Three Black Swans / Caroline B. Cooney

TITLE: Three Black Swans
AUTHOR: Caroline B. Cooney
OWNED by CCLS? Yes.

Do you remember The Face on the Milk Carton series? The author, Caroline B. Cooney, has written over 75 novels for teens and they just keep getting better! Three Black Swans is a great choice if you're looking for an edge-of-your-seat-can't-stop-reading and am-dying-to-know-how-this-can-possibly-end novel!

Missy is a sixteen-year-old high school student who comes up with great prank for her science class; she and her cousin are going to convince her classmates that they are in fact long-last twins rather than cousins. The whole thing turns Missy and her cousin Claire's lives upside-down when a video of the two of them go viral and the girls begin to believe their own prank. Could the girls actually be identical twins? After sixteen years of sleep overs and family get-togethers, is it possible that their parents have kept such a secret hidden for so long?

M's Verdict: Read Three Black Swans if you like surprising twists and turns. Although it's sure to make you a bit tense (due to anticipating and waiting for what could possibly happen next), it's worth it.

Check out Cooney's website (below) for more information on her book or her life.
http://www.carolinebcooneybooks.com/

Ghostopolis / Doug TenNapel

TITLE: Ghostopolis
AUTHOR: Doug TenNapel
OWNED BY CCLS? Yes.

One of the graphic novels that I frequently recommend to readers new to graphic novels is Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel. I read Ghostopolis a few months back and I have continued to search out and read all of the TenNapel GNs that I can get my hands on.

Ghostopolis is a bit weird and unusual, but that's what makes it fun. Once you start reading, I guarantee you'll want to read another of TenNapel's comics, if not--see me!

Picture this...
You have an incurable disease, that's as bad as it can get, right? Think again! You're zapped into the afterlife by a ghost wrangler, along with a horse skeleton (that appears to be alive--weird), and the ruler of this afterlife is not pleased with your arrival, so he sends his minions after you. Fantastic! Fortunately the ghost wrangler who accidentally sent you to this other world has an ex ghost girlfriend, who can hopefully get you back to where you belong. All this and more is jammed into Ghostopolis. Want to know how it ends? Check it out! If it's already gone, don't worry, there's another copy on order!

Check out Doug TenNapel's website too : http://tennapel.com/ .

I am currently reading Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner and Power Up by Doug TenNapel.

Mother's Day Button Bracelets

Today we had our Mother's Day Button Bracelets program @ 2PM.

Although we had a smaller turnout than expected, the bracelets that resulted turned out great!

THANK YOU to our participants--we hope to see you at our next event: a showing of the 4th Harry Potter movie on Sunday, May 15th.

If I Stay

TITLE: If I Stay
AUTHOR: Gayle Forman
OWNED by CCLS? Yes.

I will admit right off the bat, that I am totally swayed by the cover of a book. Covers pull me in and it's the first few pages and chapters that hook me (or totally turn me off). Don't get me wrong, a book with a great cover can be completely horrible, so don't let the cover be the only deciding factor. Anyhow, I do have a point...

One YA book that I recently picked up (based upon the interesting cover) was Gayle Forman's If I Stay. It's about a teen girl and her family who are in a terrible car accident. The entire story revolves around whether the talented teen cellist Mia will fight to live or succumb to the darkness of death that seems to be calling her.

I was drawn to the impending doom that seemed to drip off of the blurb of the book, but I can't say that that was enough to propel me through the entire book. For the readers of this blog, I can proudly say that I was able to power through the whole book; depressing topic, high level vocabulary, obvious outcome and all.

M's Verdict: Eh, not good enough for me to want to read the sequel: Where She Went. From looking at our copy, it's checked out a lot and the reviews are really good too, so obviously my opinion is not the same as many others. If you disagree with me, let me know! Share your thoughts and give me a teen perspective of If I Stay by Gayle Forman.

Hello!

Time to get back into blogging! Before I post my first book review, I want to introduce myself. My name is Meaghan and I was the teen services assistant last summer with Mrs. N during the Teen Summer Reading program. If you attended any of the library's summer events during 2010 (Thursday movies, Bhangra dance, Aquapalooza, etc., etc.) I was there. I am pleased to be back working in the Teen Department and look forward to seeing many of your faces once again! Later this week I will post my first book review. Stay tuned and be prepared to provide feedback:-)

Hannah Just Read: Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

I would like to start by saying YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK. You will love it--guys, girls, anyone, really... you will like this book.
Sam (full name Samhain Corvus LaCroix) is a college dropout turned professional burger flipper at Seattle fast food joint Plumpy's. He hangs out with his friends, skateboards, and cracks jokes like any normal kid until the night that Douglas Montgomery walks into Plumpy's and recognizes Sam for what he is-- a fellow necromancer with the ability to raise the dead.
Douglas is less than thrilled that there is another necromancer in town, and now he's out to get rid of Sam, who has one week to figure out all this necromancer stuff with the help of his best friend, Ramon, a hottie female werewolf, a talking head, and his mom.
This book was all over the book blogs and lists screaming its praises since it was released in December, and for good reason. Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride is hilarious and exciting, and I hope it is the start of a series or a trilogy or something, because I loved it and I want to read more. I liked, too that it sort of took all of the fantasy stuff that's going on in teen lit right now and turned it on its head, poking fun at it, but at the same time embracing it. It was like the book was one big inside joke and everyone is in on it. I will say, though, just an FYI, Sam and his friends are a little older, like 19 or 20, and they do stuff in the book that people who are a little older do, but read the book if you want to, because I doubt you'll be disappointed. Unless you're boring or have no sense of humor.

Incidentally, this is also my last blog post. Starting the 21st of March I'm going to be moving to Allentown to be the Youth Services Librarian at the Parkland Community Library, so if you're ever in the area, stop in to say hi! I've loved reviewing books on here, and I hope you have liked reading them!

And the winner is...

Congratulations to Nia S. for winning our pre-pub giveaway! She won a copy of Wither by Lauren DeStefano and Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O'Roark Dowell, both of which are just being published this month.
Let me know if you liked this giveaway and if we should do more in the future!

Hannah Just Read: BADD by Tim Tharp

First off, I hope I'll see everyone at the TAG meeting tonight at 7:00! And now, on to the review:

Tim Tharp is one of my favorite authors, and not just for teens, but for adults, too, because I think his books are so good that everyone, adult, teen, android, zombie, alien, should read Tim Tharp. He wrote one of my all time favorite books ever called The Spectacular Now, which Mrs. N reviewed and didn't like all that much, but it is good to have differing opinions in the world.
BADD is his newest novel, and we just bought a copy of it for the library, so you can go request it now if you think it sounds good (and it was). BADD is about Ceejay, who idolizes her older brother Bobby. Bobby is kind of wild and definitely tough, but not in a bully kind of way, he was always sticking up for the underdog, and defending people who couldn't defend themselves. After getting into some trouble, Bobby is sent into the army, and the book starts a few weeks before he is supposed to return home from Iraq. Ceejay can't wait to see him, but by the time he gets back he is very different from how she remembers him.
I love Tim Tharp's books because he creates great characters, and even when you don't actually like the characters all that much, they still seem real and complete. They are really complex. There's a lot going on in BADD. It isn't just a girl waiting for her brother to get home from Iraq, it is also about first love, and family relationships, and death, and somehow Tim Tharp ties them all together really well, creating a really intricate and well developed story. I loved it, and you should read it, too, but be warned, there is some drinking and drug use throughout the book.

Also, don't forget to enter the pre-pub giveaway from last week! You only have one week left! So scroll down a little and enter today!

What Hannah's Been Reading: books to GIVEAWAY!

I've been reading furiously over the past few weeks. We've gotten some pre-published books in here at the library, so I've been trying to check them out and see which ones we might buy for the library. BUT we can't put the pre-pubs (see how cool I sound when I call them that?) into our teen collection here, so my plan is to give them away to one of you lucky lucky blog readers.
The first book I read is called Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O'Roark Dowell. She's an author of juvenile lit, but this is her first book for teens. The book is about Janie Gorman, who lives on a farm with her parents and little sister. Everyone else in her family is 100% into farm life, but starting high school with goat poop on her shoe is not what Janie had in mind. In her desire to fit in she tries joining a jam band, hanging out with senior citizens, and meeting a new friend named Monster.
If there was one word that I would use to describe Ten Miles Past Normal it would be Cute. With a capital C. It seemed to me like there was a lot going on in the book and that the characters could have used some further development. I feel like there were definitely some plot points that could have been developed more, but all that being said, the book was enjoyable, and it was cute, and it was a quick read, and PLUS, you'd get to read it before anyone else, because it isn't even being published until next month!

The other book I read is called Wither by Lauren DeStefano, who is another new teen author. This book is the first in a trilogy, and it is set in a future America where girls only live to 20, and men live until 25. Wealthy men marry early and have multiple wives, most of whom are kidnapped and forced into marriage, like the main character Rhine, who is taken from her home in New York and brought to Florida, where she forced into marriage with a wealthy young man. However it is one of the servants, Gabriel, who Rhine falls in love with as she also plots her escape.
I was surprised that I liked this book. I read it really quickly--it was one of those stay up late to finish it books. It reminded me of a lot of other teen books that are out right now, though. It was kind of Incarceron by Catherine Fisher + Twilight + Delirium by Lauren Oliver, though not quite as well done as any of those (except Twilight... don't get me started on Twilight). I'll be interested to see where the plot goes in the next two books though.

So, here's the giveaway part. Just enter your name and e-mail address here, and I will do a drawing for the winner on March 1, and just so you know, no one will be able to see your e-mail address, and it won't be used for anything other than me sending you an e-mail to tell you that you won.

A completely self serving post in which I brag about my recent trip to Pittsburgh to see John Green

Ok, so, last Friday I ventured over mountains, and through tunnels and snow to Pittsburgh so that I could see the king of all things nerdy, John Green, speak at the Carnegie Library. For those of you who don't know who John Green is, he is an author of such fine books as Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, and Will Grayson Will Grayson (which was co-authored with David Levithan). John Green and his brother, Hank, also have a YouTube channel on which they make videos about various topics, from the political situation in Egypt, to conspiracy theories, to giraffes.
So anyway, I love John Green. I think he's brilliant, and I was exceptionally excited to see him speak, and he did not disappoint. He talked about books, and writing books, and how we read books, and Gary Busey, and other really cool nerdy stuff.

THEN I got a book AND, as my sister calls it, my nerd journal, which is a book I keep of all the books I read signed by him. I will proudly show it to you if you ask me to. Here are my new prized possession photos of this momentous occasion:

In other news, I recently read Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins and it was FANTASTIC, and I happen to know that we recently ordered a copy for the library, so stay on the lookout for that. Also, I am cooking up another contest/giveaway. I just need to work out the details, so keep checking back for that, too!