Fast? Slow?

Someone wrote to tell me that the YABC site has become dreadfully slow for them and they thought the culprit might be the "Get There Quick" author and book jump lists at the top of the site. That may very well be, since there are now so many books and authors in the database. I've removed those lists for the time being and I'd love your feedback. Has the site speed improved? Had you noticed an issue before? Did you use those "jump" lists and do you miss them or did you never notice them before? Thanks!

Boy Toy

I enjoyed Barry Lyga's Boy Toy just as much as his Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl.

Prize Bucket Update!! Please Read!

Okay, whew! I've just added a bunch of books to the Prize Bucket with more coming soon. I'm also in the middle of processing a whole ton of claims for books and I have not yet had a chance to *remove* any books from the Prize Bucket. So, if you are claiming a book, please give me AT LEAST your top 5 choices and preferably more. Some books (you can probably guess which ones!) have already been requested multiple times and are not available (well, except for the lucky person who got their request in first!). I'll get everything updated as soon as I can. Thanks for your patience!

New Picture Books

I've got a few upcoming reviews for picture books including Tsunami by Kimiko Kajikawa, illustrated by Ed Young and Finding Susie by Sandra Day O'Connor. Not to mention my review of Neil Gaiman's Crazy Hair.

Woot! Over 150 Followers!! Time for a Winner!

As promised...every time the blog hits a multiple of 50 followers (in this case, 150), I'm going to be awarding a prize to a lucky follower! What's the prize this time?? TWO packs of 39 Clues Card Packs (no two packs are alike, or so they say), a YABC magnet, and a Catching Fire (the Hunger Games sequel) button (and some assorted bookmarks and stickers too)!

And who is the winner? Sharon (who blogs at Sharon Loves Books and Cats)!!! Congrats Sharon!

Now let's make it 200! Next prize pack will be even bigger. :-)

Review: No Such Thing as the Real World

Six talented young adult authors (M.T. Anderson, K.L.Going, Beth Kephart, Chris Lynch, An Na and Jaqueline Woodson) have written different real world (and maybe not so real world) stories about growing up. Readers will be able to relate to at least one story in the book and those they can’t relate to they can enjoy for the storyline and the writing.

There is the poignant, the funny, but sad, the odd, the artistic, the familial and the plotting. Each story is told from a teenager’s point of view. The writing is crisp, descriptive, and flowing. The stories are engaging, emotional, funny. The characters are real, everyday folk.

No Such Thing as the Real World is a fine example of great young adult literature.

Review: Broken Soup

Life is like Broken Soup, at least fifteen-year-old Rowan's life is. Ever since her brother Jack died in a freak swimming accident, things haven't been right. Her mother stays in bed all day and her father moved out. But all that is about to change.

One day, standing on line at a coffee shop, an older boy taps her on the shoulder and gives her a negative which he thought fell out of her bag. But it hadn't. She knew that but he wouldn't accept no for an answer. So she accepts the negative and almost throws it away when she gets home.

Rowan forgot about it until a classmate asks her about it the next day. Well, the comination of the boy, the classmate and the negative will change Rowan's life. Jenny Valentine second teen novel will keep you reading until the end...good thing it's a fast read. You'll like the characters. You'll like the action. You'll like the ending. Go for it.

Bully Bust T-Shirt Giveaway at readergirlz

Last month, I learned about Bully Bust 2009 and posted about it here and at Bildungsroman, my own blog, immediately. This month, it's the featured outreach program in the June 2009 issue of readergirlz.

Continue reading this post at readergirlz.

Learn more at BullyBust.org

Giveaway!

Over at the readergirlz blog, they're giving away a STAND UP T-shirt designed by Stacy Morgenstern Igel, the founder of the clothing line Boy Meets Girl. This limited edition shirt is made out of 100% organic cotton. (Woo hoo!) It is a white T-shirt, size medium.

Enter the giveaway at the readergirlz blog!

Books About Bullying

Looking for a book about bullying, gossiping, or peer pressure to discuss in class or in a book group? Check out my earlier post about bullying.

Share the Love

Send the Bully Bust link to your friends and family members and encourage them to sign the STAND UP pledge. If you're a teacher or a librarian, I hope you'll tell your students and patrons about it, too.

Winners of Swim the Fly and The Uninvited

The winners are...

Swim the Fly
Dennis Plush
Tasmin Bowerman
Michele Sommerfelt
Kristi Herbrand
Jenna Worden

The Uninvited
John Washington
Michael Kittle
Ellen McLean
Brittany Gore
Cathy Trevethan

The publisher will be sending these prizes out directly! :-) Congrats!

Be a follower...and win!

Okay, so I noticed that we've got around 120 something followers now. I know a LOT more people than that read the blog. I'd like to get that number up, just for the heck of it. :-)

So, every time the follower number hits a multiple of 50 (i.e. 150, 200, 250, 300, etc.) I'll do a special followers only giveaway. What'll I be giving away? Oh, all kinds of cool stuff. Maybe some 39 Clues card packs. Maybe some other swag. Maybe some books. Maybe some CDs. Maybe some movies.

So, spread the word. I'll be picking the winner out of the complete list of followers, so you've got a chance every time a giveaway happens. Let's see how fast we can hit 150!

A Bunch O' Winners

Okay, first of all, apologies for being so MIA in recent weeks. I'd been working on the sequel to Sucks to Be Me (It Still Sucks to Be Me) and I've now (yay!) turned it into my editor. I'm not on revision duty yet, so I've finally got some time for YABC Housekeeping. So...here are a BUNCH of winners to a bunch of different contests. I still have a few more to announce, but ya gotta start somewhere, right?

Me, Penelope
Lisa Taylor
Lela Xhindoli
sarahy farias
Averie McComber
Erin Fitzpatrick-Bjorn
Pamela Shockley
Beth Mundy
Meghan Wheeler
Eve Datisman
Kelly Ferrari

My Big Nose
Mary Ellen
Gabriel Jolivet
Holly Egusquiza
Jesse Drewry
Christina Zawadiwsky
Elizabeth Kennard
Katie Ulmer
Gwendolyn Bruno
Melissa Louis
val minnich

Ghost Huntress (Book 1)
Janice Funkhouser
kim pickett
Karen Gonyea
Caitlin Treacy
Emily De Delto
ellsabeth powell
Minerva Vasquez
Terri DeProspero
Ann Fuller
Nikki Rehmert

After the Moment
Darcy Wishard
Heather Windley
Jennifer Jozwiak
Roger Deming
Natalie Cheung
Helen Schultz
Diana Giblette
gloria mckellar
Debbie Criss
Shirley Younger

The publisher will be sending out those prizes directly. :-) Stay tuned for more stuff!

Review: Carter Finally Gets It

Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford is the perfect summer read. Going from middle school to high school is tough. Nothing comes easy. You've got to focus. However, Will Carter can't focus. He's got ADD. And the few times he does focus, he focuses on girls.

The summer between middle school and high school, Carter, amazingly, gets a girl friend, formerly Chunky Abby, but now cute, curvaceous Abby. But the romance is short lived because he's manipulated by the hottest girl in school, Amber Lee, into taking her to the homecoming dance.

This is first of many situations that don't turn out the way Carter planned it...from picking up girls, to going to parties, to trying out for the baseball team. But Carter, unknown to even himself, is a survivor.

Carter Finally Gets It is laugh out loud funny. His antics are uproarious. His friends are clueless and funny. His family is typical. His parents unwittingly embarrass him at every turn. His older sister wants no part of him, specifically because his presence tarnishes her reputation. If you dork or are a dork, you'll love this book. Carter finally gets it and so should you.

Review: The Sleepy Little Alphabet

In this lively rhyming picture book, it's time for The Sleepy Little Alphabet to go to sleep, but the little letters put up quite the resistance. Kids will laugh out loud at some of the shenanigans, and enjoy the coziness of the snug-in-bed ending.

Book Review: Everything is Fine

Everything is Fine, a debut novel in verse by Ann Dee Ellis, is poignant. Mazzy is struggling with growing up and caring for her mother, remembering both the good times and the incident that caused her mother’s depression. She feels it is her responsibility to shoulder the burden and readers will share her burden and her pain. They’ll also identify with Mazzy’s friendship with her across the street neighbor Norma, as well as her crush on her next door neighbor Colby, both of which she denies. Mazzy’s mother is an artist and the book contains Mazzy’s attempts at artwork. Ellis has written a winner. Try it.

Review: The Uninvited

When Mimi Shapiro has to escape New York and an obsessed professor, she flees to her dad’s cottage in Canada.  Her dad tells her the cottage is uninhabited, but when Mimi arrives she finds a guy named Jay living there.  Shortly after meeting each other, and after some initial tension, Mimi and Jay discover that they have the same dad and agree to share the house.  However, there are some strange things happening.  Read the full review here.

Interview with Marley Gibson

Check out my interview with Marley Gibson, author of the Ghost Huntress series here...

How did you come up with the idea for the Ghost Huntress series?

I attended a workshop at the New England Romance Writers 2007 Conference on "GhostHunting 101" by the New England Ghost Project. As I sat there listening to theirpresentation, it just hit me and the whole first book came to me like a movie. Iknew I had to do a series about teenage ghost hunters!

Read more at YABC!

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow

If you like paranormal suspense with bite and a heroine with a spine of steel and firearm skills, Lili St. Crow’s Strange Angels is for you.

Welcome to the world of Dru Anderson. It’s not pretty. Danger lurks around every corner for Dru and her dad. She’s seen too much in her sixteen years, moving from town to town to hunt ghosts, suckers and wulfen. Then Dru’s world goes pear-shaped – in the form of her dad as a reanimated corpse – and she’s on her own.

Read the rest of my review here.

Book Review: Rage: A Love Story

Abusive families breed abusive children. Isolated children seek love, in whatever form it comes. The combination of the two can be horrendous, as in the case of Johanna, a high school student who falls in love with Reeve. Reeve has lived with abuse and she knows how to dish it out as well as take it. Johanna, in the name of love, takes the physical abuse, ‘knowing’ that Reeve really loves her and doesn’t mean to hurt her. She is willing to lose so much for the sake of love…including her self respect.

Julie Anne Peters’ writing in Rage: A Love Story, true to form, has produced an engrossing look at Johanna’s dreams and her reality. All the characters are real; characters that readers will relate to, care about, sympathize with, and like or dislike intensely. As with many books on this topic, readers will want to figuratively bang Johanna’s head against the wall (Reeve does it literally) and tell her to wake up and smell the roses. While the conclusion is bittersweet, it is a viable ending that readers will accept. Fans of Julie Anne Peters will devour Rage and non-fans will become fans after reading the book.

Ghost Huntress: The Awakening is the first book in Marley Gibson’s new series about Chicago girl Kendall Moorehead, who’s just moved to the deep South – Radisson, Georgia, to be exact. Not only does Kendall have to adapt to small town ways, she has to deal with the voices she hears in her new house.

Voices from another realm.

Read more of my review here.

Prize Bucket Donation

Author Kim Ablon Whitney has donated some copies of her books for the Prize Bucket (!!), including:

The Other Half of Life (Knopf, 2009)
Based on the true story of the Motor Ship St. Louis, this heartbreaking historical novel about Jews fleeing Hitler’s Germany imagines two travelers and the lives they may have lived until events and immigration laws conspired to change their fates. Elie Wiesel says, "The Other Half of Life is a excellent introduction for young readers wishing to understand contemporary history and its traumatic and moral challenges."

The Perfect Distance (Knopf, 2005)
With one year remaining to compete in the junior horseback riding finals, Francie is determined to pour all her energy into winning. Keeping focused proves difficult, though, when the year also brings a new romance, social pressures, and conflicts with her father.

See You Down the Road (Knopf, 2004)
Bridget's family are Travelers; they move across the U.S. in trailers and support themselves through con jobs and stealing. But Bridget has grown deeply conflicted about the strict Traveler ways. She wants to go to school and to choose her own husband. When Bridget joins her uncle in a lucrative, high-risk swindle, she finally makes some surprising, difficult decisions about her future.

Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life by Rachel Renee Russell

Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life, Rachel Renee Russell's debut, is an illustrated novel sure to appeal to tweens. When Nikki Maxwell transfers to a new school in eighth grade, her mother gives her a diary. Even though Nikki thinks it's dorky and she'd really rather have a cell phone, she starts writing in the diary. She surprises herself with how much she likes journaling, and she decorates her entries with her artwork (also drawn by the auhor).

If you're giving Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney to elementary school readers and So Punk Rock (and Other Ways to Disappoint Your Mother) by Micol and David Ostow to teens, then make sure to give Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life by Rachel Renee Russell to your middle schoolers. Pair it with Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf by Jennifer L. Holm, Elicia Castaldi, and Matthew Holm and you'll be all set.

Read the full review at YABC!

Check out my interview with the author at Bildungsroman, and make sure to leave a comment there - the author will send one lucky reader a copy of the book inside of a fabulous goodie bag!

Review: Geektastic

This collection of short stories celebrates geeks and nerds everywhere.  With offerings from some of the biggest names in YA literature today, there’s something here for every kind of nerd:  Trekkers, gamers, Rocky Horror devotees, quiz bowl whizzes, lit geeks, and more.   Read the full review here.

Review: Princess Pig

In the charming picture book Princess Pig, Pig is thrilled to discover she's royalty. She's as happy as a hog in mud--until she finds out that (among other drawbacks) princesses canNOT indulge in mud-wallowing. What's a porcine princess to do?