Join readergirlz for live chats with young adult authors during Teen Read Week, October 12-18!

Don’t miss all of our activities during teen read week, and, vote for your favorite book!!

Drop by the Loft today between 3:30 and 5:30 (Friday, October 3) for Nintendo Wii, Guitar Hero, and more games!

Celebrate your freedom to read! Read one of the 10 most challenged books of 2007. Stop by the Loft and check out a book from our “banned books” display.

YA author John Green on banned books:

The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson (Razorbill, 2004)

Wordia - a video dictionary!

• I. Think of a word that has a special meaning to you
• II. Record a video defining your word
• III. Upload your video

The movie, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, based on the young adult novel by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan (Alfred Knopf, 2006), is coming soon to the movie theatres - October 3rd!

Read the book, create your own “infinite playlist,” and watch the trailer (with Michael Cera from Juno and Arrested Development).

The Possibilities of Sainthood by Donna Freitas (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008)

Antonia, a 15-year-old Italian Catholic girl, wants to become a saint – but without dying.  She writes endlessly funny letters to the Vatican about why she should be chosen for various possibilities, such as the patron saint of pasta. 

 Antonia keeps her book of saints like any other teenage girl’s diary.  The saint book helps keep her connected to her father who died tragically in a car accident more than eight years ago.  Her desire to become a saint also keeps her mother, the overbearing pasta maker, off her case, and brings grandma into her camp. (Nancy, The Loft)

Wii are back with Friday afternoon gaming! Stop by the Loft for Guitar Hero and Wii open play this Friday, September 19, from 3:30-5:30 pm. For teens in middle or high school.

Mexican High, by Liza Monroy (Spiegel & Grau, 2008), is the story of a teenage girl’s coming-of-age.  She calls herself Mila even though her given name is Milagros, or Miracle, in Spanish.  She is propelled into the world of strata and class during her senior year at a private high school in Mexico City.  She comes to terms with a missing father, and the girls and boys from the different class structure, and even ends up with a boyfriend she will take to college.

Drugs, drinking and all night partying are the norm, but Mila makes her way and comes to terms with who she is, who her father is, and her mother, already packing for her next Foreign Service adventure as Mila graduates from high school and becomes Milagros. Recommended for older teens (Nancy, The Loft).

The Juliet Club by Suzanne Harper (Greenwillow, 2008)

You win a Shakespeare essay contest in high school. The prize? A month-long summer trip to Verona, Italy, to study Romeo and Juliet. But under the sporadic direction of Professoressa Francesca Marchese, this is no ordinary seminar spent annotating and dissecting Shakespearean text, to which Kate Sanderson is accustomed. Instead, the six teen winners (3 American and 3 Italian) are tasked with answering letters written to Juliet and sent to The Juliet Club  (a club in Verona that receives and responds to contemporary letters).* That means offering advice on matters of the heart, and they’re supposed to work together. Which means Kate has to work with Giacamo, whom she can’t stand, or can she? After all, she’s sworn off love after being dumped by her first, and she proclaims, last, love interest for a long time.

The seminar participants also have to perform Romeo and Juliet as their culminating event, complete with swordfighting and Elizabethan dancing. What’s a summer in Verona, Italy, in the land of Romeo and Juliet without devious matchmaking plots, romantic leads and comic mishaps? Star-crossed lovers, witty dialog, and allusions to Shakespeare’s plays (Much Ado About Nothing and others) pepper the narrative with enough spice to keep the action moving in the somewhat predictable, but delightfully fun story. If you have to read Romeo and Juliet for school, read this for sheer pleasure. Familiarity with Shakespeare’s plays isn’t necessary to enjoy this story (Christie, The Loft).

*Interesting note: The Juliet Club really exists, and Juliet’s secretaries respond to and translate thousands of letters from around the world asking for help and/or advice on love. Finding out about this club was one of my favorite parts of reading this book.

As Hurricane Ike, following Gustav and Hannah, continues to unleash its fury over the Gulf Coast, the devastation wrought by hurricanes is front page news for some, and a life threatening reality for others. In his young adult novel, Hurricane Song (Viking, 2008), Paul Volponi takes the reader to New Orleans during and immediately following Hurricane Katrina. 

Sixteen-year-old Miles decides to move to New Orleans to live with his jazz musician father after his mother remarries in Chicago. Miles joins the football team and gradually adjusts to living with his father, who frequently puts music before all else. Then Katrina slams into New Orleans, and Miles, his dad and uncle attempt to flee the city by car. Instead, they wind up in the superdome, and as services and supplies dwindle and conditions deteriorate, they cope with the looting, violence, chaos and hunger. Volponi pulls no punches in this raw story of survival. Music is the balm that quells the storm and lifts the spirits of the main characters in this slim but powerful novel. (Christie, The Loft)