Friday/Sunday Falcon Report May 31, 2009

Our fine and feathery offspring were banded last Wednesday at the Evanston Public Library! That’s Nona (proud Mama) to the left, hovering frantically as the humans hold her chicks hostage, sticking them with needles and such (below to the right). There’s discussion amongst the falcons that we should band some humans for our falcon-led human study, but the current thinking is that a wire tap would provide more useful information. One of the strangest and most prevalent habits we’ve observed is that of humans walking around town (not to mention the library) talking to themselves with some electronic device protruding from their ear. Or mouth. Our scientific research has shed preliminary light on this incredibly odd behavior, and it’s linked to something the humans call “blue tooth.” Or “cell phone.” We will report back on any interceptions of note. 

 

The following books have been spotted leaving the Loft this past week.

 

Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini

Bec by Darren Shan

Being Nikki by Meg Cabot

Bram Stoker’s Dracula: The Graphic Novel by Gary Reed

Cashay by Margaret McMullen

The Devil’s Breath by David Gilman

Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa

H.I.V.E. : Higher Institute of Villainous Education by Mark Walden

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter

Jerk, California by Jonathan Friesan

Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters

Melting Stones by Tamora Pierce

Mexican Whiteboy by Matt de la Peña

Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez

Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon Hale

Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham

Undine by Penni Russon

Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marrilier

 

Featured YA bibliography of the week: The Living Dead

 

Congratulations to the Evanston Township High School Class of 2009!!

My Sister’s Keeper Movie May 26, 2009

What do you think about the cast in the upcoming movie, My Sister’s Keeper, due out next month (June 26)? Alec Baldwin as Campbell Alexander, Abigail Breslin as Anna, Sofia Vassilieva as Kate, Cameron Diaz as Anna and Kate’s mother, and Jason Patric as the Dad.  (What about The Judge, Campbell’s dog?)

 

Have you read the book by Jodi Picoult? We recommend it and have copies in the Loft; if they’re not currently available, place a hold today!! We also have the book on CD, and a copy of the book in Spanish: Por La Vida de Mi Hermana.

 

The Friday Falcon Report May 22, 2009

 Could it possibly be any busier?! I can hardly find time to break away for my weekly report. The four chicks (hey, these kind of chicks) are hungry all the time, and then there are the duties with the No.1 Loft’s Detective Agency. This Friday afternoon is  gorgeous - blue sky and moderate temperature, but still the loft is hopping! Filming, gaming, researching, socializing. People selecting books from every shelf. 

 

 Here’s a small sampling of the books that left the Loft this week:

 

 

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

The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong

Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

Britten and Brülightly by Hannah Berry

Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford  

Chew on This by Ed Schlosser

Death Note by Tsugumi Oba

Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks

The Glass Maker’s Daughter by V. Briceland

The Good Witch of the West by Noriko Ogiwara

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Jason & Kyra by Dana Davidson

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

MySpace/OurPlanet: Change is Possible

Nation by Terry Pratchett

Peace, Love, & Baby Ducks by Lauren Myracle

Reality Check by Peter Abrahams

Red Kayak by Priscilla Cummings

The Sledding Hill by Chris Crutcher

The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong

Ten Cents A Dance by Christine Fletcher

Wild Girls by Pat Murphy

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

 

Whoa, the chicks are calling…gotta go!

Deadline by Chris Crutcher May 20, 2009

What would you do with your life if you knew you only had a year to live? That’s the question Ben Wolf, the hero of Chris Crutcher’s excellent novel, Deadline, must ask himself when, during a routine physical before the start of senior year, he is diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. His answer? Tell no one, go out for varsity football (despite being rail-thin, short, and the brother of the star QB), and pursue Dallas Suzuki, the tallest, most confident, athletic, and beautiful girl in school. Oh, and tirelessly challenge (and make a fool out of) that thoughtless, authoritarian American Government teacher who’s always getting on his nerves.

This funny, touching, and compassionate book is that rare beast: a gripping, plot-driven read that weaves in controversial turns without once feeling didactic or forced. As Ben sets down the new path he’s set for himself he begins succeeding wildly. He is an unexpected animal on the ballfield with a sharp eye for strategy, and becomes the team’s secret weapon. He ends up in Dallas’s welcoming arms so fast and so early on that his head spins. But with each success he develops new, unexpectedly meaningful relationships – with his brother, with Dallas, with the coach, even with the town drunk. These relationships deepen as the novel progresses and force him to wrestle with his decision to keep his fate a secret. It also makes his impending death that much harder to bear: How can he leave these amazing people he loves behind? How can he not tell them how little time he has? Was it up to him to “protect” his family and friends from his fate? And why can’t he find the courage to tell Dallas even when, after they fall in love, she reveals two dark, shocking secrets of her own?

Crutcher’s book is packed with memorable characters, complex relationships, and philosophical and moral hot potatoes you’ll be turning over for days. He is as unflinching here about the ugly side of human nature as he is certain, ultimately, in the basic goodness of most people. Ben’s voice is irreverent, sarcastic, and fiercely independent, but he’s rattled by how much he doesn’t know. He’s in a race to make life mean something, and, in only a short while (because that’s all he’s got), he learns about the central importance of love, about his own weaknesses, about the power of selflessness, and the possibility of compassion for even the lowest of God’s creatures. His story exhorts us to make the most of our own short time on this planet. This is Crutcher at his very best.

(Jarrett, The Loft)

North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley May 18, 2009

North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley

 This stunning novel, organized in the three sections below, explores the various meanings of journey using  rich cartographic symbolism.

Terra Nullis (empty land): Mapmaking runs in 17-year-old Terra’s family. Her father is a failed and bitter cartographer who is verbally abusive. Terra, on the other hand, makes collaged maps, expressing a different kind of landscape, finding beauty in stories and experience. Self described as stunning from afar, extremely fit with long golden tresses, Terra tries to cover as much of her facial birthmark (referred to as a port-wine stain) as she can under heavy makeup.  At the encouragement of her artist mentors at the gallery where she works, Terra has hatched an external escape map of sorts, one that points straight to early admission to college with a top-notch art program that is at least 5 hours away from home by plane.  Far away from the cruel taunting of her father. 

 

Terra Incognita (unknown land): Internal compass points are always trickier. As Terra and her mother are making the 4-hour drive home from Seattle in a snow storm after yet another surgery on her cheek, in walks Jacob. No, rather, Jacob enters her life after she nearly runs him over.  More visible than ever, Terra’s birthmark, raw and swollen from the surgery, doesn’t seem to phase Jacob. It’s as if he’s saying, “why would anyone refer to a birthmark as a stain, as in ‘port-wine stain?’” It’s hard not to like Jacob right away. And Terra notices a few things about Jacob, surface things; he is Asian American, goth, and has a cleft lip, which doesn’t seem to phase him. But what does that really tell her about him? Hardly anything, as it turns out.

 

 Terra Firma (solid ground): As Jacob and his mom drive Terra and her mom back home, a friendship immediately forms. Terra can’t ignore her feelings for Jacob. The 4 of them make big plans: a life-altering trip filled with adventure including geocaching. Terra’s internal compass shifts: “Like world describers before me, those mapmakers in the seventeenth century, I had laid down my first faintly drawn border. With that one tentative mark, my world expanded by a few freeing degrees.” She’s finding firmer ground, somewhere north of beautiful: When Jacob asks Terra to define true beauty, she says, slowly:

Well, it seeps into you. It doesn’t make you forget yourself, but totally the opposite…It connects you with everything and fills you with awe that you share the same space with something that glorious. Like a sunrise or a clear blue day or the most extraordinary piece of glass. And then suddenly — you have this epiphany that there’s more to the world than just you and what you want or even who you are.

-Christie, The Loft

The Percy Jackson Movie: Who Would You Cast? May 18, 2009

When we first reported that director Chris Columbus (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Home Alone) has started filming the first in a series of movies based on Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, readers of The Virtual Loft drew lines in the sand proclaiming that Columbus had chosen a “terrible” cast.  One commenter suggested that Anna Sophia Robb should be playing Anabeth while Josh Hutcherson should be Percy.  A few subsequent commenters agreed with these choices while others did not.  So, let’s hear it: If you had casting power for the upcoming movie version of The Lightning Thief who would you cast?  Who would be your ideal Percy?  Annabeth?  Chiron?  How about Ares?  Write your cast list in our comments section!

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson* May 17, 2009

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson, 2009.

What is it like to be a wintergirl?  ”Caught between (two) worlds . . . (freezing your butt off,) a ghost with a beating heart.”  All I have to say is it’s got to suck.  Lia looks like a disgusting haunted toothpick, and Cassie is totally dead.  This book is about them.  It’s wicked good. That’s why I’m blogging about it.

Cassie will be hot gossip for another couple days.  Maybe she od’ed on heroine.  They found her in a seedy motel all alone.  It is so tragic.  Lia used to be her best friend, but they stopped talking like 8 months ago. Who knows why.

I heard they made a pact to be the skinniest girls in school.  Cassie was tiny, but Lia is all skin and bones. So not hot.

Anyhoo, Lia lives with her dad and step-mom and their daughter Emma when she’s not in rehab with hoses in her nose being stuffed like a pig.  Why can’t she just eat and be healthy?  What is her deal?

The other latest that I’ve heard is that Lia started cutting again.  Even I have bad days, but cutting my own skin is gnarly.  I’d never go there.

“Wintergirls” glitters if you put it in the light just right; just don’t read it without someone to talk to.  I am totally here if you want to talk.

(Mercedes-The Loft)*I’m a librarian with creative writing tendencies!

Songwriting Contest May 16, 2009

To celebrate the upcoming performance of The Remus Lupins (Friday June 12th at 7 pm), we’re having a songwriting contest! Write a song inspired by Harry Potter and his friends (or enemies). Here are the guidelines:

Theme:  Characters must be from any of the 7 Harry Potter books.

Length: Two verses and a chorus

Prize: Winner will be announced at the concert! There will be a prize!

Eligibility: Must be in grades 6-12 (or going into grades 6-12) and live in Evanston or attend an Evanston school.

Deadline: Wednesday, June 10th, @ 9 3/4 PM.

Send your songs to: theloftepl@gmail.com Please put “Harry Potter Songwriting Contest” in the subject box.

Mark your calendars for Friday June 12th to find out the winner, as well as to rock, Wizrock that is!!!!!

The Falcon Report… May 15, 2009

The Loft’s falcon, usually found perched atop the bookshelves in the Loft (and occasionally spotted lounging in the egg chair), will be posting a list every Friday of some of the books he has spotted leaving the Loft during the week. (BTW – rumors are circulating that the falcon is part of an undercover investigative team operating out of the Loft. More information about this investigative team can be found here) The sheer volume of books that circulates every week makes it possible for the falcon to report only a mere fraction of them. When the Loft is closed, you may see him flying with his falcon friends that perch (and nest) on the south side of the library.

 

5/10 – 5/15

 

Shift by Jennifer Bradbury

Get Well Soon by Julie Halpern

Evolution, Me, & Other Freaks of Nature by Robin Brande

Bleach by Tite Kubo

The Singing by Alison Croggon

Strays by Ronald Koertge

Ultimate Iron Man by Orson Scott Card

Being Nikki by Meg Cabot

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

Red Hulk by Jeff Loeb

Fragile Eternity by Melissa Marr

Lifeblood by Tom Becker

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson

Game by Walter Dean Myers

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (the movie)

The Remus Lupins Come to Evanston!! May 12, 2009

The well-known The Remus Lupins come to the Evanston Public Library just one month before the release of the movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince!! When the fabulous Tonks & the Aurors were here, we said we hoped that they were the first of many more concerts. And we meant it!!

Friday Evening, June 12, 7 pm, in the Community Room. Wizard Rock Band – The Remus Lupins

 

 

The Remus Lupins come to Evanston howling for all to support The Order of the Phoenix. The band’s motto, Fight Evil, Read Books, sums up their plan for defeating Voldemort, and they need your help. The concert by the California-based band will feature fun Indie Rock music inspired by the adventures of Harry Potter and his friends (and enemies) at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There is no better way to celebrate the world’s coolest Boy Wizard’s adventures than to join everyone’s favorite werewolf in singing about Love, Friendship and the power of Rock!