New Delicious links in May

Review: The knife of never letting go

The knife of never letting go: Chaos walking, book 1 by Patrick Ness

Todd Hewitt is the youngest boy in Prentisstown, where all the women died of a virus shortly after he was born, and the virus caused all the men and boys to hear each other's thoughts and the thoughts of animals as well. Todd is a month away from turning 13 and becoming a man, when one day he "hears" silence in the swamp when he's gathering apples. It turns out the silence is a girl, Viola - the first one he's ever seen.

When the other members of the town hear about Todd's encounter with silence, his caregivers tell him to run away. Todd doesn't understand but he and his dog Manchee go and take Viola with them.

Off they run, beyond the limits of the town to where Todd has never been and he believes nothing - and nobody - else is out there. Turns out that is the least of the lies he has been told: not only are there other towns, but there are women who are alive. With crazy Prentisstown preacher Aaron and an army of Prentisstown men on their tail, Todd, Viola and Manchee set out to make it to the city Haven while they still can.

The knife of never letting go was a fast read. Even though it is almost 500 pages long I whipped through it in 2 days, staying up late to finish it. But wow, is it ever dark! It even seems to me that it's darker than The Hunger Games, but perhaps that was because, apart from Todd's dog Manchee ("Poo. Poo, Todd."), there was not much lightness or humour in the book. I did find it amusing that the only thing sheep think is "sheep!", though. Heh.

This is not a book for the faint of heart. It is a testament to Ness's abilities that the story could wrench my heart so acutely, because it really did some serious wrenching. One scene made me gasp aloud and put the book down for a moment to regain my composure. As awful and painful as this book can be, it is masterfully done, and Todd is a wonderful and compelling character.

This is the first book in a trilogy and it ends on a huge cliffhanger. The second book is out in the fall, so if you find cliffhangers frustrating then you'll want to wait to read it. Otherwise, I highly recommend it.

4.5 stars out of 5 for The knife of never letting go: Chaos walking, book 1.

The knife of never letting go won the Guardian Children's Book Prize in the United Kingdom.

The Hunger Games wins the Battle!

I am very happy about this, so I thought I would share.

If you haven't read The Hunger Games yet, you should. You can get it here at the library.

A few new books

A few new fiction books have come in this week. Hopefully there will be many more coming later this month from orders I sent a couple of weeks ago. Can't wait!

Go ask Alice by Anonymous

Girls in pants: the third summer of the sisterhood by Ann Brashares

The knife of never letting go (Chaos walking, book 1) by Patrick Ness

The ghosts of Kerfol by Deborah Noyes

Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Review: Need

Need by Carrie Jones

After her beloved step-father's death, Zara's mother sends her to live in rural Maine with her grandmother. Strange things start happening immediately: teenage boys are disappearing from the town and there is a creepy pointing man in the woods who calls to her. On the other hand, there are two gorgeous guys interested in her and they both distrust the other one. Zara's not sure what to think.

Things get interesting when Zara and her new friends discover why the creepy pointing guy leaves gold dust in his wake: he's a pixie. And not a friendly one. In fact, he's looking for a queen and has targeted Zara. Luckily, Nick takes on the role of protecting Zara but he has some secrets, too.

Need is basically a combination of Twilight and Wicked Lovely: a girl moves away from her mother to a small town with a pixie king who is hunting her. As such, I rather enjoyed it. Zara's obsession with phobias was fun and each chapter was named after a phobia - my favourite chapter title was "Pixiophobia, a fear of pixies. I made this up, but believe me it should be a word because it sure is a legitimate fear." Heh heh.

Zara was more like Aislinn in Wicked Lovely than Bella in Twilight with her spunkiness, bravery, and nerve. Sure, she was a bit reckless and needed Nick to swoop in and save her once or twice, but at least Nick didn't watch her sleep. Zara was likeable and funny and believable, and her grandmother Betty was fantastic.

Four stars out of five for Need.

Book website.

Battle of the (Kids') Books update

It's down to two:The Hunger Games vs. The astonishing life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the nation, Volume II: The kingdom on the waves. The final Battle of the (Kids') Books judge is Lois Lowry and she will have her decision posted next week. Oh, the tension!

My pick, Graceling (which is on order for the library), was eliminated a while back, but my #2 pick was The Hunger Games so here's hoping it wins! These girls are hoping so too.

Where the wild things are trailer

A trailer for a movie version of Maurice Sendak's classic picture book Where the wild things are was released a few weeks ago. It looks wonderful.



Bring on the wild rumpus!

(If you are unfamiliar with the story, you can always watch President Obama read it to the crowd at the White House Easter celebration.)

Booklist: Dear Diary

On the recommendation of a couple of students, I've put together a list of library books that are written journal-style. From Speak to Diary of a Wimpy Kid to The diary of Anne Frank, there are over a dozen books that fit the bill.

New website links in April

Instead of a weekly post, I've decided to start doing monthly posts of new websites that I've bookmarked on the library Delicious account. So without further ado (it's a long list, folks):

Infinite Photograph

Infinite Photograph is a photo mosaic of more than 300,000 nature photographs that just keeps going and going and going. For example, the image on the left it is a photo mosaic of a chickadee head, which you can see is made up of hundreds of tiny photos. Zoom in (with the yellow square in the bottom corner) to see the other photos, and all of those photos are mosaics as well. It is really quite astounding.

If you enjoy this you may also like NASA's Visible Earth, the Smithsonian's Earth from Space, and the always wonderful The Big Picture.