About Me

I'm the school librarian at G.S. Lakie Middle School. As you can see - me, reading and comfy chairs go way back. I still enjoy Asterix and many other graphic novels. My main reason for blogging is for reviewing books for the students and anyone else that might be interested in YA literature.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

New Non-Fiction

Sometimes we get books in that immediately remind me of a person. Here's some new non-fiction titles, can you guess who they make me think of?
Read On!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Distant Waves


Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn

Chased by their pasts and drawn toward a more hopeful future, four sisters embark on the journey of their lives... aboard the Titanic. One is going to have her wedding during the voyage. Another has become involved in a feat of scientific intrigue that has the potential to alter the course of history. All of them feel out of place, and at least one of them will soon find herself out of time.

Book trailer.

The Monstrumologist


The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

I'm a big fan of Rick Yancey, but unfortunately I haven't had much time to read this one yet, maybe it will come home with me later in the year, but in the meantime. I think some of you will be interested.
Summary from back cover:

Monsters are real.
Will Henry is the orphan apprentice of a doctor with an unusual specialty: monstrumology, the study of monsters. When a midnight visitor brings them the body of a young girl entwined with the corpse of an Anthropophagus, it is the start of the most mysterious case of Will Henry's life.
Anthropophagi are headless monsters whose razor-sharp teeth are in their stomachs - and they are supposed to be extinct in this part of the world. Now Will and the monstrumologist are in a race against time to put a stop to the plague of monsters before they kill again.


Here's the book trailer.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Ghostopolis


Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel
Wow! what a great surprise to open at the end of the day. I had loaned this out to a grade seven boy a couple of days ago and he recommended that I take it home and read it - well, I took it and 3 others home with me (for weekend reading) but this one was begging me to read it tonight. Again, wow! really great drawing, fun word play and humor, I liked the characters and the inhabitants of Ghostopolis and found myself caught up in the story.
Summary: Imagine Garth Hale's surprise when he is zapped to the spirit world by Frank Gallows, a washed-out ghost wrangler. Suddenly Garth finds that he has powers that the ghosts don't have, and he's stuck in a world run by an evil ruler of Ghostopolis, who would use Garth's newfound abilities to rule the ghostly kingdom. When Garth meets Cecil , his grandfather's ghost, the two search for a way to get Garth back home, and nearly lose hope until Frank Gallows shows up to fix his mistake.
Loved pages 1, 54 and 108.
Read On

Once


Once by Morris Gleitzman
Once I escaped from an orphanage to find Mum and Dad. Once I saved a girl called Zelda from a burning house. Once I made a Nazi with a toothache laugh.
My name if Felix.
This is my story.
For three years and eight months Felix has lived in a convent orphanage high in the mountains in Poland. But Felix is different than the other orphans. He is convinced his parents are still alive and will come back to get him. When a group of Nazi soldiers come and burn the nuns' books, Felix is terrified that his Jewish bookseller parents will also be in danger. After escaping from the orphanage, Felix embarks on a long and dangerous journey through Nazi occupied Poland, befriending a little orphan girl Zelda and a kindly dentist, Barney, who hides and cares for Jewish children. But, when the Nazi's discover them, Barney makes the ultimate sacrifice for the children.
For those of you who liked, Number the Stars, The Boy in The Striped Pajamas or Milkweed.

Girls acting Catty


Girls acting catty by Leslie Margolis
Dogs can be trained. Cats are a whole different story...
For Annabelle, starting middle school hasn't been so bad. She's made an awesome group of friends, and it turns out that taming those wild boys is a lot like training a puppy! But now Annabelle is about to encounter a whole new kind of headache: Taylor and the Three Terrors.
There is no tyraining manual for this clique of girls; they are too cool for school, and they definitely don't like Annabelle and her friends. But sometimes Taylor acts super nice, and Annabelle feels torn. Is Taylor just being fake? Or has Annabelle accidentally fallen in with the wrong group of friends?
Here's the book trailer.
Read On.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Title Poetry




Hold still...
beautiful
Rebecca.
Bad girls don't die
and then I found out the truth,
finally.
My invisible boyfriend.
Something to prove,
the summer I turned pretty.
Pop!
Heaven looks a lot like the mall -
the last exit to normal.

Title Poetry


The ironking,
bedeviled
Al Capone and his gang,
the mob
found
the man in the iron msk.

Title Poetry


A time for dancing.
Go Wild!
Bust a move!
Side by side.
Wiggle.
Terrific.
Sensational!
End of days.

Title Poetry


101 things to do before you're old and boring:
  • Bloom.
  • Looks.
  • Beauty fades, dumb is forever.
  • Weird stuff.
  • Up all night.
  • The best Halloween ever
  • Cancer
  • The darkside.