Saturday, May 5

1-4 PM

Ontario Senior Center

(Just go to the Ovitt Library downtown and folks will point at the building for you!)

Bring your camera and take a photo with one of the five YA authors:

• Josephine Angelini
• Anna Carey
• Tahereh Mafi
• Alexandra Monir
• Jay Asher

You can bring your books to be signed, or buy books there and have them signed.  (Prices are very reasonable. You can get a paperback Thirteen Reasons Why for $6.99 plus tax.)

I’m so excited about the Teen Book Fest tomorrow–I’ve been reading just one more of the authors’ books this week–Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini.  I’m not sure if I will finish–I’m three-quarters of the way through it now. Those of you who’ve read other reviews here know that I’m not into paranormal fiction myself, but that I get why so many people are. As to Starcrossed, I get why paranormal fans are going to love it!

Helen doesn’t understand why she is faster and stronger than other kids. All of her life, she’s tried to hide her talents and despairs of being considered a freak. That is until a strange new family moves to Nantucket and peaceful island life is turned upside down.  Helen discovers that the legacy of the Greek gods–who were always having affairs with humans–is alive and well in Massachusetts. Their demi-god children have passed their characteristics and powers down through thousands of years and many generation.

Anyone with just a little background in Greek mythology will immediately recognize that the three Furies are after Helen, but will have to wait to discover why. Add to that new neighbor Luke, demi-god and all around luscious guy, is crushing on Helen while his cousins try to help her control her powers so that she can combat evil demi-gods who want to kill her in order to achieve their goals. Meanwhile, Helen is getting glimpses into the nature of her long-ago disappeared mother.

Starcrossed combines some fun elements–the Greek myths are transformed and the demi-god characters are a lot like the vampires you find in YA fiction these days–but without all that nasty bloodsucking.

Helen is transforming from a meek, hunch-shouldered loner to a kicking powerhouse of electrical energy. This is a romp with a female superhero–and it’s the first in a series, so more fun for paranormal fans is on the way.

See you tomorrow at the Book Fest!

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!

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.

 Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

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!”

Poor Cinder. Not only is she Cinderella on warp speed—she slaves away as a mechanic for her step-family in a future world that has been through four World Wars—she’s also a cyborg who started out as human, but, after a hover car accident, received lots of replacement parts including a mechanical hand and foot. She lives in a world where cyborgs have few rights and are regarded as less than human. This creates an interesting view of prejudices for the reader.

So, no. She isn’t going to be able to make the ball, even after she meets the handsome Prince Kai at her market stall in New Beijing of the Eastern Commonwealth, a part of a new world order in which alliances have prevented more war. Prince Kai, who has no idea that Cinder is a cyborg, is there because he needs help with his android, and Cinder is the best mechanic there is. He’s cute, and soon to be Emperor, but Cinder has more important things on her mind. Like escaping from her dreaded stepmother, Audrey, and her wicked stepsister Pearl. (Her other stepsister, Peony, is actually nice and Cinder loves her.) Besides, rumor is that Queen Levana, ruler of the Lunars (yes, they live on the moon and have special powers) will have the poor Kai as her husband or she will attack the earth with her superior army. Add to that the fact that there is a terrible plague—lutumois—running through the population and the Emperor (Kai’s dad) is dying from it himself, and it’s pretty incredible that Kai has the time to keep asking Cinder to the ball.

Why is this sci-fi futuristic population so interested in a formal ball? I can’t say. But I’m asking you to go with it because it makes for a wacky, creative sort of story. From the beginning I thought Cinder would be running away from the ball at the stroke of midnight and drop her mechanical foot. And I wanted to find out—how could she hop away on one foot fast enough to escape? Well, that isn’t exactly what happens. But Cinder does escape more than one place and leaves clues to her identity.

The author also drops (heavy, heavy, heavy) hints about Cinder’s true identity—of which she is entirely unaware. You’ll figure out who she is right away, and you’ll know how important she is to the future of Prince Kai, the Eastern Commonwealth, and the entire planet. So you’ll cheer her as she fights prejudice, evil backstabbers, and mindless androids.

This is the first of four books in the Lunar Chronicles series. Get ready for an all-out galactic war.

Note: It seems a new trend in reading is in re-imagined fairytales. I thought I’d try some for summer reading, but got an early start with Cinder. Another trend I see, that may just be local—at COHS and CHS—is in war books. So, I plan on some of those for the summer a well. Odd combo, huh?

 The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

Guest review by Jenny Thomas, VVHS teacher and soon-to-be teacher librarian!

It’s 1996; and less than half of all American high school students have ever used the Internet.  Emma, a 16-year-old junior, receives her first computer–a gift from her father who has moved away with his new wife and baby. Emma’s neighbor and former best-friend Josh, brings over a CD-ROM with 100 free hours to AOL. Yes, using the Internet used to tie-up your phone line (almost no one had a cell phone), and it was limited!

The authors do a fantastic job of transporting their readers into 1996–a time in which your computer ran CD-ROMs (not apps), Friends was the hottest show on TV (but you couldn’t DVR it), and you listened to CDs on your Discman (no iPods). Facebook wouldn’t be created for another eight years. . . so how did it end up on Emma’s computer? Through an inexplicable link to 2011, Josh and Emma are able to see their lives on Facebook–15 years into the future. It’s amusing to watch them figure out Facebook (“Why would anyone say this stuff about themselves on the Internet? It’s crazy!”); they read wall posts, see who they are friends with, view their spouses, kids, and jobs, etc. Josh and Emma come to realize that their lives will take unexpected (and some unwelcome) twists and turns. When Emma starts changing the present in an attempt to improve her Facebook future, it changes the future of others, too.

Authors Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler switch off writing chapters from the perspectives of Josh and Emma, respectively.  Reading The Future of Us was nostalgic for me, as I was 16 in 1996 and vividly remember the world as the authors describe it–much different from our world in 2012.  The Future of Us is light, funny, entertaining, and relatable. I can definitely see this book being made into a movie (the movie rights have already been sold).

Professional reviews of this book have ranged from mixed to positive, which I agree with. While I don’t think the book lived up to its brilliant plot description, I definitely enjoyed reading about our world viewed from the perspective of high school students in the past. We all want to know how our own story turns out, but Emma and Josh’s story reminds us that any of the thousands of small decisions that we make every day could change our future.

Ms. Waddle’s note: I know how much we all loved Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why, so I have a ‘save the date’ for you. Jay Asher will be at the Ontario City Library, Ovitt Branch (downtown on C and Lemon Streets) as one of the guest authors for the Teen Book Fest on Saturday, May 5–along with four other great YA authors. More info will follow, but put it on your calendar now! Check out The Future of Us now, and you’ll be able to ask Asher question about both books.

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Incarceron is a vast prison—a varied landscape, created as an experiment in forever removing dangerous criminals from society, but generously placing them in an alternate world that meets all of their needs. Outside of Incarceron, no one knows what happens there. It is considered a sort of paradise. But over a few centuries, resources have become scare, and the inmates fight for basic necessities.

Incarceron can think. It watches its inmates and reacts to their movements. It’s a weird being that is aware of itself, but can never see outside of itself. It cannot meet its own desires, and comes to delight in making sure that no one ever escapes its walls, and that no one is ever let in from the outside. It creates new life by recycling what it has, although, unfortunately, the details of how this happens are glossed over.

As we meet Finn, a member of a band of rogue criminals (the Comitatus), he is risking his life to gain bounty. However, he’s not a typical criminal, but has a searing conscious. He is sure he’s from the Outside, and he has memories of another world which others around him believe are visions. He is marked as special, a starseer. He is seen as the one person who will be able to escape Incarceron, and when he comes in possession of a crystal key (no one has ever seen a key since there is no getting out of the prison), this belief becomes an adventure for Finn and his band of friends.

Meanwhile, on the Outside, Claudia, daughter of the powerful warden of Incarceron, is betrothed to the prince. She was originally betrothed to the true prince, a boy she favored, but he died under mysterious circumstances. The new prince, son of the queen, is neither bright nor kind. (And, yes, you can see just where all this is going.)

Incarceron has been embraced by professional reviewers, and they suggest that fans of Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games trilogy) will like it. That may be true. However, I think Incarceron is much more of a fantasy book than science fiction. The protocol under which the Outsiders live mean that their world appears as a seventeenth century European kingdom. They have futuristic technology, but it’s invisible to them. The stories of the evil queen, of Claudia’s power hungry father who thinks nothing of her unhappiness in his bid for royalty have a great appeal for fantasy readers.

I had a much tougher time with the book than the pros because the writing drove me a bit nuts. There were too many sentences with unnecessary words—something like “Hump,” he said disgruntledly. (That’s not a direct quote, but so much of the dialogue had that unnecessary sort of tagging.) There was also a lot of nondescriptive description like, ‘He muddied his beautiful boots.’ (How about alligator skin boots? Or lion hide boots? Then we’d know exactly what they are and it would also tell us something about the character of the person wearing them—a little bonus.)

Even though Incarceron was hard for me to get through, why reviewers like it is obvious. The world Fisher creates is deeply imaginative, a real accomplishment. The novel begins with fast action (and good writing, to give credit where credit is due). Had a different editor been on the job, I probably would have enjoyed it. And truth be told, I am not the target audience. Teen readers of fantasy are—and if you are among that group, I think this is one you’ll enjoy. With the bonus that there’s a sequel—Sapphique.

Both are in our library now.

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.

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?”