Showing posts with label Gary Schmidt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gary Schmidt. Show all posts

Sunday, November 1, 2015

What's New in November? (part 5)

Orbiting Jupiter by Gary Schmidt
Contemporary Fiction 
Jack, 12, tells the gripping story of Joseph, 14, who joins his family as a foster child. Damaged in prison, Joseph wants nothing more than to find his baby daughter, Jupiter, whom he has never seen. When Joseph has begun to believe he'll have a future, he is confronted by demons from his past that force a tragic sacrifice.

One by Sarah Crossan
Contemporary Fiction 
Tippi and Grace share everything--clothes, friends . . . even their body. Writing in free verse, Sarah Crossan tells the sensitive and moving story of conjoined twin sisters, which will find fans in readers of Gayle Forman, Jodi Picoult, and Jandy Nelson. Tippi and Grace. Grace and Tippi. For them, it's normal to step into the same skirt. To hook their arms around each other for balance. To fall asleep listening to the other breathing. To share. And to keep some things private. Each of the sixteen-year-old girls has her own head, heart, and two arms, but at the belly, they join. And they are happy, never wanting to risk the dangerous separation surgery. But the girls' body is beginning to fight against them. And Grace doesn't want to admit it. Not even to Tippi. How long can they hide from the truth--how long before they must face the most impossible choice of their lives? 

Paperweight by Meg Haston
Contemporary Fiction 
Seventeen-year-old Stevie is trapped. In her life. In her body. And now in an eating-disorder treatment center on the dusty outskirts of the New Mexico desert. Life in the center is regimented and intrusive, a nightmare come true. Nurses and therapists watch Stevie at meal time, accompany her to the bathroom, and challenge her to eat the foods she's worked so hard to avoid. Her dad has signed her up for sixty days of treatment. But what no one knows is that Stevie doesn't plan to stay that long. There are only twenty-seven days until the anniversary of her brother Josh's death--the death she caused. And if Stevie gets her way, there are only twenty-seven days until she, too, will end her life. Paperweight follows Stevie's journey as she struggles not only with this life-threatening eating disorder, but with the question of whether she can ever find absolution for the mistakes of her past...and whether she truly deserves to.

Pretending to be Erica by Michelle Painchaud
Action/Adventure 
Erica Silverman was abducted when she was four. She was snatched outside her kindergarten and never seen again. Over the past thirteen years, her multimillionaire parents have spared no expense trying to find her. Then, one day, the miracle happens. Erica frees herself from her kidnappers and finds her way home. She is seventeen. Years of her life are lost. She is battered. She has PTSD. She has to relearn everything about who she is and where she's from. And there's one more thing: She is not Erica Silverman. Violet is the daughter of the best con man in Las Vegas. She has spent her whole life preparing to step into the shoes of a girl she has never met. But she is also Violet, and she has a job: stay long enough to steal the legendary Silverman Painting. Walking a razor's edge, calculating every decision, not sure sometimes who she is or what she is doing it all for, Violet is getting lost in her own lies. . . .

Public Enemies by Ann Aguirre
Paranormal 
Through a Faustian bargain, Edie Kramer has been pulled into the dangerous world of the Immortal Game, where belief makes your nightmares real. Hungry for sport, fears-made-flesh are always raising the stakes. To them, human lives are less than nothing, just pieces on a board. Because of her boyfriend Kian's sacrifice, she's operating under the mysterious Harbinger's aegis, but his patronage could prove as fatal as the opposition. Raw from deepest loss, she's terrified over the deal Kian made for her. Though her very public enemies keep sending foot soldiers - mercenary monsters committed to her destruction - she's not the one playing under a doom clock. Kian has six months . . . unless Edie can save him. And this is a game she can't bear to lose.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Teen Book Club - Okay for Now

HeyYAs,

The Teen Book Club met tonight.  Here's what we read:

While Doug struggles to be more than the thug that his teachers and the police think him to be, he finds and unlikely ally in Lil Spicer, as they explore Audubon's art.

Heres what we thought:

Melanie - 5.5 - (Did not finish last 60 pages) The book didn't encourage you to read on and enjoy the book, but really loved the paintings.

Clare - 6 - Liked how the Audubon pictures framed what was going on, but the way the book was written the story was too discouraging, so didn't really want to finish it.  (but she did!)

Catherine - 7 (Did not finish) You like it if your prepared for a harsh reality book with some hope in it.

MissG - 6.5 - Found this book very hard to get into and thought that it really only grabbed my attention about halfway through.

Average -  6.25 - Probably our lowest rated book so far!  Oh well.  On to...

October book:

Grab a copy at the front desk and we will discuss and snack on Tuesday, October 30th at 6:30!


Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Teen Book Club - August - Black Hole Sun

Hey YAs.  We had a very special Teen Book Club last night.  Not only did we talk about a fantastic book, we got to Skype with the author!  It was very cool and we were all very impressed.

We started out discussing the book itself:

On the planet Mars, sixteen-year-old Durango and his crew of mercenaries are hired by the settlers of a mining community to protect their most valuable resource from a feral band of marauders.
I found a really great discussion guide online from HarperTeen and we used it to frame our discussion.  You can see it HERE. 

After discussing the book, we had our Skype video call with David Macinnis Gill and the members of the teen book club had some really great questions for him including: how do you pronounce draeu (dray - oo or dr-ow are both fine!), how does he decide the names for characters, how does he decides if and when a character will die, if he thinks that Ockham got his beautiful death, what its like to get published, and more!  It was such a fantastic experience we are very grateful to DMG for sharing his time with us!

After our video chat, we decided on our rating and final thoughts:

Clare gave it a 7.9, she liked the ending especially.  It left if open for a sequel but still finished itself off so you were satisfied and not left hanging.
Catherine gave it an 8, she really liked Durango and Mimi and said that there is a fine line between annoying and funny and Mimi was most definitely funny!  She also thought the book had a great balance of action and relationship building.
Melanie gave it an 8, she thought it was a good science fiction book and she had never read a book set on Mars before, this was a great first Mars book for her!
Jill gave it an 8, she really loved the characters, especially Mimi!
Miss G gave it an 8.5, she loved the sci-fi story, great characters (some of her faves were Mimi, the Queen, and Jenkins), and the grungy dystopian like setting.

Average for Black Hole Sun - 8.1!  Obviously we all enjoyed it...I expect for our copy of Invisible Sun to be missing for the next several weeks! ;)

For September we are reading Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt:

While Doug struggles to be more than the thug that his teachers and the police think him to be, he finds and unlikely ally in Lil Spicer, as they explore Audubon's art.
So grab a copy of the book from the front desk and join us on Tuesday, September 25th at 6:30 for a discussion, snack, and a preview of October's new books!  Hope to see you then~