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!

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~