2008 YA Literary Awards Announced! January 14, 2008

   2008 Best Books for Young Adults

2008 Top Ten Best Books

2008 Best Books 

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), the fastest-growing division of the American Library Association (ALA), today announced its 2008 list of Best Books for Young Adults.

   Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in YA Literature

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean (HarperTempest, 2007, c2005)

   Michael L. Printz Honors

Dreamquake: Book 2 of the Dreamhunter Duet by Elizabeth Knox (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007)

One Whole and Perfect Day by Judith Clarke (Front Street, 2007, c2006)

Repossessed by A. M. Jenkins (HarperTeen, 2007)

Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)

For more information, visit the Michael L. Printz Book Award Page of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)

   Alex Awards: Adult Books that Appeal to Teens

American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in New China by Matthew Polly (Gotham, 2007)

Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff (Harper Collins, 2007)

Tales From the Farm by Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf, 2007)

Genghis: Birth of an Empire by Conn Iggulden (Delacorte, 2007)

The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle (Scribner, 2007)

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2007)

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (Dial, 2007, c2006)

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (DAW Books, 2007)

The Night Birds by Thomas Maltman (Soho, 2007)

The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster, 2007)

2008 Alex Awards  of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)

   Margaret A. Edwards Award

Orson Scott Card is the recipient of the 2008 Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring his outstanding lifetime contribution to writing for teens for his novels Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow.

   Pura Belpre Award Winner for Narrative

The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Sean Qualls (Henry Holt, 2006)

   Pura Belpre Honor for Narrative

Frida: ¡Viva la vida! Long Live Life! written and illustrated by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand (Marshall Cavendish, 2007)

More about the Pura Belpre Award

   Coretta Scott King Award Winner

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (Scholastic, 2007)

   Coretta Scott King Honor

November Blues by Sharon Draper (Atheneum, 2007)

Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali by Charles Smith (Candlewick, 2007)

   The Robert F. Sibert Award

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2007)

For more news on all of the Youth Media Awards, visit YALSA’s Booklists & Book Awards or the ALSC site.

Teen Reader’s Theatre Rehearsal January 12, 2008

Teen Reader’s Theatre Troupe Meets on Sunday, January 13, from 3-5 pm.

If you are in 7th or 8th grade and live in Evanston and love theatre, call Christie Chandler-Stahl at (847) 448-8625 or send an email to cchandler-s@cityofevanston.org to find out more about our newly formed Teen Reader’s Theatre Troupe.

Cybils 2007 Bloggers’ Literary Awards & Knitting January 10, 2008

Come to the Loft and check out one of the finalists for the Cybils 2007, the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards, presented by the Cybils Team including co-founders Anne & Kelly.

Let us know your favorite titles! The winners will be announced on Feb 14.

 And stop by the Loft or call (847) 448-8625 and ask about our teen knitting club! Chill out and knit a baby blanket to donate to Evanston Hospital, or work on a project of your own! We have needles and yarn for you to start with.

Go Overboard and Make a Difference! January 5, 2008

   GO OVERBOARD CHALLENGE GRANT 

Start the new year with a bang and change the world! Girl Overboard author Justina Chen Headley, Burton Snowboards, and Youth Venture are co-sponsoring the Go Overboard Challenge Grant to find the best teen-created (led and managed) ideas to change the world.

The best ideas will win up to $1,000 each. So don’t waste any time; go overboard, apply for a grant, and put your plan into action! You must be between the ages 12-20 to apply.

Place a hold on Justina Chen Headley’s new book, Girl Overboard (Little Brown, 2008), due out this month.

Winter Break Program and Book Displays January 3, 2008

   It’s the last Friday of winter break! Drop in to the Loft for Guitar Hero and Wii!

And check out our various book displays: new titles; books that take place in the Canadian tundra, Antarctica, or other places icier and more more snow-covered than Evanston; reel books (that have been made into movies); and some of the best young adult titles of 2007!

Best Young Adult Books of 2007 December 18, 2007

Here are some Best Books of 2007  lists. What are your favorites?  Let us know!

Kirkus Reviews - Best Young Adult Books of 2007: Editor’s Choice from Karen Breen.

School Library Journal’s (SLJ) Best Adult Books for High School Students 2007 by Francisca Goldsmith.

School Library Journal’s (SLJ) Best Books of 2007: Book Review Editors Trevelyn Jones, Luann Toth, Daryl Grabarek, Marlene Charnizon, and Joy Fleishhacker.

Teenreads.com Favorite Books of 2007: Compiled and written by Tom Donadio.

YALSA’s (Young Adult Library Services Association of ALA, the American Library Association) nominated titles.

100 Notable Books of 2007 from The New York Times Book Review (High School).

Teenreads Contest! December 6, 2007

   Win a Basket of Holiday Reading and Fun!

Win a basket of 12 young adult books along with holiday goodies by entering the Teenreads.com Basket of Holiday Cheer Contest!

• You must be 13 years or older
• Deadline is December 14, 2007, 11:59 pm
• Read an excerpt of each of the following books and tell teenreads.com which one you would most like to read and why

         

         

1. I’d Tell you I Love You, but then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter (Hyperion, 2006).
2. Hero by Perry Moore (Hyperion, 2007)
3. Incantation by Alice Hoffman (Little, Brown, 2006)
4. The Luxe by Anna Godbersen (HarperTeen, 2007)
5. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2007)
6. The Red Queen’s Daughter by Jacqueline A. Kolosov (Hyperion, 2007)
7. Return to Atlantis by R. A. Montgomery (Chooseco, 2005)
8. Saving Zoe by Alyson Noel (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007)
9. Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr (HarperTeen, 2007)
10. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little, Brown, 2007)
11. Guyaholic by Carolyn Mackler (Candlewick, 2007)
12. Perfect: A Pretty Little Liars Novel by Sara Shepard (HarperTeen, 2007)

Stop by the Loft and check out the above title that you most want to read!

Books into Movies! November 28, 2007

Several book-inspired movies are coming soon to the big screen! The action-packed classic Beowulf is already playing in theatres. Coming soon are the following: the spellbinding science fiction epic The Golden Compass; Satrapi’s compelling story (and stunning artistry) of coming-of-age in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, Persepolis; and finally, the sweeping saga of friendship, betrayal and redemption in Hosseini’s Kite Runner. There’s so much to read, see and talk about. We recommend reading the book first and then taking in the movie. Either way, don’t miss checking out the book!! Some of the above movies are PG-13 and contain mature content.

          

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (Alfred A. Knopf, 1995). Recommended for Middle and High School

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon Books, 2003). Recommended for High School

Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000). Recommended for High School

Beowulf (A Graphic Novel) by Gareth Hinds (Candlewick Press, 2007). Recommended for High School

Beowulf the modern English version translated by Francis Gummere, online.

Beowulf: A Hero’s Tale Retold by James Rumford (Houghton Mifflin, 2007). Recommended for Middle School

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead Books, 2003). Recommended for High School

Book of a Thousand Days November 25, 2007

I have been eagerly awaiting Shannon Hale’s latest novel, Book of a Thousand Days  (Bloomsbury, 2007), and it definitely does not disappoint. The language sings! It is an imaginative retelling of a little-known fairy tale, Maid Maleen by the Brothers Grimm.

 

Set in a fictionalized, medieval Mongolia, 16-year-old Lady Saren is locked away in a tower for seven years by her father for refusing to marry the man her father has chosen, Lord Khasar. The story is told, however, by Lady Saren’s mucker maid Dashti, who has sworn to serve her mistress and therefore is shut away in the tower with her. Dashti keeps a journal which propels the story forward with spunk, grit, resourcefulness, and humor, all of which definitely come in handy as they face long and lonely days without sunlight and the great blue sky to brighten their world.

 

As Lady Saren despairs, Dashti does her best singing the healing songs she learned as a mucker girl on the steppes. Dashti even poses as Lady Saren when two suitors appear outside the tower, one the despicable Lord Khasar, and the other, the gentle Khan Tegus. Dashti’s growing friendship with Tegus and her rethinking of the gentry fuel subplots to come.

 

Adventures, misadventures, and a war-ravaged land await Dashti and Lady Saren. Highly recommended (Christie, The Loft).

It’s Absolutely True - Alexie wins! November 14, 2007

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is this year’s winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. (Little, Brown, 2007)

 

Arnold Spirit, aka Junior, is born with “brain grease” (hydrocephalus, or excessive accumulation of fluid on the brain) which in his words “mucked up the works.” Junior has 10 extra teeth, a large head, a lisp, a stutter, and eyeglasses by age three, and he rapidly becomes a candidate for the black-eye-of-the-month club thanks to school bullies. To avoid being beaten up, he stays inside and draws cartoons and reads books. The son of an alcoholic father and “long suffering mother,” life on the reservation (Spokane Indian) poses its share of challenges for Junior.

 

So he decides to take a chance on an “all-white” school 22 miles away where the only Indian is the school mascot. A new world opens up for Junior, but many of his reservation friends, including his best friend Rowdy, think he has sold out. Juggling these two worlds leaves Junior feeling like a part-time Indian. Through it all he keeps drawing, and his cartoons keep him afloat: “I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.”

 

Thankfully for us, while Junior keeps drawing, Alexie keeps writing (and laughing). Move over Holden Caulfield - meet Arnold Spirit! (Christie, The Loft)