Let Day #3 begin! More Extravaganza comin’ at you from Germany! Don’t forget about Day #1, Day #2, or the entry instructions (if you need them). You have the whole week to enter each day’s giveaway, and all winners will be announced next week! Big Announcement #2: As if signing with an agent wasn’t exciting […]
4 out of 5 stars. I picked up Erin Bow’s Plain Kate after hearing it compared to The Last Unicorn (which, as you probably know by now, I’m kinda sorta obsessed with). Though it didn’t ring in my heart quite as true as The Last Unicorn, Plain Kate was a beautiful read with fable qualities […]
Lo, the weary traveler returns. From Provencal sunshine to German snow. Yes, that’s right, folks. October 20th marks the first snow of the year… I am not ready for this! We barely had a summer this year, had an even shorter fall, and now it’s winter again! WAH! ::bangs fists against desk in dramatic temper […]
4 out of 5 stars. Neal Shusterman’s Unwind starts with a bang. It hooked me hard, and then the action stayed high until the end. In this book’s frightening future, teenagers can have their bodies “unwound”. This means their bodies are harvested for parts — it’s organ donation to the extreme. Kids who don’t behave […]
Celebrating the Freedom to Read: Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings […]
So, the Teen Reader Awards (a poll run by the Canadian book chain Indigo — ah, I used to spend many an afternoon at Chapters & Indigo) have been announced. Over 300,000 people voted. Way to go teens for supporting literature! So who won you ask? Here are the results:
Nominations for the Cybil awards begin October 1st. Wait — you don’t know what the Cybils are? Well, it says it in the picture: Chidren’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards. Essentially, we the people in order to form a more perfect union… No wait, that’s the Declaration of Independence (why do I still have […]
5 out of 5 stars. I happened upon M.K. Hobson’s The Native Star quite by chance, and as a steampunk fan and steampunk writer, I gave it try. Then I fell in love — with the world, with the main character, with the contagonist, with the plot… Emily is a California backwoods witch trying to […]
5 out of 5 stars. I thought I’d bring back an old classic: Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonsong. It was one of the first novels I read in which I truly connected with the protagonist. I didn’t just sympathize or care about Menolly’s story, I understood it. No, I didn’t live with dragons growing up. And no, […]
Okay, one more installment on the young adult (YA) internet wielders. After contacting my teenage spy network, I’ve located a few highly entertaining places the tweens and teens and lots of over-eighteens seem to be hanging out. Um, and I’m hooked now. Maybe you all are already “hip” enough to be clued into these websites, […]