Category: Adventure Stories


The Winner! California Young Reader Medal!

Filed under: Adventure Stories, Fable/Fairy Tale/Fantasy, Family Problems, Fiction, Mature Readers, Over 375 pages, Romance, Supernatural, Uncategorized, Young Adult Literature by Ms. Waddle — 3 Comments
May 2, 2012

Just announced! This year’s California Young Reader Medal Winner!

The California Young Reader Medal is a special award because unlike most other book awards, students nominate the books through their teachers and/or librarians. Students choose the winner by reading and voting for their favorite book in each category.

This year’s winner is Graceling by Kristin Cashore.

I love to see what teens will choose. I read this novel (review is here) and could immediately see why teens would like it–the protagonist is a very strong girl and the world she lives in is magical–but for my own part, I found it repetitive and an exercise in adverbs-gone-wild. And this is why it’s good to have an award that teens choose themselves. And it’s also why I love the idea that we have a library and the opportunity to choose what we want to read, not just cram for tests.

Exercise your FREADOM right here in our library. I bought multiple copies of Graceling just after I read it–thought it might be a hit!

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“Cloaked”

Filed under: Adventure Stories, Fable/Fairy Tale/Fantasy, Fiction, Hi-Low/Quick Read, Romance, Young Adult Literature by Ms. Waddle — Leave a comment
April 20, 2012

  What makes Flinn’s fractured fairy tales so enjoyable is that they really incorporate magic. Elves, witches, magical articles like cloaks and rings—they are all at work in Cloaked.

Johnny Marco works at his family’s show repair shop in the lobby of a swanky Miami hotel. He’s repaired shoes for the rich; he’s seen the celebrity set (who usually spend money on new shoes rather than repair them). But when Princess Victoriana jets in from Aloria, his mundane life becomes a wild adventure.

Princess Victoriana sees that Johnny is a hardworking teen who values his mother. She decides to trust him and seeks his help in finding her brother, Prince Philippe, who was turned into a frog so that the princess will be forced to marry an unsavory character. In order to help Johnny on his quest, the princess gives him a roll of bills and a magic cloak that transports him wherever he wishes. She offers to marry him if he succeeds. And she is world-class beautiful.

The task is even harder than Johnny had imagined. Each time he has success, it’s because he receives a favor from a bewitched creature or a magical person. So, he always owes something in return, requiring another adventure. He has to talk to swans, round up giants, escape witches, and still find that frog. This is all just such silly good fun.

Flinn tells the reader that he’s always loved fairy tales, and here he incorporates many different tales that he thinks are not familiar enough to today’s readers. He wants teens to enjoy these stories as well. I am surprised to find that the tale of the shoemaker and the elves is no longer familiar; I thought that was a standard. But Flinn includes many others in Cloaked—the six swans and the giants were new to me. However, the tale of the frog prince is one I remember, but Flinn’s version is different—a bit less sweet.

Johnny both gets what he wants and doesn’t get what he wants—and, that is the most realistic thing about the fairytale rendering. As the Rolling Stones put it years ago, you don’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes, you get what you need. A fun-for-everyone read.

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Adult books for teens: “War”

Filed under: Adventure Stories, Controversial Issue/Debate, Historical Fiction/Historical Element, Mature Readers, Movie Tie-In, Non-fiction, Over 375 pages by Ms. Waddle — Leave a comment
April 19, 2012

Adult Books for Teens: War by Sebastian Junger

In the year between June 2007 and June 2008, the Korengal Valley was the most dangerous place for a soldier to be at war. The daily temperatures of one hundred degrees, the rough and barren terrain, as well as the many unsympathetic locals (many village elders were working with the Taliban) compounded problems for Second Platoon, Battle Company, which was involved in more firefights than soldiers in any other area of the war, sometimes in more than one battle a day.

During this period, author Sebastian Junger was embedded with Second Platoon, Battle Company. He had photojournalist Tim Hetherington with him. They shot 150 hours of videotape and used that for their documentary film Restrepo. War received many notable book commendations and has been a bestseller. Restrepo received the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary in 2011.

Junger tells us at the beginning of the book that he was wholly dependent on the Army for food, shelter, and protection, but that Army officials never tried to censor what he recorded nor to “alter [his] reporting in any way or to show the contents of [his] notebooks or [his] cameras.” So, this is a true picture of warriors in battle. Although it was published for an adult audience, it’s an important read for students who are considering joining a branch of the military because it does give such a realistic picture of war. And, it’s not a bad read for the rest of us either—Americans who are forgetting that one percent of our population is fighting this war without a whole lot of support from the rest of us.

War has scenes of intense battle and of the subsequent deaths and maiming, of how these losses affect the psyches of the men who are not physically harmed. (Junger is there when Second Platoon members are caught in an ambush and an IEU blows up their Humvee.) It also shows the boredom of the men between battles. And Junger delves into the warrior mentally in a way I haven’t read in another book. “War is a lot of things and it’s useless to pretend that exciting isn’t one of them.”

These men are some of the best trained soldiers around, but they are also undisciplined. “O’Byrne’s 203 gunner, Steiner, once got stabbed trying to help deliver a group beating to Sergeant Mac, his squad leader, who had backed into a corner with a combat knife. In Second Platoon you got beat on your birthday, you got beat before you left the platoon—on leave, say—and you got beat when you came back. The only way to leave Second Platoon without a beating was to get shot.”

Junger deals honestly with the fact that a lot of guys in Second Platoon live for the high, for the adrenaline rush, of being in a firefight, of shooting weapons. He shows that returning to civilian life is often difficult for them because they can’t get that rush back. They also can’t duplicate the intense love they have for one another in a situation where each would, without a second thought, sacrifice his life for his warrior brothers. “’I never got in trouble, but Bobby beat up a few MPs, threatened them with a fire extinguisher, pissed on their boot. But what do you expect from the infantry, you know? I know that all the guys that were bad in garrison were perfect f– soldiers in combat. They’re troublemakers and they like to fight. That’s a bad garrison trait but a good combat trait—right?’”

Adults will remember Junger’s work from the bestselling books A Death in Belmont and The Perfect Storm (which was made into a movie). This is an equally good book, and I highly recommend it. It does contain a lot of profanity—perfectly natural as the soldiers are quoted frequently.

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“The Fault in Our Stars”

Filed under: Adventure Stories, Fiction, Romance, Young Adult Literature by Ms. Waddle — 1 Comment
April 18, 2012

Lucky me! I have another guest review by future teacher librarian extraordinaire Ms. Thomas. And if you follow reviews here, you know how I love John Green–so this is bonus day!

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Wise, poetic, 16 year old Hazel Grace Lancaster has terminal thyroid cancer that has metastasized to her lungs.  An experimental drug has kept her alive for the past 3 years.  Her parents want her to be a normal teenager in spite of having to drag her oxygen tank with her wherever she goes.   At her kids-with-cancer support group, Hazel meets good-looking, witty 17-year-old Augustus Waters who finds her “like V for Vendetta Natalie Portman” beautiful.  Gus doesn’t have a terminal diagnosis – his leg was amputated as a result of osteosarcoma (a malignant bone tumor), but he is officially NEC (no evidence of cancer).

Hazel and Gus are star-crossed kindred spirits who reject the belief that all kids with cancer are courageous saints; they are both looking for meaning in their finite lives.  They share with each other their favorite books, movies, video games, dreams, fears, loves, and Cancer Perks. “Grand Gesture Metaphorically Inclined Augustus” takes Hazel on an adventure that she never could have imagined.  The Fault in Our Stars isn’t about cancer (or its sometimes tragic consequences) or even teenagers – it’s a story about love, friendship, and the joy that Hazel and Gus find in their “little infinity.”

The professional reviews and reader reviews of The Fault in Our Stars have been overwhelmingly positive, with many people calling it one of the best novels (for teens or adults) of the year.  Released in January 2012, it was named by Amazon as one of the best books of the month, and it has been on numerous best seller lists.  Like John Green’s other novels, The Fault in Our Stars is written for teenagers (and adults) who appreciate wit, philosophical ponderings, and the realness of life and its characters.

You can hear John Green read the first chapter of The Fault in Our Stars here.

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“Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”

Filed under: Adventure Stories, Fable/Fairy Tale/Fantasy, Family Problems, Fiction, Supernatural, Young Adult Literature by Ms. Waddle — Leave a comment
April 11, 2012

 Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

The weird photographs placed throughout this book drew me in. They are all actual, unretouched photos from private collections.

The original premise is also promising. Jacob deeply loves his grandfather, Abe, who is a survivor of the Holocaust. Abe often tells weird stories about his life—that he has spent years on the run from monsters and flesh-eating demons. Jacob’s parents tell him that this is Abe’s way of describing his terrible past. For a while, Jacob believes all of the bizarre stories.

And then he doesn’t.

And then he must. Because he witnesses an equally bizarre tragedy and finds himself looking for clues to his grandfather’s past life. These clues lead Jacob to Miss Peregrine’s home for peculiar children.

The word ‘peculiar,’ is, of course, an understatement. Other words to describe the group are magical, eccentric, other-worldly, supernatural. They make flames in the cup of their hands, have a hive of bees living inside them, they float. The author draws readers into their special, hidden world.  When we find out why they must hide, we follow them through imminent danger. I wished that those dangers—the wights and the hollowghasts—had a better reason for being because it would have helped me delve into this mysterious world. But the novel is still creative and unusual.

And the ending screams “Sequel!”

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What to read after The Hunger Games

Filed under: Adventure Stories, Fiction, Sci-Fi/Futuristic, Young Adult Literature by Ms. Waddle — 2 Comments
March 6, 2012

You finished The Hunger Games trilogy and you want more. What to do? Luckily for you, lots of really good YA science fiction books have been published in the last several years. Some have a bit more of a fantasy element, most have romance, including a love triangle, and all have adventure. The titles that follow are  recommended by California teacher librarians. I’ve read several and have included links to my reviews. Happy reading!

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Delirium by Lauren Oliver :Lena looks forward to receiving the government-mandated cure that prevents the delirium of love and leads to a safe, predictable, and happy life, until ninety-five days before her eighteenth birthday and her treatment, she falls in love.

Graceling and Fire by Kristin Cashore: In a world where some people are born with extreme and often-feared skills called Graces, Katsa struggles for redemption from her own horrifying Grace, the Grace of killing, and teams up with another young fighter to save their land from a corrupt king. (My review of Graceling is here. My review of Fire is here.)

Uglies trilogy by Scott Westerfield:Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that? Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can’t wait. Not for her license — for turning pretty. In Tally’s world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there. But Tally’s new friend Shay isn’t sure she wants to be pretty. She’d rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world — and it isn’t very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever. (My review is here.)

Divergent by Veronica Roth: In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all. (My review is here.)

Legend by Marie Lu: In a dark future, when North America has split into two warring nations, fifteen-year-olds Day, a famous criminal, and prodigy June, the brilliant soldier hired to capture him, discover that they have a common enemy. (My review is here.)

Matched and Crossed by Ally Condie: All her life, Cassia has never had a choice. The Society dictates everything: when and how to play, where to work, where to live, what to eat and wear, when to die, and most importantly to Cassia as she turns 17, whom to marry. When she is Matched with her best friend Xander, things couldn’t be more perfect. But why did her neighbor Ky’s face show up on her match disk as well? (My review of Matched is here. My review of Crossed is here.)

Unwind by Neal Schusterman: In a future world where those between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives “unwound” and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to survive until they turn eighteen. (My review is here.)

Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083 by Andrea White: In the year 2083, five fourteen-year-olds who were deprived by chance of the opportunity to continue their educations reenact Scott’s 1910-1913 expedition to the South Pole as contestants on a reality television show, secretly aided by a Department of Entertainment employee.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer: As plague ravages the overcrowded Earth, observed by a ruthless lunar people, Cinder, a gifted mechanic and cyborg, becomes involved with handsome Prince Kai and must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect the world in this futuristic take on the Cinderella story.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card: Child hero Ender Wiggin must fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race if mankind is to survive.

The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman: Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.

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Adult books for teens: “The Night Circus”

Filed under: Adventure Stories, Fable/Fairy Tale/Fantasy, Fiction, Over 375 pages, Supernatural by Ms. Waddle — Leave a comment
February 29, 2012

   The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

When the child Celia Bowen is delivered to her father, the famous magician Prospero (Hector Bowen), a challenge is taken up. Prospero believes that magical talent is inborn. Celia is an example with her uncanny ability to alter the environment around her, even to heal the wounds in her fingers, which her father slices as a way of having her practice. Prospero’s rival, Alexander H. (the man in the gray suit) believes that anyone can learn incredible magic. The two have been fighting over magic for years. When Alexander picks Marco Alisdair, an orphan, as his student, the game is on. Which of the two will grow up to be the better magician?

The playing field for the challenge is the black and white Night Circus—Le Cirque des Rêves. Celia and Marco control it, Celia as an illusionist inside the circus, Marco from London, as the assistant to the proprietor. Each adds mysterious tents full of wonders—paper animals suspending in midair that move and breathe, indoor ice sculptures with no means of refrigeration, a wishing tree with lighted candles that never go out. And, of course, there is the blindingly white bonfire. Lit at midnight on the first night of the circus, at the same time that the lion tamer’s twins were born, its supernatural powers hold the circus together.

In fact, the magic of the circus is awe-inspiring, and, although the circus always comes and goes unannounced, fans follow it, even to Europe. Everyone in the circus is caught in the magic; no one, except the twins, ages.

This would be the perfect dream if there weren’t a sinister element to the contest, one that neither Celia nor Marco knew of as they were brought up, unknown to one another, to compete. This is a game to the death. When Marco and Celia do meet, they fall in love. The flights of fancy they create at the circus are for one another. But how do they get out of the challenge alive?

The Night Circus moves back and forth in time between 1873 and 1903. I think this might be confusing to some teen readers, but my recommendation is just to lose yourself in the magic and not worry about the year. It will all come together nicely at the end. Meanwhile, the descriptions of the circus—the sights, the sounds, the smells of caramel and chocolate—is a feast for the senses.

Fans of paranormal books, of romance, adventure, and magic will love this book. Although it’s a much different story than Harry Potter, I think Potter fans will thrill to this one. A lovely adult book for teen readers looking for a textured read.

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“Ready Player One”

Filed under: Adventure Stories, Fable/Fairy Tale/Fantasy, Family Problems, Fiction, Historical Fiction/Historical Element, Human Rights Issues, Over 375 pages, Sci-Fi/Futuristic by Ms. Waddle — 1 Comment
February 21, 2012

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline  

It’s 2044 and the world is such a rotten place for most people that they spend as much time as possible on the OASIS, a virtual universe where you can not only play video games, but go to school, and do most other things that you’d normally do in real life. It’s a sort of Second Life on steroids, populated with endless planets containing any landscape or idea a person could imagine. In fact, life on the OASIS is valued more than real life when real life stinks.

I think the publisher’s blurb gives you a good summary, so I’ll quote it below. (I don’t usually quote what publishers say because they mostly oversell the book—which isn’t a problem because that’s their job. I just don’t often agree with blurbs.)

 

I came to read this novel because it was recommended in professional reviews as a great adult book title for teens. (Longer, adult books with teen appeal are something I’m currently looking for.) I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Ready Player One since I’m not a gamer. So—you don’t have to be a gamer either to get into the adventures, the perils and the fantasies of Parzical. Art3mis, and Aech (‘H’). But I do want to add that if you have any love of the 1980’s—arcade games, videos games, movies—you will have a blast with all the fantastic detail of 80’s entertainment that are recreated on the OASIS as the gamers compete for a multi-billion dollar inheritance. This is the most fun I’ve had reading a book in a while.

OK—here’s the publisher’s blurb. Right now Ready Player One is only available at the city library, so I encourage you to use your Ontario City Library card and check it out!

“At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY PLAYER ONE is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

“It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

“Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

“And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them..

“For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

“And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

“Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.

“A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?”

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Let’s Shop! Book Fair February 27-March 2

Filed under: Adventure Stories, Fable/Fairy Tale/Fantasy, Family Problems, Fiction, Graphic Novel, Hi-Low/Quick Read, Historical Fiction/Historical Element, Horror/Mystery/Suspense, Movie Tie-In, Multicultural, Non-fiction, Read 180, Romance, Sci-Fi/Futuristic, Sports, Supernatural, Young Adult Literature by Ms. Waddle — Leave a comment
February 16, 2012

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The library will be having its Scholastic Book Fair again this year during the week of February 27 to March 2 from 8 AM to 3 PM.

We’ll be open Wednesday evening February 29 until 7 PM so that parents can shop as well.

 We’ll have lots of Hunger Games items—The Hunger Games trilogy books, ‘mockingjay’ jewelry, posters and more—as well as many popular titles.

Please help us by shopping for books, posters, bookmarks, journals, pencils, pens. Proceeds from the book fair earn new books for our library.

We need your support!

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“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”

Filed under: Adventure Stories, Fiction, Historical Fiction/Historical Element, Movie Tie-In, Supernatural by Ms. Waddle — Leave a comment
February 9, 2012

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

What do we make of the long-secret journal of Abraham Lincoln in which he details his life as a vampire hunter? What drove him to his vigilance against the undead? And why is his fight so important?

I read Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter when it was published in 2010, but somehow I missed reviewing it. Now, it’s coming out in a movie, and today a student asked if we have it in the library. (Answer: COHS, yes. CHS—coming soon.) So let me step back and remember why I enjoyed this wacky mix of history and the supernatural.

Though it’s obvious that some of the journal quoted in the novel is pure fiction—the vampire parts—I want to mention for students that the entire journal is fiction, though some of the events described are historical. Lincoln’s mother did die when he was a boy, though we have no child’s journal describing his pain and grief.

In Grahame-Smith’s novel, we learn the secret behind the ‘milk sickness’ that killed Abe’s mom. It’s actually a vampire bite, as is all milk sickness. So—at a mere eleven years old—Abe takes a lifelong vow to kill any and all vampires he can hunt down. This personal pledge becomes an issue of national honor as Lincoln is slowing uncovering the connection between slaveholders and vampires.

Believable? No. A good piece of writing? No. Enjoyable? You bet. Unless you’re squeamish—there are many (gratuitous?) vampire battles and the methods of killing them (or of being killed, if you are an unlucky or unskilled vampire hunter) are legion. I’m guessing the movie is going to be a pretty bloody event. But if you aren’t taking it seriously, if you just like the mashup element of the book, you find it a very quick read that taps into your love of the perfectly ludicrous.

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