Hunger Games. . . again!

THANKS to Mrs. Cole for the CNN link about the upcoming Hunger Games movie.

Read the article and opinion of the movie, and the book(s), here. Oh, and check out the characters and see if they fit your mind's pictures of Katniss and Gale.

Almost Summer Break

Another debut novel! Memento Nora by Angie Smibert, a contributing author to Odyssey ( a science fiction magazine for the YA crowd) is another novel about a dystopian society. OK, that sounded a bit like a whine. . .it isn't. Is this the nail-biting, suspense, action packed adventure of The Hunger Games? No, but it does have the very controlling society that speaks to how we as members of society are subtly manipulated and controlled. TFC is the Therapeutic Forgetting Clinic where citizens can go to forget their troubles or nightmares. Nora and her mother are at TFC after a bomb attack where Nora and her mother are eye-witnesses. It is Nora's first visit to TFC and all she has to do is swallow the little white pill. But then she sees a guy with the word Memento written on his cast and he quickly shows her the pill on his tongue. Now, she is faced with a choice. What will she choose? Find out what happens to Nora and the guy, Micah.

PS The sequel is being written.

Check out the website!

Action-Adventure

The Doomsday Box: A Shadow Project Adventure by Herbie Brennan is a Junior Library Guild selection. Somehow the books from JLG either become award winners or are just really good reads. The jury is out on whether this will be an award winner, but my verdict is in - it is a good read!

Four teenage spies - Opal, Danny, Michael, and Fuchsia - are members of the Shadow Project. These teens have supernatural abilities which are desperately needed to stop an undercover agent, Cobra. Agent Cobra has time-traveled to the Middle Ages and returned with a small box containing vials. When the box is opened, a deadly plague is unleashed in the world today that could lead to millions of people dying. The Shadow Project members are needed to go back in time, meet up with Agent Cobra, and stop him from unleashing this horror on the world. And, so they are headed to Moscow. . . in 1962.

If you like Alex Rider, you will enjoy this. If you like spies, you will enjoy this. You can even learn a bit of history in this book too.

Katniss is Cast

It is official. Jennifer Lawrence has been cast as Katniss Everdeen. Suzanne Collins said, "Jennifer's just an incredible actress. So powerful, vulnerable, beautiful, unforgiving and brave. I never thought we'd find somebody this perfect for the role. And I can't wait for everyone to see her play it."(Source: MTV.)

Now, if they can only get Jack Nicholson to play Haymitch

Adoration of Jenna Fox

Great read!

Probable New Series: Number Six

Teri Hall's The Line is her first book and the last page had me thinking, "OK, now that you've told me that...where is the next chapter." Sigh.

Rachel is the main character in The Line. Her mother and her live on estate with Ms. Moore. The estate is in a relatively isolated area which borders the line. The line is an invisible barrier to Away. The government created the National Border Defense System to keep invaders out; it also kept citizens out (and in) when it was activated. Many scary stories are told about what is living in Away, but Rachel doesn't quiet believe them, and when she hears a cry for help from Away - a young man's voice - she is even more curious. Now, she discovers her country's true history and the parts her parents played during the War.

Is this a grab you right away book? Nope. Is this a nail-biting, action-packed, cliff-hanger? Nope. Is it worth reading? Yes, because it makes you think about freedoms we take for granted and the dangers of being unaware, uninformed and complacent.

The Last Survivor Series

Exciting Reads

Number 8 by Anna Fienberg

Jackson has a few quirks - OK - a LOT of quirks. Like he doesn't like odd numbers, particularly the number 7, he counts his blinks and his steps - you get the picture. His mother and he have just moved to the suburbs in a nice quiet neighborhood to hide out from her former boss after she unintentionally witnessed criminal activity. Now, Jackson has a new school, new kids, new teachers, and then he meets Esmerelda. Told in alternating chapters by Jackson and Esmerelda, this exciting mystery will have you biting your nails and tuning in your ipod to a rock station to listen to all the songs mentioned in this mystery.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Thomas is put in the box. He remembers his first name, he has some memories but nothing tangible to attach to it - like knowing how to ride a bike, but not remembering how you learned to ride the bike. Those memories are gone. For two years, once a month a new boy has arrived in the Glade, an expanse of land with towering walls surrounding the whole area. During the day, there are a few openings in the walls, but at night the walls go shut to keep out the Grievers. Why is he here? What is this Maze the boys keep talking about? How will he fit in? How do they get out? Why does he feel like he knows something important about the Maze?

But then the very next day, a girl - the first girl ever - arrives! And she delivers a frightening message. Read this exciting, fast-paced, science fiction adventure to find out.

Two Suggestions

It seems I have two or three books going at a time right now. When the books are of similar story lines or the same genre, characters and plots do get a bit jumbled in my brain. However, the two most recent completions (say that fast five times) are very different.

Bystander by James Preller starts with the new kid in town, Eric, shooting hoops on the playground. He sees this boy, about his age, running towards him. This boy's gait is off, he keeps looking over his shoulder, checking on who might be behind him. He stops to catch his breath, and quickly takes off again. What Eric picked up from this short interaction is this kid is scared. Very, very scared. And then Eric meets Griffin and his cronies.

Neptune's Children by Bonnie Dobkin is an exciting sci-fi adventure. The story begins with a plague - a man-made plague - designed to destroy entire countries. When the canisters are precisely detonated, anyone over the age of fifteen is struck. What the designers of the plague failed to plan for was mutations, and so they become victims of their own planned disaster. Everyone that remains is fourteen and younger. This is story of a group of kids who had been on vacation with their families in a theme park - Isles of Wonder. How will they survive without rules, adult guidance, or even food?

Margaret Peterson Haddix

I just finished the second book in The Missing series by Haddix, of Shadow Children series fame. Found, the first book, is a great science fiction read. Jonah is a regular middle school kid who likes to shoot hoops, hang with his friends, avoid his younger sister - he could be you. His parents, who love him dearly, told him as soon as he was old enough to understand, that he is adopted. One day while hanging with his friend Chip he received mail in a plain white envelope with this message inside: You are one of the missing. Missing? He's lived in his house for as long as he can remember. What he doesn't know is that thirteen years ago a plane appeared at an airport that wasn't scheduled to land, hadn't reported engine trouble...it just wasn't. However, he was on that plane along with thirty-five other babies. No pilots, no navigators, no flight attendants - just the babies. Jonah, Chip, and his sister Katherine set out to discover what the note means and a drawn into the mystery surrounding their arrival thirteen years ago.

On to book number two - Sent. Without giving away too much of the first book, Jonah, Chip, and Katherine find themselves in the fifteenth century in the Tower of London. This book is suspenseful, mysterious, and as thrilling as the first one. I am ready for the third one...whenever that may be.

NOTE: Found is one of the books in the PA Young Readers choices. Read any three - and they are all good - and you can vote for your favorite one. The author will receive an award from PSLA (PA School Librarians Association). Authors really like this kind of thing...honestly.

8th Grade Book Talks

Just Have to Read!

My good friend, a school librarian in New Hampshire, emailed and asked if I had read The Hunger Games since it was very popular in her middle school. Since I was already ordering titles from the survey on the library home page (THANK YOU!), I ordered a copy. It arrived yesterday; I finished it this morning. All I can say is September is too long to wait for the sequel.

New Non-Fiction

Here are new nonfiction series available:

• Essential Science series - All About Gases; Keeping Warm; Light & Seeing; Solids & Liquids; Forces & Friction; Changing Sounds; Circuits & Conductors; Earth, Moon & Sun
• Fundamental Physics series - Light and Color; Solar System and Beyond; Sound and Vibration; Forces and Motion; Electricity and Magnetism; Energy and Matter
• Can you Feel the Force? Putting the Fizz back into Physics
  
• UXL Space Exploration Reference Library - includes almanac, biographies and primary sources
• Discovering Space series - Far Planets; Comets and Asteroids; Sun; Moon; Near Planets
• Earth and Space series - Space Objects; Jupiter; Neptune, and Other Outer Planets; Mercury, Mars, and Other Inner Planets; Beyond the Solar System; Earth and Its Moon
• Humans in Space series - Race into Space; Return to the Moon; Exploring Planet Mars; Flight into Orbit
• Issues that Concern You series - Student Drug Testing; Drunk Driving; Obesity; Gun Violence; Medical Marijuana
• Incarceration Issues series -Alternatives to Prison; History of Incarceration; Incarceration Around the World; Inequities of the Justice System; Political Prisoners; Prison Conditions; Prisoner Rehabilitation; Prisoners on Death Row; Social, Monetary and Moral Cost of Prisons; Women in Prisons; Youth in Prisons
• Black History series - Slave Rebellions; From Ragtime to Hip-Hop: A Century of Black American Music; Separate but Equal: Desegrgation of America’s Schools
• A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future by Daniel H. Pink
• Pay it Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde
• The Football Game I’ll Never Forget: 100 NFL Stars’ Stories
• The Complete Book of Soccer and David Beckham’s Soccer Skills

8th Grade Only - Law and Disorder Literature Circles

8th Grade Only - Stirring Up Justice Literature Circles

Some to Consider

If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period by Gennifer Choldenko (author of Al Capone Does My Shirts)

• Kristen in in 7th grade and everything she know is changing - drastically. Her parents aren’t getting along and Kristen and her friends aren’t getting along. When school starts friendships are terribly strained. A new student, Walk, is in 7th grade and his goal is to survive this private, very expensive school his mother has sent him to. Told in alternating chapters by Kristen and Walk, experience their frustrations with friends, family, race, weight, and school.

Life as We Knew It by Susan Pfeffer

• Miranda is a junior in high school and is given assignment after assignment focusing on the moon and the warnings that a meteor is heading directly toward it. After witnessing the collision of the meteor, life changes rapidly for the entire world. This book is her journal entries of how her family and she strive to survive in terrible times.
• This book inspires me to investigate meteors, the moon, survival, tsumanis, earthquakes, volcanoes, flu epidemics, West Nile Virus….need I say any more about “terrible times”?

Try the guys version - The Dead and The Gone - told from the point of view of a young man in New York City with an entirely different experience of the same catastrophic event.

Side Effects by Amy Goldman Koss

• Noticing a swollen lymph node one morning, Izzy tells her mom and goes off to school. She is called out of class to go to the doctor and her life changes in an few short hours. The doctor tells her she has cancer, she is sent to the hospital, and quickly admitted. Izzy tells her story of dealing with cancer treatment in an authentic voice filled with humor and pain.