On My Way... to ALA 2011

I can't wait to leave for ALA 2011 tomorrow - even if it does seem that I don't have half the things done that I need to before I go. It will be my first trip to New Orleans, but I'll be traveling with a fellow teacher-librarian who has spent a lot of time there (and has connections in the local music community), so we're sure to be spending time eating good food and checking out the music scene.

I'm looking forward to so many of the AASL and YALSA sessions, to networking with my Twitter buddies in person, and meeting some of my librarian heroes, but most of all to the chance to meet Paolo Bacigalupi!

Ship Breaker starts, Fever Crumb continues

A colleague and I both read Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker last week. WOW! This speculative YA fiction was so good, I had to check out his adult fiction. Now that I'm almost done reading all his short stories and novels, I'm convinced he's the love child of Margaret Atwood and William Gibson. 

So rich in YA themes, where to start?

Things Change

Will Richardson thinks about what will happen as our students develop their own personal learning networks - instead of attending fixed classes, in Personal Learning Networks (An Excerpt). Could we be obsolete as teachers?

Teens and "Dark" Fiction

I spent the past week reading two incredibly dark YA books about graverobbing, and then someone forwarded me the link to this New York Times article, with ensuing discussion, on the appeal of dark themes to teens. What synchronicity!

Last weekend I attended the Booklist and Book Links Editors Revue at National-Louis University's Center for Teaching through Children's Books, where I met Daniel Kraus and got an ARC of his second YA novel, Rotters.

Happy Night of the Supernaturals

Happy Halloween to all you vampire and werewolf and zombie readers out there.

Teen Read Week and Author

Had a wonderful conclusion to Teen Read Week today, Skyping with Paul Volponi during student lunch hours. Amazing how many students turned out to be writing something themselves!

Teen Read Week

October 17-23 is Teen Read Week. this year's theme: Books with Beat. We'll be holding contests and giving away books, then chatting with a YA author to finish up on Friday!

Mockingjay Fever

Yes, the buzz has been building, as two lucky students checked out our first copies of Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay, the third in the Hunger Games series. Other students have purchased their own copies, and all (including me) are racing to be the first to finish, and find out what happens to Katniss and Peeta!

Teens Behind Bars

I just finished two books in a row about teen boys under detention. In Paul Volponi's Rikers High, he has fictionalized an amalgam of several students' experiences on Rikers Island, as told to him. The callousness of guards, the brutality of fellow inmates, and the attitudes of teachers both good and bad, all are described by the young protagonist.

Todd Strasser's Boot Camp is about the experiences of boys and girls who are kidnapped from their parents' homes, to be interred at private "Boot Camps", once again based on the author's research into existing institutions. Guards and inmates are incredibly similar to those in the Volponi book, although these guards are not allowed to beat the "campers", so they encourage other teens to do it for them. The only rule is not to leave marks.

Summer days... and nights

It's summer... so it's time for another Susan Beth Pfeffer, This World We Live In. This one is a sequel to the first two books, Life As We Knew It and The Dead and the Gone. Miranda is 17 now, and her world seems to be thawing from the winter of starvation that her family has endured in a small Pennsylvania town. Although the sun hasn't been able to break through the ash-filled clouds, some food is becoming available, and the electricity comes on sometimes. Matthew and John are itching to travel and have adventures, but their mother seems weaker from her self-enforced starvation. Warm days, more food, and returning strength means they'll have more contact with others who have survived the earthly results of a change in the moon's orbit, including Alex and Julie Morales.