New Literary NF Teen Book: “Fourth Down and Inches: Concussions and Football’s Make-or-Break Moment”

Posted on November 11, 2013 by KelliB

Fourth Down and Inches: Concussions and Football’s Make-or-Break Moment by Carla Killough McClafferty; published Sept 1, 2013; 9781467710671.

Cover image of Fourth Down and Inches

image courtesy Goodreads

From this book’s very first account – in 1897 – of the death of University of Georgia college sophomore and defensive lineman,Von Gammon,this book shows how potentially dangerous football can be. The death of Von Gammon caused many schools to disband their football teams and the Georgia state legislator proposed a bill banning football altogether. Governor William Atkinson vetoed the football ban bill because Von’s mother, Rosalind Gammon, wrote a letter stating the “it would be inexpressibly sad to have the cause he held so dear injured by his sacrifice. Grant me the right to request that my boys’ death should not be used to defeat the most cherished object of his life.”

As the story of American football proceeds, CKM shows how football has always had its fans and its detractors. It’s repeated often in the book that many players knew the possibilities of  [sometimes serious] injury, but because of their love for the physicality of it, they found it worth the risk. However, as medical science discovers more about concussions, a.k.a. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), what they used to call in boxers “Punch Drunk”, it’s becoming obvious that repeatedly getting whacked in the head has profound and long-lasting implications that many players couldn’t have foreseen.

(One peculiar fact: not all players who receive repetitive trauma develop CTE, but those that do develop CTE have no hope of recovering full brain function. CTE is found not only in football players, but in those who play other sports: rugby, hockey, wrestling, boxing, skiing, etc…and sometimes CTE develops in people who have simply banged their head against a wall.)

If you are a football fan like me, you will likely read this in one sitting because it’s such an engaging read. Football’s ongoing tension since its inception is well-documented and the final takeaway for me is that everyone needs to become better informed about the dangers of concussions and decide if they’re willing to chance repetitive brain trauma.

Big bonus: the book is not only well-laid out and written in an engaging manner, it has beautiful graphics. Highly recommended for anyone you know who enjoys football, especially those who want to play.

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Random House acquires Teen Author site, “Figment”

Posted on November 9, 2013 by KelliB

A while ago, on my library’s Teen Blog, I posted an article about “Figment”, a website community of over 300,000 of authors, most between the ages of 13-18, passionate about creating, discovering, and sharing stories. How cool is it that there are that many teen authors?!?

I learned today that at the end of October, Random House acquired the site.

“The site will operate under the same name but, effective immediately, it will be managed by Random House Children’s Books. The publisher intends to continue the site’s focus on curating content covering a wide range of young adult titles.”

I have no idea how this acquisition will affect Figment — or if it will even change anything at all — but it seems like it will be a more streamlined path to publishing for all those budding young artists of words. What say you?

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October = Teen Read Month

Posted on November 7, 2013 by KelliB

I love that YALSA devotes an entire month to Teen Reading – it offers a great opportunity for going to schools and discussing book titles as well as some great homework help services offered by libraries (like Brainfuse’s daily one-on-one tutoring assistance as well as their Writing Lab, where students can do anything from getting help in organizing their paper to a complete review).

Because October was so busy, I really fell by the wayside with posting book reviews. I’m hoping to remedy that during November by posting a book review every couple of days.

If you’re curious about the Top Teen Reads for 2013, as decided by teens, the winners are:

  1. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Disney/Hyperion)
  2. The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen (Scholastic/Scholastic Press)
  3. Insurgent by Veronica Roth (Harper Collins/Katherine Tegen Books)
  4. Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry (Harlequin Teen)
  5. Poison Princess by Kresley Cole (Simon & Schuster)
  6. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic/Scholastic Press)
  7. Crewel by Gennifer Albin (Macmillan/Farrar Straus Giroux)
  8. Every Day by David Levithan (Random House/Alfred A. Knopf)
  9. Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross (Egmont)
  10. Butter by Erin Jade Lange (Bloomsbury)

Two authors were also on the 2012 winner’s list: Maggie Stiefvater (Scorpio Races) and Veronica Roth (Divergent).

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Youth-run Design and Research at the Free Library of Philadelphia, Summer 2012 | YOUmedia

Posted on October 30, 2013 by KelliB

Two great ideas:

  • ask teens what resources are available in their community and have them help map them (so you know what’s out there)
  • have teens help decide library space and programming. Who better to know what their interests are?

This strategy would work equally as well for adult programs: I can’t imagine a scenario in which users helping define their own environments and programs wouldn’t ensure a better chance at successful results.

Youth-run Design and Research at the Free Library of Philadelphia, Summer 2012 | YOUmedia.

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“SYLO” by D. J. MacHale: Military Sci-Fi Thriller series

Posted on September 3, 2013 by KelliB

SYLO by D.J. MacHale; pub date July 2, 2013; ISBN 9781595146656

SYLO cover courtesy GoodReads

SYLO cover image courtesy GoodReads

“It was a perfect night for a football game. And for death.”

Pemberwick Island is a idyllic place to live, and the big Friday night entertainment draw for this small, tourist-destination community is high school football. All that changes after freshman rookie tailback Tucker Pierce watches star player Marty Wiggins die on the field after playing an amazing game. As Tucker scans the stands, he sees someone, an outsider, furiously writing notes, and the stranger then disappears. After some other residents die unexplained deaths, a branch of the military known as SYLO comes in and quarantines the island because an unknown virus caused the deaths: no coming or going for anyone. And they mean it.

Amidst the military incursion, the stranger from the football game is trying to push an all-natural seawater-derived sports supplement on Tucker and his friends. Known as “Ruby” thanks to its red crystalline appearance, the salts do indeed improve strength and speed, but at what cost? Is that what’s killing people and not a virus? Or is the timing coincidental?

After Tucker and his best friend Quinn see an unexplained aerial explosion and the strange manta-like aircraft “shadows”, and after the military stops Pemberwick residents from communicating with the outside world completely, Tucker and his friends begin to think there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye…and they know they must somehow get to the mainland and let the world know what’s going on.

Mr. MacHale does get you involved in this tale from the beginning (it starts with a teen’s death on the football field, after all), but I do have complaints about the book: Tucker seems to believe the authorities a little too readily and is overall a little too wishy-washy to be any kind of leader; the girl he likes, Tori, isn’t a likeable character (I’ve little tolerance for moody chicks who can’t even answer a simple “hello” without being grumpy about it); and we’re never let in on what Tucker’s parents have to do with the whole thing – Tucker’s running all over the island with this SYLO military on the loose and they don’t seem to wonder where he is or if he’s okay? Are they even around anymore? Their actions made me wonder if they’re his actual parents, or if they’re weren’t more like the handlers known as “Mom” and “Dad” in Zadoff’s Boy Nobody.

I’d give it a solid 3/5 if rating it at Amazon because the storyline itself is interesting — what would happen if the military decides some small island community needed to be “maintained”– and the chase scenes are interesting enough (albeit a bit overlong sometimes), but there are too many unanswered questions at the end. I realize it’s a series with the next installment, Storm due out 3/18/14, so perhaps my dis-satisfaction isn’t  warranted, but I would have liked at least some questions answered before finishing the book’s final sentence: What is SYLO? What is ruby? Who is Olivia, really? Are Tucker’s parent’s involved?  Why aren’t Tucker’s parents concerned about his safety and where are they? What are the flying manta-shaped aircraft that make a strange musical noise?

Too many questions for a satisfying read, and so I recommended it with reservations.

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The Carle sisters’ “Teens Cook” = highly recommended

Posted on August 29, 2013 by KelliB

Teens Cook: How to Cook What You Want to Eat by Megan and Jill Carle; pub date May 1, 2004; ISBN 97815800858474

cover of Teens Cook by Megan and Jill Carle

cover of Teens Cook by Megan and Jill Carle

The Carle sisters created a fantastic cookbook for teens because they were teens when they wrote it. One is vegetarian, the other an omnivore, so there’s something for everyone. The recipes are grouped by ‘normal’ headings (Breakfast, Snacks), and I like that they have a “Dinner for One” section as well as a “Family Meals” collection.

Because they know any neophyte in the kitchen needs help, they provide vocabulary definitions, personal thoughts on each recipe — which I love in cookbooks — cooking and shopping tips, and even explain why some recipes may end up all kerwonky in their “Kitchen Disaster” callouts. Big plus: there are no esoteric or pricey ingredients, just things you’ll find at your corner grocery store or things already in the home pantry.

The recipes are well-written and, more importantly, are good. Anyone who reads through cookbook reviews or has worked their way through numerous cookbooks knows that this isn’t always the case. (I recall making a veggie lasagna years ago from a bestseller cookbook. When I was making the walnut sauce, I kept thinking, “this just doesn’t seem like it’s going to be good”, but I continued on. I should have listened to my gut, because even though it took an hour+ to prep the dish, not including baking time, we ended up calling out for pizza because the lasagna was just sooooo baaaaad.)

Highly recommended not only for teens, but for adults setting up housekeeping for the first time.

They also wrote Teens Cook Dessert and College Cooking: Feed Yourself and Your Friends

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War Brothers:The Graphic Novel. A “should-read” for all teens and adults.

Posted on August 11, 2013 by KelliB

War Brothers: The Graphic Novel by Sharon E. McKay and Daniel Lefrance (illustrator); pub date Feb 7, 2013; ISBN 9781554514885

WarBrothersGNVLBased on the true stories of child soldiers in Africa, this book is filled with unthinkable violence against children. J. Kony, the self-proclaimed spokesperson of God, sends his minions out into the far reaches of Uganda to kidnap and enslave young male children to use as the “Soldiers of God” in his Lords Resistance Army. This is the story of one of those children.

When we first meet 14-year-old Jacob, he’s talking with a friend of his father’s about wanting to go to school to study mathematics. In the background, we see his father talking with others about Kony’s nighttime raids wherever children are housed. Jacob travels to a school gathering and on the first night, despite the extra security hired by his father, he and 37 other boys are kidnapped and must slog through the jungle to meet Kony. Given no food or water (because only real soldiers who kill are worthy of such things), and no medical care for their infected wounds and numb legs (because real soldiers never get injured, even by bullets), they survive as best they can. When they’re commanded to kill, the must or they will be killed. Every day is spent wondering where the government troops are — why is rescue taking so long?

The violence is abhorrent and something that no adult, much less a child, should have to endure. Sharon McKay does an excellent job of merging the many first-hand stories she heard from these child-soldiers into a compelling tale of one boy’s experience; Daniel Lefrance crafted an effective set of images to accompany the unfolding story.

Highly recommended historical graphic novel for teens and adults alike, this book relates an important, and still ongoing, horror in a powerful, engaging, and memorable manner.

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Boy Nobody – a thriller by Allen Zadoff

Posted on August 11, 2013 by KelliB

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, as I spent a couple of weeks preparing for a Teen Librarian job interview. I didn’t get the job, but the crash course I gave myself during that time learning how to best connect Reluctant Readers with the library was a great takeaway. (I took the 10-minute booktalk assignment of the interview to heart and wanted to make sure I discovered as much as possible about RR — whom I prefer to call “Readers with Discriminating Tastes” — in those two weeks.)

Even though I’m still looking for a job, I’m not spending all my free time prepping for an interview, so I can now get back to posting reviews for awesome teen books!

Boy Nobody by Allen Zadoff; pub date June 11, 2013; ISBN 9780316199681

Boy NobodyFrom Goodreads: “Boy Nobody is the perennial new kid in school, the one few notice and nobody thinks much about. He shows up in a new high school, in a new town, under a new name, makes few friends and doesn’t stay long. Just long enough for someone in his new friend’s family to die — of “natural causes.” Mission accomplished, Boy Nobody disappears, and moves on to the next target.”

My review: The back-story of how “The Program” (a shadowy government organization whose goal is to eradicate people they deem unpatriotic) turned a boy into “Boy Nobody” is heartbreaking.

We meet BN as he’s just finishing up one assignment, and we get a good feel for him and his ability to disconnect. Four years of training and assassination missions have erased “BN’s” real name and any memories of his family from recollection. We may learn his real name in the last few pages of the book through another character’s slip of the tongue, but even that can’t be assured.

“Boy Nobody’s” next assignment:  make friends with Sam, the daughter of his next target, the mayor of New York, so that he can get close enough to do the job. But when he starts having feelings for Sam, he starts questioning everything he’s known. Is it true that nobody is innocent? Is the mayor really a bad guy? Why is he starting to have brief glimpses of his dad’s face and longings for a normal family life? Can he get those things back if he just sabotages this next assignment?

While the tech-y gadgets and communication methods between BN and the shadowy government handlers he knows as “Mom” and “Dad” (how creepy  are those names?) were interesting and kept me reading, what I loved most about this book was how the author inserted head-spinning twists and turns throughout, always keeping me on the edge of my seat. The ending was completely and utterly unexpected. How awesome is that?!?

Other works by Mr. Zadoff include Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can’t Have and Since You Left Me.)

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“Winger”, a funny (and at times heartbreaking) novel from a 14-year-old guy’s POV and “Strands of Bronze and Gold” – a retelling of Bluebeard. Don’t miss either one!

Posted on July 17, 2013 by KelliB

I’ve not finished either book, but I’m so enthralled by both of these novels that I didn’t want to wait to share. Although they’re nothing alike, they’re both making me lose sleep because I want to keep reading, and so I don’t adhere to my self-imposed bedtime well at all.

Winger by Andrew Smith; pub date May 14, 2013; ISBN 9781442444928.

Cover image of "Winger" by Andrew Smith

Cover image of “Winger” by Andrew Smith

I was laughing out loud from the first page, even though that first page is about 14-year-old high school junior Ryan Dean West (Ryan Dean is his first name: no there’s no hyphen, and yes, there’s two capital letters, and no, he doesn’t really want to talk about his middle name) who is upside-down and in the midst of getting a swirly in the dorm bathrooms of Opportunity Hall. But, as Ryan Dean, aka “Winger” (his rugby nickname), points out, at least it was the beginning of the semester so the toilet water was lemony fresh, with a touch of warm swimming pool, and the porcelain bowl still white as snow.  Accompanied by sketches throughout, Andrew Smith is, so far, simply wonderful at finding that storytelling balance that is at once both funny and heartbreaking.

Strands of Bronze and Gold by Jane Nickerson; pub date March 12, 2013; ISBN 9780307975980.

Cover image of Strands of Bronze and Gold

Cover image of “Strands of Bronze and Gold”

I’m a sucker for fairytales of any variety (one of my all-time favorite books is fairytales-within-a-fairytale: Catherynne Valente’s The Orphan’s Tales: in the Night Garden). Now, stick a fairytale into the Mississippi to give it a southern gothic flair (another fav genre of mine), and I’m thoroughly captivated.

An alternate re-telling of Bluebeard, I don’t think I can top the synopsis from  SLJ this past February: “Jane Nickerson adroitly weaves the threads of the ‘Bluebeard’ story into Strands of Bronze and Gold to create a spellbinding tapestry of mystery, romance, and suspense…A grippingly gothic tale, with a lavishly described and lushly atmospheric setting and likable heroine.” I’m finding it very difficult to believe it’s a debut novel because the writing is so polished.

I’m only a few chapters in, but I really can’t wait to see how it ends. I mean, we all know how it should end, but will this version be like the Brothers’ Grimm story, with the brothers saving the heroine (her brother in this book is kind of a jerk)? Will she need to use her pluck to save herself? Or will Bluebeard not die at all, and instead Sophie will be like Belle and transform the beast into a kinder, gentler being?

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My Favorite Five of Summer… (okay, really just my favorite Five of May/June)

Posted on July 3, 2013 by KelliB

I was asked to list five teen books that I’d recommend for Teen Summer Reading Program for a local magazine article. I’ve read quite a few great books this year, and so it was difficult to narrow down the list. I decided to just name some of my favorites from the past six weeks.

In no particular order:

Etiquette & Espionage: Finishing School, Book the First  by Gail Carriger [ISBN: 9780316190084]

EtiqandEsp.Against the backdrop of a steampunk version of an 1851 England, fourteen-year-old Sophronia Angelina Temmenick would rather climb trees and dismantle dumbwaiters than act the proper young lady her mother and older sisters demand. After having had enough, her mother trundles Sophronia off to what she thinks is a “Fine Ladies” finishing school, Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality. What Sophronia’s mother doesn’t know is that the academy actually teaches the fine arts of espionage, deception, and assassination. Oh, and the school is actually housed in an always-moving articulated dirigible. I look forward to the rest of this series.

Leaving Fishers by Margaret Peterson Haddix [ISBN: 9781442443143]

LeavingFishersHaving been lonely at school for so long, Dorry is ecstatic when she finally makes friends with classmate Angela and her clique, especially since they’re all so attractive and seem so popular. She soon discovers they all belong to a religious group, the Fishers of Men. Eager to fit in and flattered by her new friends’ attention, Dorry happily joins Fishers. But when the Fishers start making harsh demands of Dorry, she finds herself compromising her grades, her job, and even her family’s love. How much is too much? And where will the cult’s demands end? What I liked most about Leaving Fishers is that it’s a fantastic cautionary tale for young people about not letting themselves be abused/manipulated without slamming religion as a whole.

Shrink! Shrank! Shrunk!: Make Stylish Plastic Jewelry by Kathy Sheldon [ISBN: 9781454703495]

Shrink Not the kid’s shrinky-dinks of yestyear, Kathy Sheldon shows you how to create cool and  surprisingly chic pieces of wearable art using modern-tech plastic. 35 projects  teach you all you need to know to make your own sell-this-on-Etsy-quality  pieces. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I placed my hold, but I was happily  surprised with how nice the items were, especially since the materials aren’t  overly spendy. And a lot of the items are just really neat-looking.

While this isn’t written specifically for teens, I like that the supplies for these projects can be inexpensive enough so as not be prohibitively pricey for those without a big cash stream (and for those of us adults who might also be low on cash, but still want to make pretty or fun jewelry without having to spend half a paycheck at the bead store). Lark Publishing usually does a nice job on their jewelry books, and this one is no exception.

MidwinterBlood by Marcus Sedgwick [ISBN: 9781596438002]

MidWinterBloodSeven intertwined tales of horror, sacrifice, beauty, and love. It’s rumored that you don’t age if you live on Blessed Island thanks to the eponymous Blessed Dragon orchid, a flower that grows there. The series begins with a tale set in the year 2073, and each subsequent tale leaps further and further back, finally disclosing how Erik (the reporter from the first story who is visiting the island to find out about the agelessness myth) is connected to the mysterious Merle, an island inhabitant. Dark and brooding, it pulls you along because you really want — need — to know how it’s all connected.

5th Wave by Rick Yancey [ISBN: 9780399162411]

5thWave“Forget your E.T. version of sweet, harmless aliens–in The 5th Wave, Rick Yancey imagines a silent invasion that takes extraterrestrial intelligence to a whole new level.” (from amazon.com). Each attack “wave” kills more and more humans. The remaining humans are now waiting to see what form the fifth — and final — wave will take, and they’re not going down quietly. Told from alternating viewpoints of Cassie, a 16 year-old girl who carries an M16 and is looking for her beloved little brother Sammy, and high-school hunk Ben Parrish, now known as “Zombie”, 5th Wave is an epic tale you’ll have a hard time putting down.

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