Friday 18 June 2010 at 11:33 am
So I get these emails from these guys: http://www.shmoop.com/. I don't know that much about it, but they sent me this great book list voted on by librarians and educators. Give it a look!
- The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
- The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
- Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
- To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
- Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
- Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
- Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
- The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
- The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
- Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
- Graceling, by Kristin Cashore
- Unwind, by Neal Shusterman
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
- Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher
- The Omnivore's Dilemma: Young Reader's Edition, by Michael Pollan
- Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay
- Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
- When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead
Friday 18 June 2010 at 11:05 am
See you can get some CAKE points and talk about safety and make a cool video all at the same time.
Tuesday 15 June 2010 at 4:34 pm
NPR's Car Talk named The Yugo "the worst car of the millennium." It's considered by many to be a lemon. It was ugly and slow, and, compared to the rest of the market, not many were sold in the United States. Yet it has earned itself a place in the American Zeitgeist. For better or worse The Yugo has become synonymous with failure. However, author Jason Vuic paints a clearer picture of The Yugo in his book. It's a story of communism, cars, 80's excess, and more.
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Tuesday 01 June 2010 at 3:25 pm
Our Part-Time Guy, Taylor, made this little video.
Thursday 29 April 2010 at 1:37 pm
Another Xtranormal Episode! This time Megan and Emma discuss E. Lockhart's Printz honor book,
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks.
Thursday 15 April 2010 at 11:26 am
I was at a conference recently and I learned about some cool software called
Xtranormal, from some nice librarians named Rachel Malay and Kate Wise. Basically, you type what you want your characters to say and "TADA!," you have a movie. The voices are roboty and it's a little silly, but I present to you Brandon and I booktalking
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.
Thursday 25 March 2010 at 1:36 pm
So if you are a high school manga fan, then I may have recommended the
Scott Pilgrim series to you. It's an amazing mashup of eastern and western comics along with videogames, roleplaying games, and more. They are hilarious and uber-cool. Well, anyway, a movie is coming out later this year. After months of build-up, the trailer is finally here.
Monday 22 March 2010 at 11:56 am
I love March Madness. Love it. Love it. Love it. Although, after Kansas went down in the second round to Northern Iowa the other night I loved it a little less. Anyway, I think this championship bracket, playoff format is the best in all of sports. One game and you're done. You have to show up, or you're out. I also like when people apply this sort of format to books (see School Library Journal Battle of the Kid's Books for a great example.)
But today, after reading a comment by this lady, I stumbled upon a great use of the March Madness Tournament to connect sports and reading. It's the SMS Guys Read Book and Basketball Championship, and they have attached a book to each of the 64 teams in the tournament (1 book was attached to Arkansas Pine Bluff and Winthrop who played in the Play-in Game). After the 1st week of the actual tournament there are some suprise teams, and books, in the Sweet Sixteen. Some of our favorites here are still in the running (Leviathan, When You Reach Me, No More Dead Dogs, Ender's Game, The Schwa was Here, Peter and the Starcatchers.) Very Cool. Check it out.
Tuesday 16 March 2010 at 12:36 pm
This is possibly my favorite title of any book of all time. It's a little misleading, although less so than the pink cover. But the pink cover led to some design quirks inside the book that I loved (DESIGN SPOLER ALERT: There are some pink pages.) To be fair, I love any book that is a little quirky, uneven pages, brown font, blue font, etc.
Anyway, the title is sort of misleading. It makes perfect sense, and it is a perfect title for the book. However, if a reader were to be expecting, say, robots, they'd be a little disappointed. Instead, this is a beautiful, restrained (a word key to its success) story of a friendship.
Beatrice bounces from town to town; her father is always looking for better or different jobs as a professor. She doesn't really know how to relate to other kids her age. She also has trouble processing how she is "supposed" to feel in certain situations. For instance, in the beginning a hamster she hasn't owned for very long dies. She isn't particularly attached to the hamster, so she isn't really sad. This leads her mother to call her a robot. And that disconnect with her emotions and other people plays throughout the story. It's a story of identity. On the other side of the story is Jonah, who after his mother and twin brother died in a car wreck officially checked out from a social life. He's earned himself the nickname Ghost Boy. And so it goes. Two outsiders who bond over a quirky radio program and quickly begin spending most of their time together.
This book is nice. It's main pro, it isn't a romance. These two share deep feelings for each other, possibly love, but no more than friends, very good friends. There is a great line where Beatrice is trying to describe their relationship and she says, "He's just my Jonah." Their friendship isn't easy either. Most of the characters are well-drawn, especially Bea and Jonah. They are complicated, so it should make sense that their friendship is complex and even frustrating. And it leads to an emotionally devastating ending, phrased well in the language of a robot and a ghost. I nearly cried.
It is flawed, however. Standiford takes some bizarre, unbelievable twists through this book. The focus should be the friendship, but at times it veers into a totally strange mystery (without saying too much: someone who was thought to be dead, may not be. And there may or may not be a cover-up.) It's a curveball, and one I wasn't really willing to follow, but Standiford makes it work. Sort of. It is still bananas and I still have a problem with that plot thread, but her best quality, restraint, saves her. She keeps it tasteful, and does keep the friendship as the focus. Still, their friendship would have been more believable if she hadn't steered off the road for a bit.
