News

What your favorite Baby-Sister's Club book character says about you.  I'm totally a Mary Anne (although I do NOT have good handwriting) but wanted to be Claudia.  From The Huffington Post.

Everything you ever wanted to know about children's publishing but were afraid to ask.  From The Independent.

James Patterson wants to save school libraries.  From SLJ.

Two months from its release date, Catching Fire is doing quite well.  From The Hollywood Reporter.

Revisiting the classics of an early age, with Lois Duncan.  From The New York Times.

John Green takes a shinning to Pittsburgh, location of the filming for The Fault in Our Stars.  From Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The best Halloween books of 2013.  From The Huffington Post.

NYC teacher's union is trying to get the state to uphold it's school librarian staffing mandate.  From SLJ.

The Silversix by AJ Lieberman & Daren Rawings

Phoebe has been living on her own since her parents died a year ago.  When a strange man comes looking for her, Phoebe runs for it, taking with her the moon registry her parent's left her.  Phoebe gets nabbed by Child Welfare Services and finds herself living in a home for orphaned children.  She meets five other kids, all who have the same moon registry, all signed by Phoebe's father, all whose parent's died on the same shuttle explosion.  The Silversix set out to find the truth of their parent's deaths, and maybe bring down the most powerful company on Earth.

It was fun, but a lacking in details.  Some kids won't care.  But there wasn't a whole lot of world building. Craven Mining controls pretty much everything, because they control the Hydro-2, some kind of energy source.  But I wasn't totally sure what, exactly, Hydro-2 was, how it was mined, why there were steel bubble, and why there couldn't be any open space.  So I had a lot of questions.  Oh, I was also confused about what the transmission that was sent to Phoebe's location before the shuttle blew up.  What was the transmission?  It wasn't the moon registry, all the kids already had those.  So...what exactly was it that they were looking far? Whatever

So yes, there were holes.  A fair number of holes.  But despite that, it was still an enjoyable read.  Phoebe is spunky, determined and resourceful.  The friends she makes are a rainbow of ethnicities, and they create for themselves their own kind of family.  All does not go smoothly.  The kids get to use their various talents to get themselves out of trouble.

The ending also happened rather quickly, and was again lacking in detail.  Suddenly they're all heroes and Craven is in jail and no more Hydro-2 and all the open space comes back.  Hmm, the more I write about this the more I realize that there was a lot missing from this story.

The art was cute and cartoony.  I didn't like the color pallet so much, I thought it looked a little sickly, that maybe that was intentional to create a feel for the world.  The format was traditional comic panels with very little breaking out of the mold.

Waiting on Wednesday: Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always by Elissa Janine Hoole

"Waiting On Wednesday" is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine to spotlight an upcoming release that we're excited about. This week I'm waiting on: Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always by Elissa Janine Hoole.


Cassandra fears rocking the family boat. Instead, she sinks it. Assigned by her English teacher to write a poem that reveals her true self, Cassandra Randall is stuck. Her family's religion is so overbearing, she can NEVER write about who she truly is. So Cass does what any self-respecting high school girl would do: she secretly begins writing a tarot-inspired advice blog. When Drew Godfrey, an awkward outcast with unwashed hair, writes to her, the situation spirals into what the school calls "a cyberbullying crisis" and what the church calls "sorcery." Cass wants to be the kind of person who sticks up for the persecuted, who protects the victims the way she tries to protect her brother from the homophobes in her church. But what if she's just another bully? What will it take for her to step up and tell the truth?

Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always comes out November 8, 2013.

Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff

Mila and her father, Gil, had planned to travel from London to upstate New York to visit her father's friend, Matthew.  Just days before the trip, Matthew goes missing.  Mila and Gil take the trip anyway, hoping they can help.  Mila is incredibly perceptive, and begins to piece together what Matthew's life was like and why he might have left.  But as she's nearing the solution, she encounters a personal betrayal that changes her perception of everything.

The only other book I'd read by Meg Rosoff was How I Live Now which I hadn't really enjoyed so I didn't know what to expect from this very different book.  I thought it was great.  It was thoughtful and refreshingly different from everything I'd been reading.  Mila is not a typical narrator, so I hope the book will be appealing to middle school kids and not just to adults!

Mila can read emotions well, even the ones that people are trying not to show.  She notices the smallest of details, like Sherlock Holmes.  She even notices and understands things her father doesn't see.  Her father is a translator, and usually has his head in the clouds.  Mila often feels like she needs to take care of him.

Mila and her father arrive in New York and are retrieved by Matthew's wife, Suzanne, and their infant son.  Mila can tell right away that Suzanne's carrying a lot of anger.  When they reach the house, Mila can see that the dog is clearly Matthew's dog, and Suzanne doesn't like it.  Why wouldn't he take his dog?

Mila is beginning to see the kind of life Suzanne and Matthew had, and tries to reason out how someone could up and leave his baby son.  There are a lot of surprising revelations as the story continues and Mila and Gil uncover more and more, things they never thought they would learn.  Big, life changing things.

As Mila puts it all together, she comes to a surprising realization, which I don't want to give away.  It is hard for her to handle.  It makes her think about the nature of truth.

It's a very quiet, thoughtful kind of book.  There are big revelations, but to call them "exciting" would be wrong.  It's not going to be for everyone, but I highly recommend it.

Oh, but there's no use of quotation marks, which I find annoying and at times confusing.  What exactly is the point of that?

News

11 most evil characters in literature.  I don't know if I'd necessarily agree, but I really like her reasoning behind each of her choices.  From PW.

Oh dear.  A shipping error sent copies of Veronica Roth's Allegiant to fans before it was officially out!  The author has asked for no spoilers if you got one.  From hypable.

Patrick Ness on writing.  From io9.

What makes a book "best"-worthy?  From PW.

Tim Federle talks about the challenges to his book, Better Nate Than Never.  From The Huffington Post.

Jack Gantos on From Norvelt to Nowhere.  From NPR.

11 quotes from authors on censorship and banned books.  From BuzzFeed.

What ever happened to book editors? Hmm, perhaps this explains why I've read so many books and wondered, "Didn't anyone edit this?"  The answer might be, "no, not really."  From PW.

A talk with Ellen Hopkins on her new book Smoke.  From Daily News.

Children's reading percentages dropping due to digital content.  From The Guardian. 

Clearly the world cries for a Wonder Woman movie.  From BuzzFeed.

News on The Giver film adaptation.  From The Hollywood Reporter.

In other Lois Lowry news, the Brooklyn Book Festival gives her an honor, and she's the first children's book author to receive it.  Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Fear, pain and loneliness have their place in children's literature.  From The New York Times.

Why science fiction isn't just for geeky boys.  From The Guardian.

I would very much like to know what exactly the parent's grounds were for having The Invisible Man removed.  I'm glad it's being reconsidered.  From SLJ.

Waiting on Wednesday: Reality Boy by A.S. King

"Waiting On Wednesday" is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine to spotlight an upcoming release that we're excited about. This week I'm waiting on Reality Boy by A.S. King.

Gerald Faust knows exactly when he started feeling angry: the day his mother invited a reality television crew into his five-year-old life. Twelve years later, he’s still haunted by his rage-filled youth—which the entire world got to watch from every imaginable angle—and his anger issues have resulted in violent outbursts, zero friends, and clueless adults dumping him in the special education room at school.

Nothing is ever going to change. No one cares that he’s tried to learn to control himself, and the girl he likes has no idea who he really is. Everyone’s just waiting for him to snap…and he’s starting to feel dangerously close to doing just that.

In this fearless portrayal of a boy on the edge, highly acclaimed Printz Honor author A.S. King explores the desperate reality of a former child “star” who finally breaks free of his anger by creating possibilities he never knew he deserved.

Reality Boy  comes out October 22, 2013.

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff

Erdemoglu Selim is a lieutenant in the Turkish Janissary Corps, and he doesn't love it.  What he really wants is to live a quiet life and make tea.  That becomes impossible when Delilah Dirk, a swashbuckling adventurer, is imprisoned, and then escapes the Turkish palace.  Selim is swept up and along with Delilah Dirk, and soon he must decide if this life of adventure is really for him.

Oh First Second.  Do you ever get it wrong?  So much fun!  I love how Delilah Dirk is totally unapologetically herself.  She makes no excuses, and has little patience for waffling. 

The only disappointment was that this was billed as Delilah Dirk's story.  I mean, it is called Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant.  But it was really the Turkish Lieutenant's story.  It was from Selim's point of view and was his story of his meeting and joining Delilah Dirk.  That didn't stop it from being a fun graphic novel.  I liked how Selim and Delilah Dirk worked together and played off each other. Although she ended up being a secondary character in her own book, Delilah Dirk is certainly not in the background!  I wonder if all the books will be from Selim's point of view.  I hope more of the stories will get to revolve around the title character.

After Delilah Dirk rescues Selim from being beheaded because he's suspected to be in league with Dirk herself, their first adventure is stealing treasure from the Evil Pirate Captain Zakul.  Selim is skeptical, but goes along with it, and soon they're blowing up bridges and running from pirates and escaping in flying boats.

Her outfit is kind of odd, don't you think?  When Selim is first interrogating Delilah Dirk he says, "Why do you dress like this?  Certainly you would look more at home on the street corner."  Delilah Dirk is about to give him a snappy reply, when she's distracted with how delicious the tea is.  And we never get back it.  Why does she dress like that?  She's always in motion.  Sword fighting, jumping out windows, making speedy getaways.  I'm trying to decide if her outfit doesn't make sense for her character, or actually dressing in this way does make sense, because she's Delilah Dirk and she's going to wear whatever she damn well pleases.  Unclear.

While I don't think this would be above middle schooler's heads or anything, the content does deal with battles and stabbing people with swords.  A lot of people die at Delilah's Dirk's hands.  So just a heads up.

The art appears to be digitally created (I think) but I found it very pretty and the colors are nice and bright.  It has a mostly traditional comic book layout, although there were some lovely full page spreads and great action scenes that broke out of the panels.