Calling It for the Printz: "Winger" by Andrew Smith

I will absolutely get to the comments you guys have posted over the past several days, put up your book reviews, AND welcome our new blogger(s) (by the way, did I mention we have new bloggers! so awesome!), but right now I just want to direct everyone's attention to this book ------------>

It's Winger by Andrew Smith, and I'm calling this one now: it's definitely my pick for the 2014 Printz award (honoring what the judges consider to be the past year's best YA book).  To sum it up quick and dirty, it's about 14-year-old Ryan Dean West, a junior (yes that's right, he's a 14-year-old junior) at a northwestern elite private school for rich kids.  Ryan is pretty much a normal teenage dude: he's in love with a "smoking hot" girl (his best friend, who's 16 and thinks of Ryan Dean as a little kid), gets into fights with jerks, plays sports (rugby, which I never found particularly interesting until Winger), and he's navigating that tricky terrain between constantly feeling like a loser and not actually being a loser.  Oh, and he's constantly thinking about the stuff that pretty much all teenage boys think about (I won't say anything more about that other than wink wink).

It's an incredibly funny book that chronicles the everyday misadventures of Ryan Dean West (there's all kinds of comics scattered throughout the store), but ultimately Winger (named after Ryan Dean's position on the rugby team, which is also his nickname) is a tragicomedy.  I won't say anything more, other than that something pretty life-changing--no, very life-changing--happens at Pine Mountain that....Well, that changes Ryan Dean's life (hence, you know, the life-changing thing).

It's hard to say a lot about this book without giving away major plot points, but I will say it's one of my top reads of 2013 so far.  I'd strongly recommend it, especially for anyone 14+, but please be aware that Winger contains graphic language and semi-graphic themes (you know, the whole wink wink and all).  In other words, it contains the kinds of language you'd probably hear kids saying in most high schools; it contains the kind of words you'll probably hear (and probably already do hear) in real life.

Winger is a fairly mature read that may not be for everyone.

Go read it.*



*Unless you don't want to.  Or wait a couple of years, and then read it.  It's worth the wait!

The Desolation of Smaug

So here it is, the trailer (well, one of many more trailers to come, I'm sure) for the second part of the Hobbit movies.  The Hobbit is one of my favorite books, so I'm slightly bummed that the fim version doesn't follow that storyline very closely, but I get that the movies are supposed to sort of encompass the entire LOTR universe.  That's cool, I guess.  I can get on board.

So, I don't know about anyone else, but I think Bilbo Baggins is pretty crush-worthy.  First of all, despite the hairy feet, he's kind of adorable (why yes, I will happily admit that Martin Freeman, the actor who plays Bilbo, happens to be one of my few celebrity crushes.  I mean, he's been in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie, Sherlock the tv show, Hot Fuzz (one of my favorite movies), AND he's Bilbo?  Who DOESN'T love this guy?!).  Second, Bilbo is a seriously badass and epic hero.  Yes, he starts out wanting to sit around in his little* hobbit hole drinking tea and eating biscuits and making nice floral arrangements (okay I don't know if he actually does this, but arranging flowers seems like a hobbit-y type of thing to do).  He's not into the whole adventure scene, going out and fighting scary things and slaying dragons and rescuing looted treasures and stuff.  But that's sort of exactly what makes him a freakingly awesome hero.  Right? Because anyone who's INTO that kind of stuff can go out and do it and maybe be pretty good at adventuring and all that; but you kind of have to admire Bilbo because he's terrified and uncomfortable and doing something so far beyond what he ever imagined he would or could do in his  life--and THAT takes some serious guts.  THAT, I think, is what being a hero is about--being ballsy and sticking up for and rescuing your friends and standing up against the bad guys, even when you're terrified.

The movie comes out in December!  Can't wait.

Put the first movie, The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey, on hold at APL or
find the book in our catalog

*I say "little," but let's be honest, that hobbit hole is HUGE and pretty freaking luxurious.  I'd trade my tiny little apartment for Bilbo's hobbit hole any day.

YA Book Review: "The Probability of Miracles" by Wendy Wunder

So this book was recommended to me by TAG's own Caitlyn* and yes, she assured me, Wendy Wunder IS the author's real name (I totally didn't believe it was her real name, because doesn't it sound like a superhero name or like, a bad stripper name?).

Anyway, The Probability of Miracles is a book about cancer, and nothing says fun summer read like YA books about teens with cancer!  But really, sort of like John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, this book is actually incredibly witty and lots of fun, though obviously yes, there are terrible, incredibly heartbreaking moments as well (because, you know, CANCER).

Campbell Cooper is 15, lives in Disney in Florida with her mom and younger sister, and she has cancer; she's also completely sick of being dragged around from hospital to hospital and healer to healer to find something, anything that will help make her better.  She's slowly dying from her illness, and there's probably pretty much nothing that's going to change that.

Except....Except Cam's mom hears of a town in Maine that's nearly impossible to find but supposedly possesses healing powers, and so the family packs up and heads north for the summer in Cam's little car and a U-Haul to lovely, beach-y Promise, Maine (which they do find, but barely, after picking up some milkshakes and whoopie pies from a Dunkin Donuts which, by the way, is one of my most favorite places ever).

Soon Cam is noticing all kinds of things -- flamingos nesting in Maine (if you've never been to the northeast, I guarantee you you'll never see a flamingo up there that isn't in a cage), the astonishing reappearance of something that'd been missing, the fact that is, in fact, feeling so much better -- things that her mother and sister swear are miracles, but which Cam just writes off as coincidences.  The thing is, Cam doesn't believe she can afford to have hope.  How can she hope for a miracle when she's pretty sure she won't live to see her 18th birthday?

Enter a guy (an adorable guy named Asher); old friends (well, really just one old friend**); a cast of new friends; and the "Flamingo List," Cam's list of stuff she'd like to do before she dies, like have an awkward moment with her best friend's boyfriend--all of which change Cam's life in ways she never thought possible.

Seriously, I love Cam's sarcasm, her little sister's funny way of being both weirdly mature for an 11-year-old but also adorably young (she has this ridiculous theory on why unicorns obviously exist), and Asher's sweet naivety.   Despite the heavy topic, I think this actually is a great summer read, and I'm really glad Caity recommended it to me.  Two thumbs up.

Find "The Probability of Miracles" at APL

*Spelling fixed, thanks!**That is, someone Cam's been friends with for awhile, not someone she's friends with who's like, a hundred years old.  Just clarifyin'.

YA Book Review: "One Came Home" by Amy Timberlake* **

1871 is a big year for 13-year-old Georgie: her older sister has disappeared with a group of pigeoners and instead of bringing Agatha home, the sheriff returns to their Placid, Wisconsin town with a body half-eaten by animals and missing a face and both hands, but still recognizable by its dress, a beautiful, shimmering, turquoise green gown hand stitched for Agatha by their mother.  For Mrs. Burkhardt and Grandfather Bolte, the dress is indisputable proof of Agatha's death; she is buried the next day.

Georgie suffers through her sister's funeral, but refuses to believe Agatha is dead -- Agatha, who craved a life of education, rather than marriage; Agatha, who climbed up into trees and down into caves and could survive nearly anything; Agatha with the red, red hair.  For the past year, Georgie's worst fear has been the possibility of losing her beloved sister to a husband or to the university, but death?  She knows her sister would never leave her that way, and with her rifle, a mule, Captain Randolph B. Marcy's The Prairie Traveler: A Hand-Book for Overland Expeditions, and a heart nearly collapsing with guilt -- Georgie had betrayed her sister not long before Agatha vanished; had she been ultimately responsible for whatever fate her sister met? -- Georgie sets out to prove that Agatha is alive.

Joined by Agatha's former beau on a journey to Dog Hollow, Wisconsin, Georgie unravels mysteries and discovers others, and is changed in ways she never sought or believed she would be.  One Came Home is a beautiful historical coming-of-age story full of mystery and adventure (Georgie just happens to be the best 13-year-old shot in Placid, if not in all of Wisconsin).  Recommended.

Find "One Came Home" at APL

* I would just like to point out that I wrote this book review for APL Youth Services's more "mature" blog for adults, which is why it doesn't sound like me and lacks all my favorite words to use, like "totally" and "yeah, so" and "awesome."  Rest assured, though, that this book is seriously awesome.  I highly recommend it!

** Also by the way, Amy Timberlake is also the author of the picture book "The Dirty Cowboy," illustrated by Adam Rex.  It's a children's book about, well, a dirty cowboy and it's been challenged, restricted, and/or banned in a handful of libraries, as well as by parents around the country, because it depicts a "half-naked" cowboy who's getting ready to take a bath.  Well I gotta say, librarian or not, I'm on the side of the parents here.  Taking clothes off to take a bath?  Never!  I don't know about anyone else, but I always shower with my clothes on.

‘THE MAZE RUNNER’ FIRST LOOK: GET LOST IN THE GLADE

Best maze EVER

Apparently the picture here isn't a screenshot from the upcoming movie version of James Dashner's The Maze Runner, but is just a picture director Wes Ball created for himself as inspiration for the filming.  Should Wes Ball happen to stumble upon this blog, my thoughts to you are: PLEASE MAKE THE MAZE IN THE MAZE RUNNER LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THIS.  It is awesome.  So freaking awesome.

For those of you who haven't read The Maze Runner, it's about this kid Thomas who wakes up in an elevator that rises up out of the ground and drops him off into this lush, green pasture-type place called the Glade, where a bunch of other kids -- all dudes, no girls -- sleep, eat, work, hang out, and basically live, trapped in the Glade, with no adults in sight.  It sounds kind of awesome, but it isn't -- Thomas can't remember anything other than his name, a lot of the other guys in the Glade are hardened and tough, they have no memories or any idea why they've been brought here, and seemingly the only way to escape what is essentially their prison is to try to find their way through a maze that changes each morning and is deadly to be trapped in at night.  Also, there's no girls (this is not a main plot point.  Thomas doesn't sit around wishing there were girls.  I'm just saying, a green field with a bunch of smelly guys and no girls?  Lame.)  There's a lot of suspense in The Maze Runner, plus a couple of pretty good plot twists.  It's not like, my most favorite YA book ever, but it's definitely pretty great.  Worth reading for sure, two thumbs up, etc.

The Maze Runner will star Dylan O'Brien as Thomas, and the official movie release date is currently set at February 14, 2014.  Valentine's Day!  Nothing says romantic like a dystopian movie about teenagers who've had their memories wiped and are forced to fight for their survival, right?

Things That Have Happened in the Last Forever

1) E. L. Konigsburg died, which is sad, because she was an awesome author (she's got TWO Newbery gold medals, which only a few other authors have (another is Lois Lowry) and she's the ONLY AUTHOR EVER IN THE HISTORY OF AUTHORS to have won both a Newbery gold medal AND a Newbery honor IN THE SAME YEAR--that's like winning best actress and best supporting actress at one time!).  This is also particularly sad, because From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was my favorite book when I was in 6th grade, and I've read it probably more times than any other book (in fact, my copy was so ragged that it completely fell apart and was held together with a rubber band).  If you haven't read it, it's the story of Claudia and Jamie Kincaid, a sister and brother who team up to run away from home to live / hideout in the Metropolitan Museum of freaking Art, which, if you haven't been, is MASSIVE and wonderful and solemn and gorgeous and is part of the heart of New York City, one of the best places on the planet.  They sleep in Marie Antoinette's bed.  They bathe in the glorious fountain in the museum cafe (then realize that they can um, borrow some of the coins people have wished on to buy food and other necessities).  They hide in bathrooms from security guards.  Oh, and they end up finding a mystery to solve, too.  The book is sort of old timey, yeah, since it was published in the late 60's, but the old timey-ness comes across more as quaint than lame (like, it costs them a dollar or something each to travel by train from Connecticut to New York; um, hello, the last time I took the train from New Jersey into New York it was like, 40 bucks or something, and Jersey's way closer to the city than Connecticut is).  ANYWAY.  Mrs. Konigsburg's passing is a bummer for sure.  Rest in peace, lady.


2) These grass heads made by some TAG'ers are awesome, plain and simple.

3) Oh, and HERE'S something else that happened: I updated this blog!  Amazing!  Big pat on the back to me!  I've decided to make it a goal to write at least once a week.  I used to think things like sleep and eating and snuggling my cats are important, but obviously I've had my priorities wrong.  This will happen, even it means doubling my general intake of 3 cups of coffee a day.  I might just die, but rest assured, this blog will be updated.

(What I will probably look like in a few weeks)

Movies!

I absolutely cannot wait for the November release of The Hunger Games and the second installment of The Hobbit in December; they're probably the two movies I'm looking forward to the most this year.  In the meantime, though, there's Oz: the Great and Powerful (March), The Great Gatsby (May), and The City of Bones (August) to look forward to.  (The Sea of Monsters, the second Percy Jackson book, is also coming out in August, but I have mixed feelings about that one.  I didn't care for the fact that Percy is 11-years-old in The Lightning Thief, but like, 20 in the movie.  Seriously, he looked older than me!)

So here's the trailer for The Mortal Instruments: The City of Bones, which is the first in a series of six books by Cassandra Clare (the sixth book comes out next year).  I'm sure many of you have already read it, but if not, I'd definitely recommend it.  The story begins when 15-year-old Clary witnesses a murder at the Pandemonium Club in New York City.  Sounds like a call-the-cops kinda situation right?  Yes, except the murderers in this case are seemingly invisible to everyone but Clary.  Soon she's drawn into the world of Shadowhunters, whose mission is to hunt demons.  It's a supernatural and suspenseful and generally awesome read; it's also slated to become the Next Big Thing after Twilight and The Hunger Games.  That's a pretty bold prediction, I think, but who knows?

APL currently has three copies of the book which, as of today, are each are checked out, with two people on the holds list.  If you're interested, definitely get on that list now!  I guarantee the request list will only get longer and longer the closer we get to the movie's release date.  (No pressure or anything though... :)

Apparently a movie is in the works for the first book in Clare's The Infernal Devices series, which is set in Victorian-era England and is a prequel to The Mortal Instruments.  She's also currently in the process of writing another series, The Dark Artifices, a series of sequels to The Mortal Instruments.  Geez, Cassandra Clare is one busy lady!  Gonna be honest, it made me tired just writing all that out.

March Madness, or The Big Dance

So "March Madness" refers to the crazy popular college men's basketball single-elimination championship tournament held each spring; it's one of those quivery-excitement thing that people (well, at least sports-type people) look forward to every year.  AND, as I just learned, March Madness is also apparently known as "the Big Dance."  Which, let's be honest, sounds a lot less awesome than March Madness (although I do find it completely entertaining to imagine big dudes hanging around, talking about "the Big Dance").

Anyway, this March APL is going to be hosting its own glorious, utterly nerdy version of March Madness, but instead of rounds eliminating basketball teams, our tournament will be a most awesome book for 7th graders and up championship.  Each week, teens get to go online and vote for their favorite among the 16 selected books that are pitted against one another until the whole thing culminates in one winner.

      

The bracket, by the way, is up on the wall behind the computers in the APL Zone, and it looks AWESOME.  Like, seriously epic, and I'm totally not just saying that because my boyfriend put it up and it took him 7 hours on a Saturday when we could've been home watching the IT Crowd or Sherlock or out shopping in Des Moines.

So on to the books.  Some of the winners are going to be hard to pick: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is up against The Graveyard Book.  The Giver is playing against The Westing Game. Seriously?  Seriously?  Tough call.  I'm glad I'm not the one who has to choose, though I think I'll have fun trying to predict each elimination rounds' winner.

Will post the link to the online voting when it's available...In the meantime, definitely brush up on some of the books on the list linked above and get ready to vote at the beginning of March when the polls officially open (sounds dramatic much?)!

The Academy Awards of Teen Books!

Do you know what today was (besides Monday)?  It was the day the American Library Association announced (among a bunch of other fine awards) the winners of the Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in YA literature and John Newbery Award for excellence in children's lit published in 2012--in the nerdy world of librarians, this is basically the equivalent of the Academy Awards, and authors, illustrators, and book lovers everywhere anticipate this day with eager, nervous, shivery excitement, much the way children look forward to Christmas and my cats look forward to getting fed every day (those pigs, you'd think I was starving them).  Winning one of these awards is huge.  H-U-G-E huge.  In terms of prestige and honor and recognition of one's inimitable talent, getting one of those shiny gold or silver seals stamped on to your book really is like winning an Oscar.

I really had "The Fault in Our Stars" pegged as, if not a gold winner (because let's face, John Green always wins awards, so why not let someone else have a moment in the Printz sun?), then at least a Printz honor book.  A story about two teenagers with cancer who fall in love--sign me up!  But seriously, who else but John Green could turn something so horrible and heartbreaking into something so poetic and--here's where his talent becomes obvious--so funny and actually readable and far more about life than death?  Um, teens with cancer.  Not particularly funny.  Not necessarily something I'd want to spend a lazy Saturday reading about.  John Green makes it not only bearable, but awesome.

So of course, John Green didn't win anything (well okay, TFiOS did get the Odyssey Award for best audio book but, while nice, that ain't no Printz).  Here ARE the winners of the Printz Award for the best YA books published in 2012 (since I know you're rolling on the floor in agonizing anticipation).  (Also, if you click on the book covers, you'll notice that APL owns each title except "The White Bicycle."  Hope to remedy that soon.)

& the gold winner, the numero uno Michael L. Printz winner of 2012:

"In Darkness" by Nick Lake.  Summary: "In the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, fifteen-year-old Shorty, a poor gang member from the slums of Site Soleil, is trapped in the rubble of a ruined hospital, and as he grows weaker he has visions and memories of his life of violence, his lost twin sister, and of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who liberated Haiti from French rule in 1804."

I haven't read this book yet, but I do like the book cover.  Earthquakes?  Slums?  Poverty?  A slow death?  Sounds as fun as teens with cancer!  Can't wait to get to this book and see what makes it the best YA title of 2012 (at least according to a small panel  of random people).

Has anyone read any of these titles?  Are they worthy of their Printz win?  Anyone have a favorite book from last year, whether it was something published in 2012 or just something you read in the past year?