Thursday, April 29, 2010
Hunger Games Readalikes
If you enjoyed Hunger Games as much as I did, check out my Read Alike
flyer at the library. Another site with readalikes is: http://normalteens.wordpress.com/books/readalikes/the-hunger-games-readalikes/
Stock up for summer!!
flyer at the library. Another site with readalikes is: http://normalteens.wordpress.com/books/readalikes/the-hunger-games-readalikes/
Stock up for summer!!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Going Bovine by Libba Bray
I don't think I could write a review any better than Em's bookshelf
http://emsbookshelf.blogspot.com/2009/05/going-bovine-by-libba-bray-book-review.html
Cameron's main goal in life is to coast through high school. His younger sister is the over-achiever in the family, so Cameron has given up on trying. He has a hard time connecting with his parents, his classmates, and even music, save for one awful sounding band called the Great Tremelo. Then Cameron is diagnosed with mad cow disease and his life really begins. Dulcie, a cute winged punk angel, comes to him and presents him with a quest to save the world. With nothing to lose, Cameron heads out on the ultimate of road trips.
Going Bovine is a weird mix of string theory, classic literary references, and teenage sarcasm that actually works—in fact, it works quite well. Cameron's voice is smart, disillusioned, and priceless; take his thoughts on high school English class, for example:
"These works—groundbreaking, incendiary, timeless—have been pureed by the curriculum monsters into a digestible pabulum of themes and factoids we can spew back on a test." (p.6)
The dilemma that Bray presents is irresistible: the underachieving, yet extremely smart high school boy thinks that he has all the time in the world to experience life, but he doesn't. Cameron's road trip buddies, a hypochondriac dwarf named Gonzo and a Norse God turned yard gnome named Balder, offer tons of fodder for existential musings and crude teenage boy humor. Libba Bray has definitely established herself as a leading voice in contemporary literature. Though this book is nothing like her Gemma Doyle trilogy, I devoured it with the same interest and intensity. And if any booksellers or librarians are reading this review, you are selling this book short if you let the teen label on the back define your audience for it.
You can read this novel in two ways, either Cameron is lying in a hospital bed, hallucinating as the disease eats away at his brain, or Cameron really is battling the forces of good and evil while seriously crushing on a candy-addicted punk angel. Either way you see it, Going Bovine will have you laughing out loud, folding down pages that have some of the best quotes you've read in years, and vowing that, starting today, you will live your live to the fullest. As the old lady in the hospital tells Cameron,
"I don't think you should die before you're ready. Until you've wrung out every last bit of living you can." (p.97)
This book wore me out. I stayed with it till the end just because I wanted to see how she finished it up, but I was not enjoying it by then. Unfortunately I just wanted it to be over. Lots of language and some sexual situations.
I am one of the few who would give this book a
RATING 5
READING NEXT: not sure
Monday, April 12, 2010
What You Can Do For Your Library
With all the budget cuts, National Library Week is a great time to make your voice heard. Contact your local congressmen or the ALA. New Jersey is facing Draconian cuts. Below is an excerpt from a Library Blog in Indiana. It applies to libraries everywhere.
What you can do for libraries http://librarified.net/2010/04/12/what-you-can-do-for-libraries/
April 12, 2010
There’s a lot that libraries can do for you including providing fun programs, a quiet place to read or study, homework help, tax forms, technology training, free Internet access, and volunteer opportunities. But there’s something you can do for libraries–and they need your help.
I recently wrote about the trouble Indiana libraries are facing due to property tax caps and the cuts school libraries are facing in Monroe County. But yesterday delivered stunning, devastating news about New Jersey libraries: they’re facing a 74% reduction in funding.
The cuts, which add up to $10.4 million, could also cost New Jersey access to $4.5 million in federal matching funds which, among other things, currently provides internet access for roughly two-thirds of the state’s 306 public libraries.
That’s right: No Internet at the library. Never mind that the public library is the only free internet access in 78 percent of communities, according to the New Jersey Library Association; or that many state agencies have moved their forms on-line.
It’s especially disheartening that this news comes at the beginning of National Library Week. Especially through Internet access, technology training, and database access, libraries are becoming more important, not less. And while everyone needs to make cuts when state budgets get trimmed, libraries are being disproportionately targeted.
Yet another irony is that, of all the villains that have pushed New Jersey to the brink of financial oblivion, libraries simply aren’t one of them. Librarians aren’t represented by powerful unions. Their pay hasn’t escalated at 4 percent to 6 percent a year. Library funding at the state level has been flat for twenty years.
“We have never fed at the trough like public safety and education,” said Robert White, executive director of Bergen County Cooperative Library System, which represents 75 libraries across four counties. “And now we’re being punished for it.”
If you’re in the area, there will be a rally in Trenton on 6 May to demonstrate support for New Jersey libraries. You can also contact legislators, send a letter to the paper, or join supporters on Facebook at Save My NJ Library.
And since it is National Library Week, be sure to tell your own legislators that you support your library. If you’re in Indiana, you can do that online via the Indiana Library Federation. You can also take national action via the ALA website, where they’re asking you to talk to your senator by 14 April (that’s this Wednesday) to express your support for libraries before the Senate Appropriations Committee meets to determine funding for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and the Improving Literacy Through School Libraries (ILTSL) program in its FY2011 budget.
And finally, if you haven’t yet sent in your Census form, please do so. The number of people in your community determines how federal funds will be allocated, and your library is one of the organizations that will be affected by that funding. While it may not seem like one person really matters, when it comes to the Census, you do.
Quoted from "Librarified."
What you can do for libraries http://librarified.net/2010/04/12/what-you-can-do-for-libraries/
April 12, 2010
There’s a lot that libraries can do for you including providing fun programs, a quiet place to read or study, homework help, tax forms, technology training, free Internet access, and volunteer opportunities. But there’s something you can do for libraries–and they need your help.
I recently wrote about the trouble Indiana libraries are facing due to property tax caps and the cuts school libraries are facing in Monroe County. But yesterday delivered stunning, devastating news about New Jersey libraries: they’re facing a 74% reduction in funding.
The cuts, which add up to $10.4 million, could also cost New Jersey access to $4.5 million in federal matching funds which, among other things, currently provides internet access for roughly two-thirds of the state’s 306 public libraries.
That’s right: No Internet at the library. Never mind that the public library is the only free internet access in 78 percent of communities, according to the New Jersey Library Association; or that many state agencies have moved their forms on-line.
It’s especially disheartening that this news comes at the beginning of National Library Week. Especially through Internet access, technology training, and database access, libraries are becoming more important, not less. And while everyone needs to make cuts when state budgets get trimmed, libraries are being disproportionately targeted.
Yet another irony is that, of all the villains that have pushed New Jersey to the brink of financial oblivion, libraries simply aren’t one of them. Librarians aren’t represented by powerful unions. Their pay hasn’t escalated at 4 percent to 6 percent a year. Library funding at the state level has been flat for twenty years.
“We have never fed at the trough like public safety and education,” said Robert White, executive director of Bergen County Cooperative Library System, which represents 75 libraries across four counties. “And now we’re being punished for it.”
If you’re in the area, there will be a rally in Trenton on 6 May to demonstrate support for New Jersey libraries. You can also contact legislators, send a letter to the paper, or join supporters on Facebook at Save My NJ Library.
And since it is National Library Week, be sure to tell your own legislators that you support your library. If you’re in Indiana, you can do that online via the Indiana Library Federation. You can also take national action via the ALA website, where they’re asking you to talk to your senator by 14 April (that’s this Wednesday) to express your support for libraries before the Senate Appropriations Committee meets to determine funding for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and the Improving Literacy Through School Libraries (ILTSL) program in its FY2011 budget.
And finally, if you haven’t yet sent in your Census form, please do so. The number of people in your community determines how federal funds will be allocated, and your library is one of the organizations that will be affected by that funding. While it may not seem like one person really matters, when it comes to the Census, you do.
Quoted from "Librarified."
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Contest
Monday, April 5, 2010
~~~Next PENITENCE Kick-Off Contest~~~
This week's contest includes: Heavenly, an ARC of Penitence, black and white angel tee and a Heavenly notebook.
As always, anyone who tweets or posts this contest gets entered twice to increase chances of winning.
Want to up your chances of winning? Bring your reader friends over to join the blog. For every reader you bring, you'll get additional entries into this week's drawing. Be sure they tell me you sent them, so I can keep track!
Contest is international and ends Friday! http://www.jenniferlaurens.blogspot.com/
~~~Next PENITENCE Kick-Off Contest~~~
This week's contest includes: Heavenly, an ARC of Penitence, black and white angel tee and a Heavenly notebook.
As always, anyone who tweets or posts this contest gets entered twice to increase chances of winning.
Want to up your chances of winning? Bring your reader friends over to join the blog. For every reader you bring, you'll get additional entries into this week's drawing. Be sure they tell me you sent them, so I can keep track!
Contest is international and ends Friday! http://www.jenniferlaurens.blogspot.com/
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