Welcome to Biblio's Surf Shack the one and only endless summer surf safari for the bibliophibian in all of us. My pledge to you is that I will offer up pithy interesting chatter about books in all their forms. In essence I will surf the stacks for you.
BOOK TALKS
August 18, 2012
Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little Brown and Company, 2007. 229 pages. Hbk. $16.99, ISBN 978316013680
Awards: National Book Award for Young People's Literature |Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Fiction and Poetry| Odyssey Award| Best Books of 2007| Voted Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults from Young Adult Library Services Association| 2009 Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults, YALSA
Annotation: Junior is a Spokane Indian living on the reservation in Washington. His life is filled with struggles which are made even more complicated once he decides to leave the “rez” and enter a non-reservation public school in Washington State. His life is filled with tragedy and amazing humor.
Index Card:
First person narrative: “Junior” Arnold Spirit
Physical challenges
Native American-Spokane tribe
Bullied
Reservation Life
Junior decides to leave the Rez
Ends old friendships
Struggles to fit into a new culture
Struggles to make new friends
Struggles to improve himself
Death, sorrow and beginning again.
Loss and grieving
Artistic expression
Reconnects with old friends
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v86zML2KaxU
August 18, 2012
Aya by Margueritte
Abouet & Clement Ouberie | ISBN: 9781694937900| Drawn & Quarterly,
Montreal, CA.| 96 pages plus six page Ivorian Bonus.Annotation: Intimate and humorous look at young adult life in Ivory Coast in the late 1970’s. Aya, a smart and studious girl is surrounded by friends who only want to dance and party, often getting themselves into tight spots. Luckily for them they can rely on Aya to come to the rescue covering for their transgressions while making up her mind to never be so compromised.
Book Praise: Read the graphic novel that would begin an award nominated series. Get to know the serious Aya and her hilarious friends Bintou and Adajoua, see where they began their partying ways before everything changed in the Ivory Coast.
Visit the author’s bio page here: http://womenincomics.wikia.com/wiki/Marguerite_Abouet
Visit the illustrator’s webpage: http://www.oubrerie.net/
August 12, 2012
Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon| ISBN: 9780312332693| St. Martins Press: USA| 256 pages| paperback edition| 2006.
Wrap back to title: Imagine falling deeply in love with someone accused of murdering his own father. Imagine being torn from the one you love and thrown into prison. Read about Natasha’s struggle to keep believing and loving even as she tries to build a new life. Read about Antonio’s isolation, anger, pain and struggle to hold on to the one he loves.
Read about the ups and downs and secrets kept in Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon.
Awards: Alex Award 2006| YALSA's Best Books for Young Adults 2006| Nominated for a Hurston/Wright Award in the category of Debut Fiction| Audie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Literary Fiction 2006 (for audiobook)
This book is available via ILL from Fayetteville Public Library : http://tinyurl.com/cmt4zlv
August 12, 2012
Airhead by Meg Cabot| ISBN: 9780545040525 | Scholastic Books: USA| First edition hardback, June 2008.
Emma Watts
- · Brilliant
- · Gamer Geek
- · Plain, messy, frumpy
- · Major tomboy
· Nikki Howard
- · Airhead
- · Shopaholic
- · Positively always posh
- · Teenage super model
Summary: A tragic accident at the Stark Megastore grand opening leaves one brain dead and one body crushed. Find out who gets the full body transplant. See how it feels to wake up in a totally new body with a new set of circumstances, relationships and complications. Read Airhead to see if the frump gets lucky or the posh gets smart.
Available at the Rogers Public Library: http://tinyurl.com/8hfb39a
August 6, 2012
The Giver by Lois Lowry
ISBN: 0395645662 | Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1993 | 192 pages | $17.00
What do you want to be when you grow up?
What if you had no choice but, were assigned your role in life?
Welcome to the Community, where every person is assigned a role based on his or her own strengths and weaknesses. A convenient way to organize a society, however, it changes Jonas and his family's way of life forever. As Jonas adjusts to his new role he also finds that he must face difficult decisions about life he has never known before. This story will challenge your ideas about personal choice and the roles we hold in our own communities as members of a society.
What role would you want to be assigned?
What if you had no choice?
Awards:
1994 Newbery Medal
1996 William Allen White Award
A Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book
Winner of the Regina Medal
August 6, 2012
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer is the first book in the
Twilight Saga. It was originally published in hardcover in 2005. It is a young
adult/fantasy/romance novel about a human girl (Isabella "Bella"
Marie Swan) who falls in love with a vampire (Edward Cullen). The story is told
from Bella’s perspective.
“I had never given much thought to how I would die—though I had reason enough in the last few months—but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.” Bella is the new girl at Forks High School. She is not quite like everyone else, quiet, intelligent and attracted to the cutest boy in school. Something about the way her blood beckons Edward he cannot resist being near her. See what really happens when the lion falls in love with the lamb.
An interesting mix of young adult, fantasy, high school, horror, romance, vampires, werewolves and Native American lore. A young adult mash-up of horror and fantasy for the twenty-first century.
Awards: One of Publishers Weekly's "Best Children's Books of 2005" | One of School Library Journal's "Best Books of 2005"
The Rogers Public Library has this book: http://tinyurl.com/8r7taz6
August 1, 2012
Sanchez, Alex. So Hard to Say. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2004. 230 pages. Hardback edition. ISBN: 9780690865640
The new boy at school is named Frederick and Xio is the outgoing girl who takes him under wing the first day. They become best friends immediately but, Xio wants more and Frederick does not know what to think about that.
So Hard to Say is a journey of teenage self-discovery. Frederick is the shy new boy who does not know who he is yet. He finds himself deflecting the affections of Xio the outgoing girl in first period. Couple that with his fascination with Iggy the openly gay classmate and his growing attraction to the captain of the soccer team. Is he gay or just curious?
http://tinyurl.com/9m8ytfl
August 1, 2012
Hate List by Jennifer Brown
(2009) Little, Brown and Company, New York, NY. ISBN:9780316041447; Hardback edition.
Summary: This book brilliantly examines a uniquely American issue, school shootings. It does this by investigating everyone’s reactions and feelings. It especially focuses upon the situation of the shooter’s girlfriend Valerie Leftman. In a moment of teenage angst Valerie creates a hate list that will inadvertently become the shooters hit list. This book seeks to examine the ramifications of bullying for everyone.
Open Talk: What would you do if someone you loved turned into a monster? How would you handle being called a hero even if you did not feel you deserved it? How would you feel if you were blamed for another person’s choices and actions? After years of torment Valerie made a list of all the things and people she hated. She shared that list with her boyfriend Nick. Nick used that list to map out a plan for revenge. When he opened fire in the cafeteria during their junior year Nick forever changes Valerie’s life. This is an amazing book about forgiveness and the unusual twists and turns life can take a person on.
Rogers Public Library has this title here: http://tinyurl.com/8z8r69t
July 14, 2012
| Your time is limited. . . . have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."--Steve Jobs |
The book is elegantly organized around three stories he shared during his commencement speech at Stanford University, each one revolving poetically around important stages in his life. With this thread she weaves a remarkable biography from his birth to his death. Thoroughly documented but, like the man it is written about, never boring. This is a great book if you are interested in business, the history of computing or just want to hear about someone else who thought "different". As an added bonus you will find information on the birth of CGI and the history behind Pixar.
This book is so well written any reader, adult or young adult is going to really enjoy reading about the man who brought us Buzz Lightyear & Woody. Go ahead and embrace your inner geek!
June 24, 2012
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
At first blush it appears to be a combination Elie Weisel’s Night meets Anne Frank’s Diary
however, key elements make this book stand apart from the standard historical fiction /Holocaust/ World War II literature. Chief among these differences is that the narrator of the story is Death.
This is by no means a typical view of death either. Death here is depicted as a sympathetic figure
that feels the shame and pain of the victims of the war. In particular is the main protagonist, Liesel.
Death becomes emotionally invested in Liesel’s unfolding story even against his own better judgment. Eventually as Liesel matures and learns to love the written word more than her own safety the narration
shifts to her own words and Death becomes a secondary or more passive observer of the tale. This is a historical fiction with a twist of philosophy thrown in for good measure. At its core this is a book about the power of words especially in times of war. It is an elegant and philosophical book that will haunt the readers either young or old. Find this book here: http://tinyurl.com/8mu4l4g
Buried Onions by Gary Soto
Publisher Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, 1997
ISBN 9780152013332
Buried Onions is set in the tiered
barrios of Fresno, California. This is a place of hopelessness and little
opportunity, a place where individuals collide with each other in fury and
passion. Fresno is a place where tears flow as if giant onions were buried
underneath the whole city. This is a story about Eddie, a nineteen-year-old
Latino living in that environment. He has no direction in life and feels trapped
in a city of sorrow, poverty, and loneliness. Gang rivalries and family loyalties are the
driving force behind this community and much of the violence in it. Eddie must
learn that sometimes those his best friends are really his worst enemies. All
Eddie wants is a simple but, happy life, a wife, some kids and a normal job.
This item can be found at the Rogers Public Library in CD format: http://tinyurl.com/8w9y2lw
This page in in memory of surfer son James Besaw.
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