Summer time is travelling time!

Summer time is almost here!  It has been a long, long, long winter, but we finally have some nice weather and (hopefully) some time off to enjoy it!  Whether it is summer vacation for teens or a few days off for librarians, I think everyone is looking forward to this summer.

One of the best things about summer is the chance to get away for a few days or even longer if you are lucky.  I always like to travel to Moraine State Park and enjoy the beach and a picnic.  It’s one of my favorite places to go.  Another place I love to visit is Cook Forest, where you can go hiking, rent a cabin, and go canoeing or fishing.

If you can’t get away or can’t get away anyplace far, you can always escape somewhere through a good book.  Some of my favorite books explore travelling and visiting new places.  These are a great way to travel to new places without leaving your house or spending a cent!

 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson is one of my favorite books despite the super girly looking cover!  It is about a 17 year old girl named Ginny whose free spirited artist aunt Peg passes away and leaves her an unusual gift of a plane ticket to London and 13 blue envelopes with different clues in them.  Each envelope can only be opened when Ginny reaches a new destination in Europe.  Ginny gets to visit lots of cool places all over Europe and she meets lots of interesting people.  This is a great book for anyone who has ever wanted to visit some of the fascinating locations of Europe!

 The Name of the Star is another book by Maureen Johnson (who you might be able to tell is one of my favorite writers).  This one is also about travel, but it is a lot different than 13 Little Blue Envelopes.  In this book, Rory Devereaux moves to London with her parents and has to attend an English boarding school that is totally different than her regular American high school.  The first part of the book is all about the difficulties Rory has while trying to fit in and adapting to living in England.  She has to learn how to play field hockey, eat new foods, and deal with the cold and damp weather.  But then just as she’s getting used to everything, she becomes the target of a serial killer who is re-enacting the Jack the Ripper murders!  This is both an exciting mystery and a great travel tale about the city of London.

 Not primarily a travel story at all, but John Green‘s The Fault in our Stars does involve travel!  It is the story of Hazel Lancaster, a 16 year old who meets Augustus Waters at a therapy session for cancer survivors.  The two get close and fall in love as they deal with the strong emotional issues they are both dealing with.  But Augustus does arrange for Hazel to travel to Amsterdam to meet her favorite author.  It’s a great book that happens to have a bit of travel in it.

Teen Review: Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson

Hi, my name is Jenna and I am a senior at West Mifflin Area High School. I volunteer at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh – Main. No matter where I am, you will probably see a book in my hand. I hope you enjoy my book reviews!

Ultraviolet – R.J. Anderson

The book automatically opens up with heavy subject matter. The first page is Alison confessing that she killed Tori. But did she really? Alison wakes up in a hospital, which is surprisingly very plain and bare. This is when she realizes that she is a mental patient. Alison is transported to Pine Hills, a mental patient facility for teens.

When Alison was questioned by the police, Alison told them that Tori had simply ‘disintergrated’ right before her eyes. But, Alison didn’t even know if she could trust herself. She has always been able to taste shapes and letters and see things that no one else can see. With all of her weird abilities getting in the way, she could not even remember what happened that day with Tori.

At Pine Hills, Alison meets Faraday, a neuropsychologist who really gives her the answers she needs. Alison learns more about her synthesia and Faraday reassures her she is not crazy.

Alison is deeply moved by everyone at Pine Hills. Over time, she learns more about people and about herself. She learns to not judge others, and that sometimes first instincts are wrong about certain people.

This novel honestly has it all. Science fiction, romance, coming-of-age, and mystery are all major themes of this book along with many others. Even though there are so many different important aspects of this book, they somehow seem to blend.

There is one thing that readers will not see coming that is introduced towards the end of the book. Everything that readers thought was going on, will turn out to be something completely unexpected.

One of the best parts of reading this book was getting inside of Alison’s head, quite literally. Learning about a condition like synthesia really opened my eyes. I can’t believe there are people out there that actually have this condition. Readers will become fascinated with all the different meanings behind shapes, colors, and letters that a synthesete interprets.

5/5 !

Teen Review: Samantha reviews Skinny by Donna Cooner

Samantha – Hi! I’m a 6th grader and really excited to be blogging. I LOVE to read and write so I’m most likely going to have a lot of posts. I’ll give you the most honest reviews possible. I hope you read them!

Skinny by Donna Cooner

Skinny by Donna Cooner is a story I’m sure a lot of people can relate to. It’s about a girl named Ever. Ever is pretty normal except for two things: 1. She has a voice in her head named Skinny who is always lowering her self-confidence. And 2. She weighs over 300 pounds.

Skinny as I’m sure you can guess, is not the nicest person (or illusion), and Ever has been having to put up with her since her mom died. Ever has mostly tried to ignore her weight for most of her life until there is an opportunity for her to make things better again by getting Gastric Bypass surgery.

Ever has let herself be manipulated to believe the things Skinny told her about other people and herself. In the end, Ever realizes that none of it was true. Skinny was blind to other people’s true selves and thought appearances were all that mattered. Ever realizes that who you really are inside is more important than how you look.

I loved this book and I really loved the suspense when she has surgery. Gastric bypass surgery can kill some people, but Ever took that huge risk and survived. I recommend this book to people who have read things like My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick and The Fault In Our Stars by John Green.

Journey to the Pacific Northwest

Over Christmas, I will be heading back to the Pacific Northwest, where I spent the first twenty-something years of my life.  Yes, I’m excited to see friends and family.  But there’s just something about that ol’ PNW that you can’t find anywhere else.  The dreary, wet, somber, gray weather of winter, surrounded by old growth forests and mountain peaks that you know are there, even if you can’t quite see them through the gloom.

A colleague, upon hearing that I grew up in the Northwest, asked me what it was like to grow up in the land of serial killers.  While that’s not exactly fair, I’ve compiled a list of books set in Washington (state) that may give you a sense of why it’s an appealing location for serial killers, vampires, time travellers, sinister doppelgangers, ghosts, and just plain regular folks like you and me.  Happy reading!

When a government can shut off the internet…

At the very end of November, as part of its ongoing bloody and brutal civil war, Syria’s government shut down the internet for the entire country.  According to the Christian Science Monitor, this was an “unprecedented” event.  The move led to more riots against the regime, not less, and the government blamed unidentified “terrorists”.

By Ronald Eikelenboom (Flickr: (no) internet) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Shutting down a nation’s internet service is unprecedented because goes against the history of how the internet was developed.  Although the internet predecessors ARPANET and DARPA were government projects, the theory of the internet, grown in the 60s (a fuller, more specific history can be read here) was based on the idea that it would be a network of “multiple independent networks of rather arbitrary design” with one of its groud rules being that “there would be no global control at the operations level.” (Quotes from The Internet Society, “Brief History of the Internet”)  This was practical – if another country attacked the U.S., it could not take out its networked communications all at once.

And yet, now Syria just did the same thing to itself!

Ideas of how networked technology can be manipulated– and the power it gives people and governments– have been popping up in excellent books for a long time.  Here are some good ones that are recently published.

Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

a story of an elite hacker living in an unnamed Middle Eastern state in the throes of political upheaval. He gets involved with the wrong girl, who sends him a very old book to keep safe, and he learns the hard way about worlds beyond this one, jinn, and if he really wants to figure out what he believes in.

Zahra’s Paradise by Amir & Khalil

“Zahra’s Paradise is the fictional story of the search for Mehdi, a young protestor who has disappeared in the Islamic Republic’s gulags. Mehdi has vanished in an extrajudicial twilight zone where habeas corpus is suspended. What stops his memory from being obliterated is not the law. It is the grit and guts of a mother who refuses to surrender her son to fate and the tenacity of a brother—a blogger—who fuses culture and technology to explore and explode absence: the void in which Mehdi has vanished.” – from the book’s website

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

After being interrogated for days by the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco, California, seventeen-year-old Marcus, released into what is now a police state, decides to use his expertise in computer hacking to set things right.

Brain Jack by Brian Falkner

Las Vegas is gone—destroyed in a terrorist attack. Black Hawk helicopters patrol the skies over New York City. And immersive online gaming is the most dangerous street drug around. In this dystopic near-future, technology has leapt forward once again, and neuro-headsets have replaced computer keyboards. Just slip on a headset, and it’s the Internet at the speed of thought. For teen hacker Sam Wilson, a headset is a must. But as he becomes familiar with the new technology, he has a terrifying realization. If anything on his computer is vulnerable to a hack, what happens when his mind is linked to the system? – from Google Books synopsis

- Tessa, CLP – East Liberty

Teen Blogger: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Brittney Williams is a high school senior at City Charter High School. She also interns at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh – Main (Oakland). Brittney enjoys writing. She’s been writing for eight years, hoping one day to become published. She is currently writing three stories.

Pulitzer Prize winning, best-selling author Cormac McCarthy presents The Road, a 2006 post-apocalyptic novel. The Road is set in a post-apocalyptic world of the United States, where everything seems burnt and dead. It’s cold. It’s dark. It’s dangerous to even wander alone. Snow and ash sweeps across the country in a burnt, desolate wasteland.

The Road focuses on a father and his son; their plan is to head south where they hope to have a better chance of survival, unaware what’s there and what awaits them. Having nothing with them except for a single pistol to defend themselves, the clothes they are wearing, and a cart of scavenged food, they move slowly. Most importantly they have each other.

Out of all of the books that I have read, this book is my favorite. While the writing style may take getting used to, it’s a moving story of a strained and difficult journey. Throughout the novel, in this dead, dangerous, apocalyptic world, the tenderness and love between the father and his son is shown. McCarthy’s writing style is nothing that I have ever seen before, and while it’s sometimes frustrating because it’s hard to know who is speaking, it is also a fresh take on writing literature.

There are many questions that needed to be answered when reading this book. Everything is such a mystery and suspenseful that you’ll just be turning the page furiously, trying to figure out what’s happening or what’s going to happen. A couple of times, I had to re-read certain passages because I had a brief moment of “What?” as in “What-just-happened…?” moments, and that can occur for some readers.

Overall, The Road is a wonderful story. While it has dark, sad, and depressing moments, don’t lose hope. It’s a very good book.

Also, there is a movie that was made off of McCarthy’s novel The Road. It’s a great movie as well.

Teen Review: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Samantha – Hi! I’m a 6th grader and really excited to be blogging. I LOVE to read and write so I’m most likely going to have a lot of posts. I’ll give you the most honest reviews possible. I hope you read them!

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is about cancer. The main character, Hazel, has cancer, her boyfriend has cancer, all of Hazel’s friends have cancer, and, to top it off, Hazel reads a sad story about a girl just like her, with cancer.

Hazel had always known she was going to die, but she didn’t really mind. She always thought that way until one day she met a boy who thought the same way. I guess that you can say this book is a sad romance book about cancer. Well, don’t say that. It’s not true. The Fault in Our Stars is simply a realistic fiction book explaining that there are real kids out there having to suffer from this horrible evil called cancer.

Back to Hazel’s life–the boy she met was named Gus (Augustus). Hazel introduced Gus to the sad cancer story that I mentioned before (An Imperial Affliction), and soon he was curious about the ending just as much as Hazel. I’m sorry; I forgot to tell you why they were curious about the book’s ending. They were curious about it because the story was like a diary, and at the end, the book just stops mid-sentence. It’s almost like the girl writing it disappeared or in this case, died. So, Hazel and Gus set off to Amsterdam to ask the author what happened to everyone at the end of the book. A lot happened in Amsterdam, but I’m going to sum it up by saying that they never got the answers to the book. I really would love to explain the entire book, but you’re going to have to read it yourself to find out what happens next!

I loved this book. It was hard for me to believe that there are kids in hospitals all around the world just waiting to die. I would give this book 5 out of 5 stars because I literally could not put it down; I felt like I was with Hazel going through whatever she was. Please read this book! You won’t regret it!

Also, listen to this song by Flight of the Concords (FOC), “Feel Inside (And Stuff Like That).” It is about sick kids in hospitals like many in this book. FOC wrote the song to raise money for Cure the Kids, a charity in New Zealand. Watch the video (try not to laugh). It starts with them interviewing kids. Then they turn their quotes into a song – the funniest song I’ve ever heard!

Teen Review: Samantha Reviews Border Town and Burn For Burn

Samantha – Hi! I’m a 6th grader and really excited to be blogging. I LOVE to read and write so I’m most likely going to have a lot of posts. I’ll give you the most honest reviews possible. I hope you read them!

I read two books that are very similar. The main characters in each story both want the same thing: revenge against different boys in their lives. Their relationships with each of these boys is different — whether it’s a boyfriend, just a friend or someone they barely know.

Border Town: Crossing the Line by Malin Alegria

In Crossing the Line by Malin Alegria, Fabiola is excited about having her little sister join her high school until she makes friends (and a boyfriend) with the wrong people. Fabi’s cousin is accused of robbing her father’s immigrant worker but Fabi knows who really did it, and it’s going to break her sister’s heart. Fabi wants to make things right.

Burn For Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian

In Burn For Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian, three girls were hurt by different people in different ways, and they go through lots of crazy things to get back at them. The three girls, Lillia, Kat and Mary, were strangers to each other at first. They bonded because they all wanted the same thing. Kat wants revenge on her best childhood friend who is now her worst enemy and making her life miserable in high school. Mary wants revenge on the boy who made her so miserable that she had to leave the island she called home. Lillia wants revenge on her best friend for hurting her little sister.

These books were amazing, and Crossing the Line even had some Spanish (which I thought was really cool), and I definitely recommend both books for readers ages 12 and up. The things in both books were so crazy that you can never really imagine them happening in real life. I don’t see things like this in my world, but it’s scary to think there are other kids who do see things like this.

Fictional Elections

There’s a big election coming up in November. I’m sure you’ve heard about it. And if you’re 18 or turning 18 before November, you might want to look at Corey’s post about voting and voting resources or our library’s Voter and Election Information page.

While you’re waiting for election excitement, here’s a list of fictional stories about school and national politics, and all the drama, backstabbing and stress that such things entail:

All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School / Janette Rallison

When head cheerleader Samantha Taylor does poorly on the SAT exam, she determines that her only hope for college admission is to win the election for student body president, but her razor wit and acid tongue make her better suited to dishing out insults than winning votes.

My Perfect Life / Dyan Sheldon

Ella has no interest in running for class president at her suburban New Jersy high school, but her off-beat friend Lola tricks her into challenging the rich and overbearing Carla Santini in a less-than-friendly race.

Vote For Larry / Janet Tashijian

Not yet eighteen years old, Josh, a.k.a. Larry, comes out of hiding and returns to public life, this time to run for President as an advocate for issues of concern to youth and to encourage voter turnout.

I am a genius of unspeakable evil and I want to be your class president /Josh Lieb

In Omaha, Nebraska, twelve-year-old Oliver Watson has everyone convinced that he’s extremely stupid and lazy, but he’s actually a very wealthy, evil genius, and when he decides to run for seventh-grade class president, nothing will stand in his way.

Smart Girls Get What They Want by Sarah Strohmeyer

Gigi decides to run for student rep, but she’ll have to get over her fear of public speaking—and go head-to-head with gorgeous California Will. Bea used to be one of the best skiers around, until she was derailed. It could be time for her to take the plunge again. And Neerja loves the drama club but has always stayed behind the scenes—until now.

Schooled by Gordon Korman

Homeschooled by his hippie grandmother, Capricorn (Cap) Anderson has never watched television, tasted a pizza, or even heard of a wedgie. But when his grandmother lands in the hospital, Cap is forced to move in with a guidance counselor and attend the local middle school. While Cap knows a lot about tie-dyeing and Zen Buddhism, no education could prepare him for the politics of public school.

The Misfits / James Howe

Four students who do not fit in at their small-town middle school decide to create a third party for the student council elections to represent all students who have ever been called names

Popular Vote / Micol Ostow

In an election year, sixteen-year-old Erin Bright sets aside her familiar supporting role as daughter of the mayor and girlfriend of the student body president to stand up for what she believes in and protect an historic park from being replaced by a gas station.

Confessions of a First Daughter / Cassidy Calloway

Unfortunately for high school senior Morgan Abbott, every mistake she makes ends up as a front-page headline because her mom is the President of the United States. When her mom has to slip away on secret business, Morgan acts as a decoy in her place.

 

First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover & First Daughter: White House Rules / Mitali Perkins

During her father’s presidential campaign, sixteen-year-old Sameera Righton, who was adopted from Pakistan at the age of three, struggles with campaign staffers who want to give her a more “all-American” image and create a fake weblog in her name.

Once sixteen-year-old Sameera Righton’s father is elected president of the United States, the adopted Pakistani-American girl moves into the White House and makes some decisions about how she is going to live her life in the spotlight.

First Boy / Gary Schmidt

Dragged into the political turmoil of a presidential election year, fourteen-year-old Cooper Jewett, who runs a New Hampshire dairy farm since his grandfather’s death, stands up for himself and makes it clear whose first boy he really is.

All American Girl / Meg Cabot

A sophomore girl stops a presidential assassination attempt, is appointed Teen Ambassador to the United Nations, and catches the eye of the very cute First Son.

My Life Next Door / Huntley Fitzpatrick

When Samantha, the seventeen-year-old daugher of a wealthy, perfectionistic, Republican state senator, falls in love with the boy next door, whose family is large, boisterous, and just making ends meet, she discovers a different way to live, but when her mother is involved in a hit-and-run accident Sam must make some difficult choices.

Demon Chick / Marilyn Kaye

Sixteen-year-old Jessica discovers that her mother, a charismatic presidential candidate, sold Jessica’s soul to the devil in exchange for political power.

Wide Awake / David Levithan

In the not-too-distant future, when a gay Jewish man is elected president of the United States, sixteen-year-old Duncan examines his feelings for his boyfriend, his political and religious beliefs, and tries to determine his rightful place in the world.

Belles / Jen Calonita

Fifteen-year-old Isabelle loves her impoverished North Carolina beach community, but when her grandmother must enter a nursing home, Izzie is placed with distant relatives she never knew–a state senator and his preppy wife and children.

The Daughters Join the Party / Joanna Philbin

Emma’s senator-father is running for president, and when her rebellious style and indifference to rules and convention create problems, she relies on her good friends, who are also the daughters of well-known people, to help her gain perspective

Fake mustache : or, how Jodie O’Rodeo and her wonder horse (and some nerdy guy) saved the U.S. Presidential election from a mad genius criminal mastermind  / Tom Angleberger

Lenny Flem Jr. is the only one standing between his evil-genius best friend, Casper, and world domination as Casper uses a spectacularly convincing fake mustache and the ability to hypnotize to rob banks, amass a vast fortune, and run for president.

Freshman for President / Ally Condie

Tired of not being noticed, fifteen-year-old Milo decides to run for president of the United States, and through the course of the campaign, he discovers that he–and other teenagers–can make a real difference.

Hero / Mike Lupica

Fourteen-year-old Zach learns he has the same special abilities as his father, who was the President’s globe-trotting troubleshooter until “the Bads” killed him, and now Zach must decide whether to use his powers in the same way at the risk of his own life.

Hope Was Here / Joan Bauer

When sixteen-year-old Hope and the aunt who has raised her move from Brooklyn to Mulhoney, Wisconsin, to work as waitress and cook in the Welcome Stairways diner, they become involved with the diner owner’s political campaign to oust the town’s corrupt mayor.

Happy reading! – Tessa, CLP – East Liberty

Teen Review: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Samantha – Hi! I’m a 7th grader and really excited to be blogging. I LOVE to read and write so I’m most likely going to have a lot of posts. I’ll give you the most honest reviews possible. I hope you read them!

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

In the future, in the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, no one reads books (which I can’t imagine), and firemen start fires to burn books instead of stopping them. A fireman named Guy Montag has never really thought about the books he burns, until one night one woman loved her books so much that she told the firemen that if they were going to burn her books they would have to burn her too. That got Montag thinking. What was in these books that caused people to die rather than live without them? He thought about that so much he decided to steal a book and read it. Then he saw what that woman saw in her books.

But then he got caught, in the exact same way. If you decide to read this book and like it as much as I did, you can see the play at Prime Stage Theatre.

I saw the play A Wrinkle In Time there in the spring, and it was really good so I also advise you to see all of the plays they will be showing this year:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Nov 2 – Nov 11, 2012
Directed by Justin Fortunato

His fear in 1953 was that television would kill books. Bradbury imagined a future of giant color sets — flat panels that hung on walls like moving paintings. Televisions “walls” and its actors as “family.”   Has his Science Fiction become our Fact?

The Great Gatsby
Mar 1 – Mar 10, 2013
adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel by Peter Joucla of Tour de Force Theatre, UK.
Directed by Richard Keitel

“This new stage adaptation is filled with live jazz music to recreate the glitz and decadence of the Roaring 20’s. Gatsby’s motives are driven by love and hope, rather than greed. The absorbing drama is fast-paced, visually evocative and highly theatrical.”  Theatre Basil, Switzerland.

Walk Two Moons
May 10 – May 19, 2013
adapted by Tom Arvetis, based on Newbery Award book by Sharon Creech
Directed by Lisa Ann Goldsmith

“Flawlessly adapted, Walk Two Moons challenges audiences to look outward into a world where everyone has the immense power to help one another. Walk Two Moons has a poignant, valuable message for audiences of every age.” – ChicagoBeat.