Uglies: Shay's Story

Uglies: Shay's Story by Scott Westerfeld ; illustrations by
Steven Cummings
Summary from back cover:
Uglies told Tally Youngblood's version of life in Uglyville and the budding rebellion against the Specials. Now comes an exciting graphic novel revealing new adventures in the Uglies world - as seen through the eyes of Shay. Tally's rebellious best friend who's not afraid to break the rules, no matter the cost.
A few months shy of her sixteenth birthday, Shay eagerly awaits her turn to become a Pretty - a rite-of-passage operation called "the Surge" that tranforms ordinary Uglies into paragons of beauty. Yet after befriending the Crims, a group of fellow teens who refuse to take anything in society at face value, Shay starts to question the whole concept. And as the Crims explore beyond the monitored borders of Uglyville into the forbidden , ungoverned wild, Shay must choose between the perks of being Pretty and the rewards of being real.

I've tried reading the Uglies series before and never could get into to it - so I thought I'd give the graphic novel version a try - this was the right path for me, I liked the futuristic interpretation of the Uglies / Pretties world. The Black & White manga style drawing is a great choice  for these wide eyed teens in a society where everything revolves around looks. It was a fun, fast read and I look forward to more of the graphic novel adaptations.
Fans of Maximum Ride graphic novels might want to try this series out.

Book trailer.

Chasing Brooklyn

Chasing Brooklyn by Lisa Schroeder

This is a companion book to I Heart You, You Haunt Me. A novel in verse from both Brooklyn and Nico's perspectives. I enjoyed how this is a ghost story but not way you think it is going to be, because it's also a love story. Once again I feel admiration to the novelist that has the ability to refine and edit down their work to this polished simplicity.

From the back cover:
Brooklyn can't sleep. Her boyfriend, Lucca, died only a year ago, and now her friend Gabe has just died of an overdose. Every time she closes her eyes, Gabe's ghost is there waiting for her. She has no idea what he wants, or why it isn't Lucca visiting her dreams.
Nico can't stop. He's always running, trying to escape the pain of losing his brother, Lucca. but when Lucca's ghost begins leaving messages telling Nico to help Brooklyn, emotions come crashing to the surface.
As the nightmares escalate and the messages become relentless, Nico reaches out to Brooklyn. But neither of them can admit that they're being haunted. Until they learn to let each other in, not one soul will be able to rest.

Cool or creepy?

Matel has created a Katniss Everdeen barbie. What do you think, cool or creepy?

Death Cloud

Death Cloud by Andrew Lane

Think you know Sherlock Holmes?... think again.

It's the summer of 1868, and Sherlock Holmes is fourteen. On break from boarding school, he is staying with elderly relative in the country and expecting a tedious vacation. Instead, he finds himself in the midst of a shocking murder mystery. Two local men have died from symptioms resembling the plague. Soon it is clear they have not died from natural causes.
Heedless of danger, Holmes throws himself into an investigation of what and who really killed them. With encouragement from his American-born tutor and the help of two new friends, he uncovers a diabolical plot. So begins his first battle of wits against a brilliantly sinister villain of exquistely malign intent.

Here's a sample --
"A cloud of smoke began to rise from the object just as Sherlock recognized it for what it was: a man's body, lying twisted on the ground. The smoke wafted away, driven by the breeze, but there was no sign of fire. For a moment Sherlock thought the man was tying there smoking a pipe, his face wrapped for some reason in a red-spotted white handkerchief, but as he got closer he realized that the red blotches were neither markings on a toadstool nor spots on a white handkerchief. They were bloody boils on the face of a corpse."

Now that will either turn your stomach or have you turning pages. For me, I was turning pages.

Booktrailer.

Chomp

Chomp by Carl Hiaasen

(reviewed from netgalley copy)
What if you took a Bear Grylls wanna-be and threw him into a crazy cast of characters, gave him an enormous budget to create an over-the-top surviorman style show and set the first production in the Florida Everglades. Well, you'll end up with a story like Chomp. Your imagination can create all sorts of scenarios, I'm sure, but can they compete with master of the quirky characters' that Carl Hiassen creates?
In keeping with his familiar style Hiassen gives us a great environmental caper filled with quirky characters both human and animal, and it will make you question how much to believe really happens on some of those 'survive in the wild' type of shows and how much is staged.

Here's the book trailer.

Curveball

Curveball: the year I lost my grip by Jordan Sonnenblick

Jordan Sonnenblick has to be one of my favourite authors, he writes with both heart and humor. His books are great read alouds that have real feeling, that we all can relate to (whether we've been in that circumstance or not, some things are just part of the human condition - we have parents, we have siblings, we have friends, we go to school.) Although curveball is written about a slightly older teen, I think middle school students will still enjoy the character of Peter Friedman - pitcher (used to be), photographer (wanna be) his best friend AJ (ace pitcher) and new friend Angelika (wanna be girlfriend).

Here's the summary from the book jacket.

Sometimes, the greatest comebacks take place far away from the ball field.

Meet Peter Friedman, high school freshman. Talented photographer. Former baseball star. When a freakish injury ends his baseball career, Peter has some major things to figure out. Is there life after sports? Why has his grandfather suddenly given him thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment. And is it his imagination, or is the super-hot star of the girls swim team flirting with him, right in front of the amazing new girl in his photography class?

In his new novel Jordan Sonnenblick performs his usual miraculous feat: exploring deep themes of friendship, romance, family and tragedy, while still managing to be hilariously funny.

Here's an interview with Jordan Sonnenblick - I love the part  "what will you do when life throws you a curveball?"

Cool Daddy Rat

Cool Daddy Rat by Kristyn Crow ; illustrated by Mike Lester

Today's poetry post is influenced by music- specifically jazz. Mrs. Hudson's grade 7's are discovering that today's music has it's roots and foundations buried in jazz and the hipster's slang dictionary. How fun!

Summary:
Ace has the coolest daddy ever. Every night he goes out to play jazz and scat all around the city. but one night Cool Daddy Rat hears something strange: "peeky, squeaky, who dat?"
It's Ace, hiding in the bass case! Lucky Ace gets to tag along and the pair zig and zag from gig to gig all over the city, filling the streets with sweet beats. But stowing away isn't the only surprise Ace has up his sleeve.

Get ready to snap, tap, and scat along with this cool , jazzy read-aloud.

Chris Raschka

Chris Raschka -- illustrator, poet, storyteller.
We have several of his books here in the library. A couple of them are my favourites to loan out to teachers during April because he delivers such good examples of various forms of poetry ( A Kick In the Head and A Foot in the Mouth), but I think concrete poetry must be one of his favourites. And I love his description of it -"yoga of words."

Check out Chris at work.

April is Poetry Month

April is Poetry Month and to help kick it off I thought I should begin with creating some of my own poetry. I started off trying to create a simple shape poem. Or try creating a diamante poem.

dribble,

dribble,

pass, bounce, jump

airtime

hope

rim, rim

please bounce in.

I hope you can guess what I'm writing about and what shape in might be in? try the link and try creating some of your own shape poetry.

Critical thinking

With the recent phenomena of the Kony 2012 campaign, students at Lakie have been asked to consider how information travels, with the touch of a button, thousands can be reached with all kinds of messages, sometimes slick and professionally done (Kony 2012), othertimes raw and unedited (footage of protests from Syria). Should we believe everything that moves through social media (twitter and facebook)?  Do we need to dig deeper? Consider different perspectives?
Students should be considering the criteria of evaluation -- the C.R.A.P. test
Currency
Reliability
Autenticity
Purpose

The Guardian recently created a great piece to demonstrate the speed at which information travels (true or not ) - put on your thinking caps.
Have a look.