Thursday, March 31, 2011

YA Books to Movies list

I neede a list of these, and fabulous librarians, you responded!  So, here it is - use it for displays, booktalking, whatever you can do with an amazing list! 

21
About a Boy
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (they changed the title for the movie)
Beastly
Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Blood and Chocolate
Breaking Dawn
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009)
City of Ember (2008)
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
Eagle of the Ninth (released as The Eagle)
Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine
Eragon
Flipped
Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen
Golden Compass
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Hellboy
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Holes, by Louis Sachar
Hoot
How to Deal (based upon 2 of Sarah Dessen's titles, That Summer and Someone Like You)
I am number Four
I Love You Beth Cooper
Inkheart
It’s Kind of a Funny Story
Jane Eyre

Legend of the Guardians : The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)
Last Song
The Losers
Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
My Sister’s Keeper
Narnia
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Princess Diaries 1 was based upon a book, but 2 was not.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the world
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Soul Surfer: a true story of faith, family, and fighting to get back on the board

Speak
Stormbreaker

Upcoming (either the film rights have been bought, are in pre-production or post-production):

Hugo Cabret
Hunger Games
Incarceron
Maze Runner
Mortal Instruments
If I Stay
Divergent
Matched
Wicked Lovely
Shiver

Perks of Being a Wallflower
Thirteen Reasons Why

tv series:
Pretty Little Liars
Vampire Diaries

You may want to check out Mid-Continent Library's website Based on the Book:
http://www.mymcpl.org/books-movies-music/based-book


Before they were movies bibliography: http://www.pmlib.org/node/446

I genre-fied!!!

Took the plunge!!  The funeral wreath is from our floral class and it just fits perfectly : )  This is the supernatural section.   Working on fantasy next....
I know it's a little thing and lots of people are doing it, but it was WORK and I'm just so proud that I finally jumped tracks a little : )

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Exposed by Kimberly Marcus

Liz and Kate has been forever bests since they were six years old and are still best friends at sixteen.  Liz is Photo Girl – taking amazing photographs and hoping to purse photography in college.  Kate is Mistress of Modern Dance, but unsure exactly what she wants to do.

It’s their monthly sleepover – the only time dedicated to the two girls without outside interference, without threat of anyone taking time away from them, cocooned in the comfort of their friendship and lives.  But a minor spark, a disagreement, gets in the way this one time, and for tonight, Kate sleeps on the couch, while Liz stays in her room.

But something happened….Kate avoids Liz, even after she apologizes for hurting Kate’s feelings.  But nothing Liz can say could possibly prepare her for what Kate finally reveals to her.  Mike, Liz’s brother, home from college, raped her….

Is it true or is Kate lying?  Liz can’t possibly believe that her brother, the one who introduced Liz to Brian, the one whom she told Kate was off limits, could do this.  Why would Kate make something like that up?  Or is Mike the one who is lying?  Consentual or forced?  It not only ruins a friendship, but ruins Liz’s focus, not only with Kate but with those closest to her as well as her passion for photography.  She feels out of focus….and still unsure about who is telling the truth….

A powerful novel in verse, the author sets the scene of the book without the reader possibly knowing what could have happened until they read it.  It’s a look at relationships, not only between friends, but those that are familial as well.  Marcus delves into the gray area that teens start to run into the older they get.  No longer is life a clear division of opposites, but sometimes the lines blur.  And that is what that author so clearly writes about.  Who is truly innocent or guilty is left up to the reader, but the nuances allow a certain modicum of bias the reader will pick up on.  An excellent first book for a new YA author.  Recommended.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Glimpse by Carol Lynch Williams

Liz and Hope are sisters, and they know what a regular family is like.  But that’s in the past….now it’s just them and their mother.  Things at home aren’t the same as they were, and it gets worse when Hope finds her older sister in the bathroom with gun.

Now, in order to make ends meet, Liz and Hope’s mother takes on clients at home to make money.  At their age, they don’t exactly understand what that means, but their lives are uninterrupted with friends, secret crushes and a private spot in the house that becomes their clubhouse. 

But  for Liz, her normal life quickly turns into a nightmare, and one she wants to protect Hope from.  But Liz can only stand so much before she breaks…

Although sisters, both girls have lived very different lives under the same roof.  Hope doesn’t understand why Liz would want to kill herself, but she tries to every time she and her mother visit Liz in the mental hospital.  Liz won’t talk to her mother at all – it’s only Hope that she’ll speak to, although it’s not a lot.  All her mother wants to make sure of is that Liz hasn’t told the secret, whatever that means…

The more visits Hope and her mother make to Liz, who is still unresponsive, the more Hope begins to understand what happened to Liz, especially when she and her mother must see a family counselor who talks to Hope about Liz’s predicament.  But it’s when the counselor asks for Liz’s diary that Hope’s mother becomes aggressive, mean…demanding Hope give her the book.  Hope doesn’t have it, but she knows where it is.  And when she finds it in their secret place, the floodgates open and Hope then realizes exactly how bad Liz’s life has become because of her mother’s demands on her. 

Lynch Williams unfolds a tragic story gradually to a situation both girls live in and through, but with different voices that create very strong characters in Hope and Liz.  The author writes a tale about abuse and neglect and its ugly aftermath without having to resort to first-hand experiences or sufferings of the older sister, but the reader knows all too well what has happened.  Lynch Williams also leaves the ending open, not tied up in a perfect bow that makes this novel all that more realistic and powerful.  Those who love novels-in-verse will find this an excellent choice, and one that will make them read every part of the beautiful prose Lynch uses so well to convey the truth about the lives of two innocent people.  Highly recommended.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Two for the girls! The Complete History of Why I Hate Her and Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

I've been reading and have four to blog, but I'm cutting it up into two parts. Here's part one, which features some great reads for girls - one a romance, the other about friendships....


The Complete History of Why I Hate her by Jennifer Richard Jacobson
Nola just wants a summer to be herself.  She loves her little sister, Song, but has always wanted the  feeling of being a normal teenger, not a sister of a sibling who has cancer.  So this summer, she’s off to Rocky Cove Inn to work at the resort as a waitress, surrounded by other teens from all over the place. 

On her bus ride there, she meets the quirky, funny, and always lively Carly, who’s on her way to Boston to be with her family.  All it takes is one bus trip to seal the deal of a friendship.  Even though they've never met, when Nola gets off the bus at Rocky Cove, she already misses her new bubbly friend….

It isn’t long until Nola is immersed in life at Rocky Cove, including meeting the guy counselors from across the way, going to parties in a cabin by the lake, and spending the afternoons she has off swimming, running, and writing haikus to Song and sending them home.  And the best thing that could ever happen – Carly shows up to work too! 

But is it the best thing in the world?  At first Nola thinks so, but slowly she’s seeing a side of Carly that she isn’t sure is real or imagined.  Is Carly in competition with her, or is she just being a friend?  Why doesn’t Carly cheer Nola on when good things happen to her?  At first dubbed the Cannoli’s, Nola isn’t sure she wants a friend that she feels strangles her more than allows her freedom to be herself.  Or is Nola just presuming that Carly is being this way?  Isn't imitation the best form of flattery?

Jacobson has written a quick and dramatic unfolding of events between two girls and a friendship that quickly becomes toxic.  She recognizes the invisible signs that people wear but don’t always show others they have.  Both Nola and Carly are realistic in two very separate ways, and the reader at first is excited for the friendship, but is also omnisciently aware of what really is happening before Nola does.  This is not a happy romance book, but one with a darker side.  Jacobson’s use of haikus within the book, as well as a budding romance for Nola, rounds out this novel into one that readers will start and finish quickly.  Recommended. 


Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

Amy Curry killed her father.  Now, she won’t even think about driving a car.  Home isn’t home anymore since the accident either.  Her brother is in North Carolina, and her mother found another job in faraway Connecticut – as far as possible from California as she could get, and now Amy has to leave too.  But this time, it’s a cross-country trip, which Amy’s mother has meticulously mapped out.  The conundrum?  How is Amy to get to the East Coast in a car?  She can’t do it after what happened….

Enter Roger, an old childhood friend Amy vaguely remembers.  He has the summer off and is going to Philly to stay with his dad and volunteers to take Amy to Connecticut as well as drop of the car Amy’s mother needs.  Great….just what Amy DOESN”T want – a long car trip with a college who happens to be HOT….

For about a year, Amy has had to deal with the pain and suffering of losing a parent.  She doesn’t want to talk about it, feel anything, and becomes a recluse, only allowing herself out when starring in musicals, which is her passion.  She doesn’t want to be stuck in a car answering questions, but when the road trip starts, she realizes Roger doesn’t know what happened, and a small weight is lifted. 

And so the long cross-country trip begins, but Roger and Amy decide to take this time to come to terms with some of the people and incidents in their lives.  Instead of taking the “safe route” Amy’s mom has emailed, Amy and Roger decide to start out at Yosemite,  and from there they run into an endless highway with a shoe tree, a fabulous party in Colorado, and some amazing topiaries in Kentucky. 

But more than that, Amy’s layers begin to peel off as she slowly realizes that life can go on.  Roger also learns that sometimes the people you meet in life are there for now, but there are so many more interesting people to bump into.

What a wonderful read for girls!  Not only does the novel contain romance and road trips, twinkies and tents, but so much added stuff, such as Roger’s playlists of music for the trip, and scraps of a travel log that Amy shares with the reader, including receipts, pictures, menus, notes, and doodles among other things.  The readers feels like the back seat passenger in this novel, and gets to know Roger and Amy on so many different levels the closer they get to their destination, not only physically, but emotionally as well.
This is exactly what you get when you read the title – an epic adventure!   Recommended.