New links

Booklist: Dystopian novels

Dystopian fiction addresses possible futures of human society and the planet earth, and it's usually pretty grim. One example that many students are familiar with is The Giver by Lois Lowry, and PRHS has a number of other dystopian novels available as well.

**April 9, 2010: updated to include new books and websites.

Feed by M. T. Anderson

The handmaid's tale by Margaret Atwood

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Hunger Games (read my review) and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

The city of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

Gone by Michael Grant

Green angel by Alice Hoffman (read my review)

Devil on my back by Monica Hughes

Brave new world by Aldous Huxley

The giver by Lois Lowry

The declaration by Gemma Malley

The secret under my skin by Janet McNaughton

The knife of never letting go by Patrick Ness (read my review)

Life as we knew it by Susan Beth Pfeffer (read my review)

How I live now by Meg Rosoff

The forest of hands and teeth by Carrie Ryan

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Skinned by Robin Wasserman

Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld (read my review)

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

Clicking on the linked title will take you to the PRHS library catalogue so you can see if the book is checked in.

More dystopian booklists:

Best dystopian novels for teens
Dystopian fiction
Dystopian fiction for youth
Dystopias booklist (includes adult novels)
Top 10 dystopian novels list

New books!

Fiction

Darkest Hour (Mediator book 4) by Meg Cabot

Fire by Kristin Cashore

The Perks of being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Revelations and The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa De La Cruz

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Gone by Michael Grant

Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson

Chronicler of the Winds by Henning Mankell

Death's Shadow, Wolf Island, and Dark Calling (Demonata books 7-9) by Darren Shan

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Nonfiction

How to play guitar by Roger Evans

The Humongous Book of Cartooning by Christopher Hart

The Life and Opionions of DJ Spinoza by Eugene Ostashevsky

The little black book for guys: guys talk about sex by St. Stephen's Community House

Reference

Historical atlas of Canada by Derek Hayes

February Delicious links

Last book title in Hunger Games trilogy announced

The title of the last book in the series by Suzanne Collins, following The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, will be Mockingjay. It is due to be released on August 24, 2010, by Scholastic.

Wonder of the Web: Wolfram|Alpha

If you are not aware of the Wolfram|Alpha computational search engine, you probably should be. It's really something else - as it states on the homepage: "Today's Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone."

I don't know who these people are, but they need a lot more initiative. Sheesh. (Actually, you can now watch the man responsible for WolframAlpha give a dynamic 20-minute presentation.)

At any rate, it turns out that Wolfram|Alpha can actually give step-by-step solutions to quadratic problems, as demonstrated in this blog post. It can also be a very handy search engine for finding anything from finding out how many milliliters are in 10 Tbsp, the population density of Ghana (given by square mile, square kilometre, and square foot, no less), or where the note A is located on a keyboard (it will even play the note for you!).

Hundreds of other examples are also available, from elementary math to ocean comparisons to languages.

Notably, Wolfram|Alpha provides what they call source information for the data presented in their results, which are not necessarily where the information came from but further sources for similar information. These other sources are conveniently linked in the source information list.

This is definitely worth a look for those interested in math and science, but Wolfram|Alpha has data that applies to pretty much every other subject area as well.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie trailer!

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie based on the hilarious books of the same name will be released on April 2nd.

New Orca Soundings books

Orca Soundings series

Running the risk by Lesley Choyce

Impact by James C. Dekker

Hannah's touch by Laura Langston

Jacked by Carrie Mac

Back by Norah McClintock

Picture this by Norah McClintock

In the woods by Robin Stevenson

Riley Park by Diane Tullson

Other fiction from Orca Publishers

Sister wife by Shelley Hrdlitschka

The Beckoners by Carrie Mac

Five minutes more by Darlene Ryan

Review: Audrey, wait!

Audrey, wait! by Robin Benway

Audrey is really into music and has just broken up with her boyfriend Evan, who is in a band at their high school. Things seem to be going fine until Evan comes on stage at a concert and sings a song he wrote about their break-up called "Audrey, wait!" The song goes on a meteoric rise to the top of the Billboard charts and makes Evan's band - and Audrey - famous. Between being followed by paparazzi, having people on the internet gossip about her every move, and needing to quit her part-time job (where she has a really cute coworker), Audrey finds out fame may not be all it's cracked up to be.

I adored this book, especially because I loved the characters. Audrey is very likable, her parents are fantastic, and the conversations between Audrey and her best friend Victoria are often completely hilarious. I laughed out loud several times and got completely sucked into the dramas going on in Audrey's life to the point where I couldn't wait to get home and read more. (Given my slack reading patterns lately, that is notable!)

Music is all throughout this novel, and the lyrics quoted at the beginning of each chapter were not only appropriate but had me Googling a few artists who were new to me. Robin Benway is obviously enthusiastic and knowledgeable about music and it pervades the entire book.

Overall, this is a very fun book that I will happily read again.

4.5 stars out of 5 for Audrey, wait!

Read the first chapter online.

November links