put it down until I had finished. Kaeleigh and Raeanne were wonderful characters and they were easy to relate to. Even though I have never experienced any of the trials that these girls did, in many ways it felt like I was right there with them. It is an amazing gift for an author to be able to draw you into the story in a way that makes you feel like you are a vital part of the plot. There were many twists and turns throughout the story, and some pretty huge shocking turn of events. At one point there is such a huge REALLY BIG THING that was so unexpected I re-read the page three times, blinked my eyes, and immediately went to my twitter account to say "Ellen Hopkins just BLEW MY MIND!!!" This was a wonderful book that was exciting and heart-breaking all at once. There were times that I wanted to cry for Kaeleigh and Raeanne and other times that my heart smiled along with their triumphs. I have said before that I think everyone should read at least one of Ellen Hopkins' books because of her unique writing style, I will say now that I believe if you only ever pick up one of her books, it should be Identical.

Teaser Tuesday: August 18, 2009

Today's Teaser comes from The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima.

"Hastings placed his hands over the wound, speaking a charm slowly and distinctly. The skin immediately blistered up, turning a nasty green and yellow, as if the poison had risen and collected just under the skin.

If this Teaser doesn't do it for you, there are plenty more here.

Princess Bookie Contest

Just a quick post to let you guys know about a really awesome contest. Princess Bookie is having a contest to give away a TON of YA books. There are 17 YA books including and ARC of Fire by Kristen Cashmore, Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, and a pre-order of CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins. I loved Shiver and have been looking forward to Catching Fire and Fire since I read the first books in those two series. Make sure you check out all the details here.

First Line Fridays

Since there isn't much going on lately to post about, and we aren't ordering books yet, I thought I would try something new on here. A big craze on Twitter right now is First Lines Fridays. It is pretty simple, all you have to do is share the first line of a book. I am going to do this regularly with whatever my current book is. I love Teaser Tuesdays, but sometimes the opening line of a novel grabs you more than a random quote from inside the book. Enjoy!

"'Oh my God, what's she doing here?' my best friend, Sidney van der Hoff, was asking, as I came up to the corner booth to hand out menus." Pants on Fire by Meg Cabot

Teaser Tuesday (On a Wednesday)

Today's Teaser comes from Max by James Patterson. It is the fifth book in the Maximum Ride series. Enjoy!

"Fang dropped my hand to put his arm around my shoulders, his warmth searing my skin through my jacket. I really, really hoped that I hadn't suddenly sprouted a catrillion new nerve endings."

Random Reading Stuffs

I'm currently in the middle of The Wizard Heir by Cinda Williams Chima. It's pretty good. It is the middle book in a trilogy, and the first book was very good as well. I have so many books in my TBR pile that it isn't funny. I also committed to reading 20,000 pages this summer for the adult SRP, and I have about 8,000 pages left to read in the next month. This morning I found an excellent reading list at www.teenreads.com. The list consists of 300 books that they considered must reads. Some of the books are adult books, some are classics/required reading, and the rest are YA books. I think that I am going to try to read my way through this list. I'm not really going to put a time limit on it, 300 books is a lot, but there were several books I have been meaning to read on the list. There were also several books that I have never heard of. Everyone should check the list out and met me know how many of the books you have read or have been on your TBR lists. One last thing, it is almost book ordering time and we are always looking for suggestions. So if there are books you love, from picture books through YA, please let us know! Leave suggestions in the comments!

Thanks Hagrid!

So....this is Alissa today. I wanted to talk about my anti-reading reputation. First, I feel like I need to clear some things up. I am going to try and concentrate but Rochelle is to my right makign horrible noises over some communist Chinese candy her brother gave her. Random, I know. Anywho so I have a reputation for hating reading. This is not true. I actually read all the time. I love children's books so I read a lot of picture books and novels like "The Mouse and the Motorcycle." (don't judge me) I also LOVE self-help books. There is something about someone else confirming to me that I am totally mental and need a lot of therapy to undo years of damage that makes me want to read more and more. What I don't read is fiction. I used to, then a few depressing books kind of ruined it for me. People are always coming into the library and asking us about Young Adult novels and I am not help at all. Instead I'm like, "No, I don't know that, but I CAN tell you about Suri Cruise's new haircut."......I can hear the John Greens of the world pulling the triggers on their suicide guns. I know, I know. Reading is super important and valuable. I get it. I have a better time with movies of books! Last night we went to see "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince." WHOA man. If you haven't seen it you should. Neville looks like he is about 37 now and the kids that plays Tom Riddle is scarier than the guy from "The Omen." So much happened in the movie that it actually made me want to read the "Harry Potter" series finally. It has only taken me about seven years to finally crack. Today is day one of my Potter Quest. I am going to need moral support from all of you to keep reading. When Rochelle told me the last one is about 4000000098739847298798797529349287341 pages long, I almost wet myself. So any cool Harry Potter websites, crafts, recipes, or encouragement you can send to help me keep reading for the next 7 books would be super helpful. HOLY MERLIN'S BEARD BATMAN....Alissa is going to read....!!!!

Summer Reading Program

Don't forget that Summer Reading Program has started. It isn't too late to sign up! We have programs every Wednesday for teens and we would love to see you! I am going to be gone for the next two weeks but Alissa will be here (and will probably need some help.) I will try to update from the road with book reviews and other randomness.

Iran, Florida, and The Man

And once again we are straying from the primary purpose of this blog (to let you know about library stuff, books, and reading related things.) However, Alissa and I are both pretty passionate about the things I am posting on. Ally is really into politics as a whole (me not so much...I kind suck at politics) and I am always into protesting and standing up for what you believe in (her too only not as loudly as me!) Also, we both think that it is pretty important for you to be aware of what is going on in the world. This week there was a (possibly rigged) election in Iran. I don't know a lot about it. I know the basic facts but I am not really up-to-date on my Iranian politics. John Green seemed pretty informed in this video though. You can also type in "Iran election" into any search engine and get a huge amount of information. The point is that I don't think we have to know everything there is to know about Iran to know that if this election was rigged (which since they are recounting the votes seems pretty likely) that it is wrong. If you are going to ask for the opinions of the people then make sure you listen to what they say. Many of the YA authors that we love and support are sending their support to the Iranian people. Scott Westerfeld has a wonderful blog post here explaining the new time change in our posting. Basically in Iran there are censors who are looking at all blogs with Tehran local settings in order to find and shut down any blogs protesting the election. Since changing the settings to GMT +3:30 makes it harder for them to do their jobs, he is encouraging everyone who has a blog to change the settings. It is a wonderful blog post and you should all go read it. Like him I would like to tell any Iranian censors that I pretty much think oppression sucks and so do rigged elections. I hope that in the time you wasted reading this post that some people who actually know what's going on there were able to continue their protests! Have a wonderful day killing the spirit of your people!

Speaking of oppression...the lovely Maureen Johnson is still having trouble with her book censoring friends in Florida. Go watch her hilarious/heart warming video here to see what she thinks of censorship...(hint she's not a fan)... Here's the thing. I know that I have had several "book challenging" tangents on here...but I HATE IT!!! Seriously. Yes, you have the right to say "I don't want my child to read this," but you do not have the right to say that other children shouldn't read something. I am a librarian, I order a lot of books, I read a lot of books (obviously), I love YA lit. I have no problem telling the parent of a 12 or 13 year old that they should look at a book before their kid reads it, or that a book has mature content. That is part of my job (in my opinion) and it is helpful because I don't get a lot of challenges. However, I have about 20 teens who come and check out books. It is a lot easier for me to police my YA section than it is for librarians at larger libraries. And truthfully, it isn't our job. It is a parents job to be aware of what their children are reading. They should read entire books though, not just passages of books before they make the decision that a book is inappropriate. *Deep breath* Okay, now that my tangents are over, I hope that all of you are equally as disgusted as I am about Iran and Florida book challengers, and that you all have wonderful days!

Geektastic ARC

I am sooo excited! When I got home today an ARC of Geektastic was waiting for me! I didn't get it free but I did find a copy on eBay for like $4.00 after shipping, which was pretty awesome. I already read over half of it tonight and can say that I will most definitely be ordering a copy for the library come September! I'm sure that none of my teens are as excited about this as I was, but they will be once they have the book!

Teaser Tuesday June 9, 2009

Here's the first Teaser we've put up in a long time. It's from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I am literally one of the last people on Earth to read this book, but so far I am enjoying it.

"I keep seeing Rue speared, my arrow piercing the boys neck. Then I realized...he was my first kill."

This is such a happy teaser! I hope you enjoy it.

We're Back!!!

After an unusually long absence we are back! Things have been so hectic/crazy around here. First, Ally and I both found out that we each have 30 extra hours of holiday time that we haven't used. This sounds great, but in reality it means that we each have almost 60 hours that we have to take off work before the end of June. We found out the last week of May. Also, Summer Reading Program starts in June, so it is really hard to find time to take off. We also had a huge meeting in Richmond in May and we were out of town for three days. It was an unusual experience. We had to drive five hours to the Library of Virginia and then spend one whole day in a meeting. We talked about next year's SRP as well as some other boring library related things. Ally and I spent most of our free time shopping and spending tons of money that we didn't need to spend. After all that excitement, I took the next several days off because my brother left on June 3rd. He will be in country for the next 45 days, he will have a four day leave at the end of July, and then he will be on his way to Iraq. So, except for his four day leave and his two-week leave once he is overseas, I won't see him again for 400 days. That is a lot of days! So all of my free time was spent hanging out with him instead of reading/working/blogging. Once I finally got back to work I discovered that for some strange reason my computer wouldn't let me get on blogger. After messing with various settings for a few days I finally got things under control. So, I should be back to blogging on a semi-regular basis. Summer Reading Program does start on June 19th and it takes up a lot of our time, but I will hopefully still be able to update you guys on what's going on! Happy Monday!!!!