Staff Picks
Posted On: Jan 11, 2013 In: Staff Picks
Dust Girl is quite the fantastic journey. It centers around Callie who has grown up with an overprotective and somewhat mentally disabled mother. They run the only bed in breakfast in a small Kansas town that has been plagued by the dust storms of the 1930′s. During the worst storm, Callie’s mother disappears and out of the dust emerges a being who tells Callie she’s not quite human. Read More..
Posted On: Jan 4, 2013 In: Staff Picks
What if Earth was ruled by a young being named Bob? And, what would happen to the world if he kept crushing on one Earth girl after another? Floods and droughts within the same week? Meg Rosoff posits just this type of world in her book, There is no Dog. Read More..
Posted On: Dec 2, 2012 In: Staff Picks, Teen Zone
“Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.
This is not that world.”
Last year, when Daughter of Smoke and Bone ended with Karou sneaking through a slit in the sky, I couldn’t believe I’d have to wait so many months to find out what happens next. Luckily, it was worth the wait. As much as I loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Days of Blood and Starlight was better.
Read More..
Posted On: Nov 28, 2012 In: Staff Picks, Teen Zone
Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer
What is it about? Delilah is a bit of a loner who prefers spending her time in the school library with her head in a book—one book in particular. Between the Lines may be a fairy tale, but it feels real. Prince Oliver is brave, adventurous, and loving. He really speaks to Delilah. And then one day Oliver actually speaks to her. Read More..
Posted On: Nov 24, 2012 In: Staff Picks, Teen Zone
Rachel Cohn is best known for Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares, two popular contemporary and realistic young adult novels. When I saw she was coming out with a science fiction dystopian novel, I was intrigued.
Beta is set on the otherworldly island of Demesne, where the air is so full of oxygen, the environment so lush, it seems like paradise. The island is staffed by clones made from the bodies of those who have died, and these clones serve the elite humans who make Demesne their home. Elysia is one of the first teen clones, making her a Beta. Read More..
Posted On: Nov 17, 2012 In: Staff Picks, Teen Zone
Personal Effects by E. M. Kokie gets you in your heart with its very simple and real story. Matt is full of anger. Frustration. Even young men who have not experienced the devastating loss of a brother dying during combat will relate to this character.
Read More..
Posted On: Nov 3, 2012 In: Staff Picks, Teen Zone
So, there are a lot of dystopian YA novels out there, and a whole new crop of them this fall. In fact, there were so many I had to update my If you liked The Hunger Games” flowchart (and I still feel like I’m leaving some out).
Despite the seemingly endless supply of novels about a teen challenging the authority of their seemingly perfect yet obviously malicious society, none are quite like Crewel by Gennifer Albin.
Read More..
Posted On: Oct 31, 2012 In: Staff Picks, Teen Zone
Since I read A Wrinkle in Time, I have been fascinated with time travel. Whether it involved going back into the past or light-years into the future I was always intrigued by these kind of stories. Though I have never been much of a science nerd, I blazed through Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, especially the chapter on wormholes and time travel.
But at the end of the day, what really draws me into a book is the love story, so I was interested to read Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone. Read More..
Posted On: Oct 19, 2012 In: Staff Picks, Teen Zone
Perspective is everything. History is written by the victors. Eyewitness accounts of crimes are notoriously unreliable because two people who saw the exact same event may have radically different accounts. There’s no reason to believe two characters in a novel might tell the story in very different ways.
In Jodi Lynn Anderson’s newest novel, Tiger Lily, she recounts the familiar childhood tale of Peter Pan, but with a twist. The story is told from Tinkerbell’s perspective, and she begins long before Peter and the lost boys ever met Wendy Darling. Tink gives us the scoop on Peter Pan’s first love, Tiger Lily.
Read More..
Posted On: Oct 7, 2012 In: Staff Picks, Teen Zone
Every time we get a new vampire book, I’m astonished someone is still publishing them. In the young adult section here at Lawrence Public Library, we have 198 books under the the subject heading vampires–fiction. I’m a fan of vampire books, but after some disappointing selections, I’ve become wary of new additions to this bloated genre.
But I decided to take a chance on The Immortal Rules, and I’m glad I did. Julie Kawaga has made a unique and gripping contribution to young adult vampire fiction.
Read More..
