New books

A small batch of new books arrived this morning:

Fiction

Blood beast and Demon apocalypse (Demonata #5 and #6) by Darren Shan

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld

Spanking Shakespeare by Jake Wizner

Story of a girl by Sara Zarr

Nonfiction

Survivors: true stories of children in the Holocaust by Allan Zullo and Mara Bovsun

Review: Soulless

Soulless by Christopher Golden

Three world-famous mediums (media?) get together on a morning news show in New York City and have a séance. Within a few minutes, things go wrong in the TV studio and strange and terrifying things start happening in the surrounding area. Namely, the dead are rising and feeding on innocent people, particularly their own families.

Soulless follows several teenagers and their horrific experiences during "the Uprising": Phoenix is the daughter of one of the mediums, Matt and Noah are school rivals who are trying to get to their families in NYC, Sara and Zack are stuck inside Sara's house, Jack is a gang member on the run, and Tania is a television and music star on her way to an interview. All of them are trying to stay alive against thousands of rampaging zombies and put an end to the problem.

I'm not ashamed to admit that this book gave me some troubled sleep for a night or two, which is my own fault for reading it before going to bed. Zombies are one thing, but zombies that especially prey on their own loved ones?! It made my skin crawl.

Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the book and devour it in two sittings. The zombies were creepy and terrifying, the characters and their relationships were interesting, and the action was pretty much nonstop. While there was a lot of violence, I appreciated that the gruesomeness wasn't over the top. Just enough detail to make me shudder is exactly how I like it, and Soulless made me shudder repeatedly.

4 stars out of 5 for Soulless.

Another review.

ALA Youth Media Awards announced this morning

Every year, the American Library Association (ALA) gives awards for a variety of literature, including their Youth Media Awards that cover books whose target audiences range from preschoolers through teens.

The Printz Award is "an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature," and there are traditionally several Printz Honor books as well. Books considered for the 2009 award were published in the United States in 2008.

2009 Printz Award winner

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

2009 Printz Honor books

The astonishing life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the nation volume 2: Kingdom on the waves by M. T. Anderson

Nation by Terry Pratchett

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan

Previous Printz Award winners in the PRHS library collection include Looking for Alaska by John Green, Monster by Walter Dean Myers, American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, and How I live now by Meg Rosoff.

The ALA also gives out the Newbery Medal for excellence in children's literature ("children" being under the age of 14 in this case). Although I haven't read it quite yet, word on the street is that this year's winner is definitely closer to the upper limit of the regulations.

2009 Newbery Medal winner
The graveyard book by Neil Gaiman

2009 Newbery Honor books
The underneath by Kathi Appelt
After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson
Savvy by Ingrid Law
The surrender tree: poems of Cuba's struggle for freedom by Margarita Engle

The PRHS library has a number of recent Newbery award and honor winners in the collection, such as Good masters! Sweet ladies! Voices from a Medieval village by Laura Amy Schlitz, Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis, and Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata.

Full lists and/or links to all the Youth Media Awards will be posted at the ALA YMA site.

Book shipment

Two book orders arrived this week, and they included one of my favourite reads of 2008.

Fiction

The Sweet far thing by Libba Bray

Scum by James C. Dekker*

Spiral by K. L. Denman*

Soulless by Christopher Golden

Sticks and stones by Beth Goobie*

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

First time by Meg Tilly*

Learning to fly by Paul Yee*

Nonfiction

Off to war: voices of soldiers' children by Deborah Ellis

Rare courage: veterans of the Second World War remember by Rod Mickleburgh

SAS survival guide: how to survive in the wild, in any climate, on land, or at sea by John "Lofty" Wiseman


*Orca Soundings books.

Wonder of the web: The Big Picture blog

I just discovered the Boston Globe's The Big Picture blog last week, and already it has become a favourite of mine. Its premise is simple: provide stunning, high-quality, and newsworthy photographs to viewers. The result is a new set of about 20 photographs with captions three times per week, and the photos include jaw-droppers like this one of a polar bear:

And this photo of women in a Sudanese refugee camp:


And this shot of NASA shuttle Endeavour:


With a wonderful collection of images of international and current events, it is also possible to search the blog by month and category. Enjoy.

Review: The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Katniss lives in what used to be known as North America but is now called Panem. Her district, District 12, is one of the poorest districts and in order to feed herself, her mother and her sister, she needs to illegally hunt rabbits and squirrels with the bow and arrow her father taught her to use before he died. Life is not easy, and it's about to get more difficult.

Every year, the government of Panem sponsors the Hunger Games with 2 teenagers - a boy and a girl - competing from each of the twelve districts, and this year Katniss' younger sister is picked. Katniss steps up and takes her place, which may seem greedy until you know that the winner of the Hunger Games is the last kid alive: it's a fight to the death on live reality TV.

What I just summarized is covered in the first 30 pages. What happens in the next 340 (and don't let that number scare you - it's not a book you can easily put down) is scary, funny, gruesome, shocking, and tense. It features deadly wasps, bloodthirsty opponents, life-or-death chases, explosions, death, and a little romance. Everything is from Katniss' point of view, and she's a great narrator: funny, smart, tough, stubborn, deadly with a bow and arrow, and even has a bit of a weakness for pretty clothes. She's difficult to dislike.

I must admit, I have a weakness for dystopian novels, like The Giver, Uglies, and many more. The Hunger Games is one of the best I've read, and as the first in a projected trilogy, I can't wait until the next book comes out in September.

5 stars out of 5 for The Hunger Games.


Extras:
The Hunger Games website (features interviews with the author and you can read the first chapter).
Stephen King liked this book too.
TeenReads review and excerpt.