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 Title: Boxers / Saints
Author: Gene Luen Yang
Published: 2013
Source: Local Library
Summary: In 1898, it is a time of unrest in China. As Western missionaries invade, bringing discord with them, Little Bao decides it's time to fight back and retake his country from the foreign devils.
Meanwhile, Vibiana (once Four-Girl) finds a haven and an identity in Christianity. But she becomes torn between loyalty to her country and loyalty to her new community.
Little Bao and Vibiana's fates will collide in a bloody and tragic fashion in this intimate look at the Boxer Rebellion.
 First Impressions: Aughhh. This was so hard to read. What's fascinating is how neither side is entirely right or wrong in this. And it's very bloody. Sniff.

Title: The Raven King
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Published: 2016

Source: Local Library
Summary: If Blue Sargent kisses her true love, he will die. She knows it, Gansey knows it, and all their friends know it. As threads from Arthurian legend tangle together in West Virginia, this prophecy will come to pass - but how and why?
First Impressions: Obviously this can't be read before the others. It went surprisingly slowly for the last book of the series but the resolution was satisfying.

Title: The Great American Whatever
Author: Tim Federle
Published: 2016
Source: Edelweiss
Summary: After his sister's senseless and tragic death, Quinn retreated into a six-month depression. As summer begins, secrets start to emerge that may shatter his apathy, or may destroy what ties he has left.
First Impressions: Waaaaaaaaaaaah. I am destroyed by this. Not perfect by any means but very real. However, I really struggled with some of the fat-shaming language used about his mother, even though her personality was portrayed in a positive light.

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Newbery Medalist Linda Sue Park gave a talk at the TEDxBeaconStreet conference to discuss this question: “Can a Children’s Book Change the World?”

Park focused her talk on how children’s books help young readers to learn empathy. We’ve embedded the full presentation in the video above—what do you think?

In the past, several children’s books authors have spoken on the TED stage including Paper Towns author John Green, Lunch Lady series creator Jarrett J. Krosoczka, Extra Yarn writer Mac Barnett, and The Raven Cycle series author Maggie Stiefvater. What is your favorite book from childhood?

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Author Maggie Stiefvater has revealed the cover for The Raven King. We’ve embedded the full image for the jacket design above—what do you think?

According to Stiefvater’s blog post, this young adult novel serves as the final installment of The Raven Cycle. Scholastic has scheduled the publication date for April 26, 2016.

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It’s a tough assignment, and the best I can do is choose five YA books that, if I were shipwrecked today, I’d want with me.

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Audiobooks.com will celebrate Audiobook Month with a daily free download. A new digital audiobook will be offered at no charge every day throughout the month of June.

The company has formed partnerships with a dozen publishing houses for this program. Today, an original Jane Green short story is being featured; the piece stars two characters named Jemima J and Cat who come from Green’s forthcoming novel Summer Secrets.

Here’s more from the press release: “Offerings will include books and short stories by authors like Maya Banks, Jane Green, Rick Riordan, Jonathan Maberry, T.C. Boyle, Gary Chapman, Maggie Stiefvater, and more. The selection will feature romance, horror, thriller, non-fiction, and classic titles for adults, teens, and children.”

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Scholastic has enlisted 13 children’s books authors to help with the Summer Reading Challenge program.

The participants include R.L. Stine, Maggie Stiefvater and Jackson Pierce, Gordon Korman, Michael Northtrop, Varian Johnson, Jude Watson, Blue Balliet, Patrik Henry Bass, Roland Smith, Tui T. Sutherland, Lauren Tarshis, and Wendy Wan-Long Shang. These writers will create original short stories; kids will be able to access these “rewards” by tracking the minutes they spend reading.

According to the press release, “each of the authors has written a unique short story using the same opening sentence which is, ‘I glanced over my shoulder to make sure that no one had followed me into the shadowy library, then took a deep breath and opened the glowing book…'” The organizers behind this venture hope to break the record of 304,749,681 minutes (spent reading) that was set last summer.

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The Raven Cycle #3: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater. Scholastic, 2014. Review copy from publisher. Sequel to The Raven Boys (Book 1) and The Dream Thieves (Book 2).

This continues the story of the search in Virginia for a missing Welsh king. The searchers are prep school students Richard Gansey III (the driving force behind the search), his friends Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, and Noah Czerny, and local girl Blue Sargent.

By the events of Blue Lily, Lily Blue, I'm not going to lie: it's complicated. There are a mess of characters, plus the search, plus the issues that the characters are dealing with in the present. Gansey is driven by his search; Ronan discovered dangerous family secrets, including his own ability to pull things out of dreams into the real world; Adam is a scholarship student with the drive for more and a serious, well earned chip on his shoulder. Noah has his own issues.

And Blue: Blue is from a family of psychics, without any real power herself, and with a curse upon her: her kiss will kill her true love. And since she's falling hard for Gansey, and since one of her aunts foresaw Gansey's death, it's, well, messy. Like life. Now take life and add in magic and history, myth and legend.

Readers know that I like when teen books have interesting adult characters: well, this has them and then some. The enigmatic Mr. Gray -- I mean, how often is a hired killer so sympathetic and likable? (And yes, I keep picturing him as Norman Reedus). Blue's mother has disappeared, but this allows other adults to move center. And Mr. Gray's boss also enters into the picture. It's not just magic and myth that is a danger.

The only frustration with Blue Lily, Lily Blue is there is still one more book in the series. So while the adventure moves forward, and questions are answered, there's still so much more to find out


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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

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I'm behind in reviews, so I'm doing a few round ups of titles -- better a couple paragraphs than nothing!

Salt & Storm by Kendall Kulper. Little, Brown. 2014. Reviewed from ARC.

Salt and Storm is set in an alternate 1860s, where witches and magic are real. Avery is the granddaughter of the witch of Prince Island, and should have been trained and raised to be the next witch. Except, her mother -- who refuses to have anything to do with magic or witchcraft -- drags Avery away from her grandmother and forbids her to see her. At sixteen, Avery is trying to escape her mother's control and claim her inheritance.

What I liked most about Salt and Storm is that Avery wasn't aware of the full picture. She knew what she knew, believed she had the full picture, believe she knew the real story about the witches of Prince Island. She thought she knew herself, but it turns out things aren't what she thinks they are. Which means what she wants isn't what she thinks it is. I also like the historical information in here, about life on nineteenth century islands.

The Raven Cycle #3: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater. Scholastic, 2014. Review copy from publisher. Sequel to The Raven Boys (Book 1) and The Dream Thieves (Book 2).

This continues the story of the search in Virginia for a missing Welsh king. The searchers are prep school students Richard Gansey III (the driving force behind the search), his friends Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, and Noah Czerny, and local girl Blue Sargent.

By the events of Blue Lily, Lily Blue, I'm not going to lie: it's complicated. There are a mess of characters, plus the search, plus the issues that the characters are dealing with in the present. Gansey is driven by his search; Ronan discovered dangerous family secrets, including his own ability to pull things out of dreams into the real world; Adam is a scholarship student with the drive for more and a serious, well earned chip on his shoulder. Noah has his own issues.

And Blue: Blue is from a family of psychics, without any real power herself, and with a curse upon her: her kiss will kill her true love. And since she's falling hard for Gansey, and since one of her aunts foresaw Gansey's death, it's, well, messy. Like life. Now take life and add in magic and history, myth and legend.

Readers know that I like when teen books have interesting adult characters: well, this has them and then some. The enigmatic Mr. Gray -- I mean, how often is a hired killer so sympathetic and likable? (And yes, I keep picturing him as Norman Reedus). Blue's mother has disappeared, but this allows other adults to move center. And Mr. Gray's boss also enters into the picture. It's not just magic and myth that is a danger.

The only frustration with Blue Lily, Lily Blue is there is still one more book in the series. So while the adventure moves forward, and questions are answered, there's still so much more to find out!


The Iron Trial (Book One of Magisterium) by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare. Scholastic. 2014. Review copy from publisher.

The Iron Trial starts a series set in the modern world, where magic is real -- but hidden. Twelve-year-old Callum's father has done everything possible to keep Callum away from this world. Call is supposed to do everything possible to fail his entrance tests to the Magisterium, a school of magic hidden in the United States. Instead, Call finds himself in the Magisterium, studying magic, and finding out his father hasn't been totally honest with him. Magic isn't the big, dangerous, evil he's been told about.

Most of this book is the "forming" part of an adventure story: Call discovering the truth about magic, that it's not a simple matter of good or evil, and Call forging friendships and allies (and sometimes enemies and frenemies) with his fellow students. He also has to study magic, and it's not all fun and games -- it's also hard work. (And, well, fun. Because magic!)

Part of what Call learns about are some epic battles from over ten years before, including those who fought on the good side and the bad side. (Magic is neither good nor bad, but those who practice it -- they fall on those two sides.) Call is sometimes frustratingly ignorant about magic and his own family's connection to it, but it works for the book -- the reader learns as Call learns.

The ending of the book -- oh, the ending! Personally, I felt as if the story was just truly beginning with the ending, and that the real story will be next year, now that the reader, and Call, has the full knowledge of what is going on. Or do we know as much as we think?



















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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

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So what is with all the hullabaloo about young adult literature these days? Do we have John Green to blame for getting us sucked in to the tragic sagas in coming-of-age children's books? I am in the fourth decade of my life, and I found myself pulled into the throws of YA lit this year, [...]

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Author Maggie Stiefvater has unveiled the trailer for her forthcoming release, Blue Lily, Lily Blue. The video embedded above features a song written by Stiefvater herself—what do you think?

This young adult novel will be third installment of The Raven Boys fantasy series. Scholastic will publish it on October 21, 2014.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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Jackson Pearce and Maggie Stiefvater are collaborating on a new middle grade series entitled Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Magical Creatures.

Pearce will pen the story and Stiefvater will create the artwork. Stiefvater has become well-known for her popular young adult fiction books; this project marks her debut as a children’s books illustrator.

Scholastic editorial director David Levithan negotiated the deal with Laura Rennert from the Andrea Brown Literary Agency and Josh Adams from Adams Literary. Levithan secured world rights; the publishing house plans to release the first installment in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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SINNER is the fourth book in the SHIVER series by Maggie Stiefvater. Fans of the series are treated to a beyond-the-ending look into what happens to two of their favorite characters after the original series ended.

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The magical Maggie Stiefvater

Maggie Stiefvater is nothing short of astonishing. She's the author of many YA novels, including the bestselling Raven Boys series and the Printz Honor Award-winning SCORPIO RACES.

She talked to us about her life as a writer—which has more dimensions than that single word contains.

"I'm not sure if my job description is actually writer," she said. "It should be thief. Or maybe, if I'm being kind, artist."

"I used to think that my ideal job was to write. To make up stories. To lie for a living." Now that she's a professional writer, knows that she observes, steals, and stylizes for a living.

When she writes, it's not so much that she is creating new things out of nothing, but that she steals from the world and makes it her own. She used to be a professional portrait artist, something she had to practice a lot (much like writing). One challenge of being a portrait artist was that people would move. She learned to look for people being still.

She found one once in a window seat on an airplane—the seat she wanted—and she sketched him with delight. And then she found out he was watching her draw. She teased his life story out of him, or at least part. Specifically the hand part. He had an oddly shaped hand, so he told her the story of how he broke it. On someone's face.

He said he was defending his sister's honor, and she listened to him with her mind on record, as she planned to steal him and his soft southern accent.

Over the years, her thefts have gone from the surface much deeper. Faithful, accurate renderings aren't what she wants. These are mere copies. She wants the essence. The soul. Why that guy threw that punch, or why he never threw one earlier. His broken hand was broken for a reason. He could have been, and probably was, lying.

The truth: A boy had once lost his temper, much to his shame. He had to look at the memory of that moment every single day. Everything else was just details. Just noise. "That was the soul," she said. "And that was what I stole."

He became Adam Parrish in THE RAVEN BOYS.

She talked to us about what the old writing advice "write what you know" really means, charming us with the stories of her childhood horse, a former racehorse that wasn't ready to retire and very well could have killed her. This fed into THE SCORPIO RACES, a book about vicious horses that are very likely to eat anyone who tries to ride them.

The thief then hands the job over to the artist, who understands what details to keep, and what details to cut.  "If I do my thievery well, if I steal the truth and not the details, and then I add the details back in, then I end up with a book that is not just true, but specific, and in only the way I can write it," she said.

She said her most Maggie book of all is THE RAVEN BOYS, one rich with things she's pilfered from her childhood, and literally about someone who can summon things from his dreams, just as she summons from her own.

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Thank you to Marquita Hockaday for the photo.

Maggie Stiefvater is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of the novels Shiver, Linger, and Forever. Her novel The Scorpio Races was named a Michael L. Printz Honor book. She has also written the Raven Cycle series among many books for young adults.

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It was Leon, really, who kept me reading.  This poor guy has to drive the returning rock star to the rock star's new gig and the rock star - Mercy Falls fans know that Cole St. Clair is the rock star - keeps asking for Leon's advice and input.  And Leon is so driver-ish-ly polite and even kind.  So for Leon I kept reading.

Because I never read the Mercy Falls books, I didn't know about the passion between Cole and Isabel Culpepper, or the tragedies that befell the Mercy Falls clan.  And I am grateful for Leon because I learned to like and respect Cole and Isabel. 

Here's the story, guys.  I will only take you so far, ok?  Cole is out of rehab.  He has been offered a chance to make a new album - as long as he does it on a reality tv show based in LA.  The band, Narkotika, is defunct.  Jeremy, the bass player, is in LA with a new band.  Mercy Falls readers know what happened to the drummer, Victor, and there's no return from that, alas.

But Cole's real goal is to find and win back Isabel.  Isabel lives in LA with her mother and aunt and cousin, Sophia.  Thanks, Sophia.  I liked YOU a lot, too.

The opening of this book let's you know that there is ACTION, DANGER and DRAMA involved in the book.  The setting of a reality show just pours lighter fluid on the blaze, so to speak.   And through it all, Cole tries to convince Isabel to trust him.  And Isabel tries to remain in control of circumstances that are beyond her reach.

In my opinion, this is not Maggie's best.  But I'm not all that fond of werewolves, either.  However, I am happy and relieved that the book was lively and full of good people behaving pretty ok, mostly, and ordinary people acting like jerks sometimes, and romance and action and love - and minor characters that I wanted to meet in person.

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Release Date: July 13th, 2010
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Source: Bought
Overall: 3 Monkeys
Interest: Series, Werewolves
Categories: Werewolves, Paranormal, Romance
Goodreads - Amazon- Maggie Stiefvater's Website
Read in August 2013

Summary:

the longing.
Once Grace and Sam have found each other, they know they must fight to stay together. For Sam, this means a reckoning with his werewolf past. For Grace, it means facing a future that is less and less certain.

the loss.
Into their world comes a new wolf named Cole, whose past is full of hurt and danger. He is wrestling with his own demons, embracing the life of a wolf while denying the ties of being human.

the linger.
For Grace, Sam, and Cole, life is a constant struggle between two forces -- wolf and human -- with love bearing its two sides as well. It is harrowing and euphoric, freeing and entrapping, enticing and alarming. As their world falls apart, love is what lingers. But will it be enough?

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Mister Max : The book of lost things by Cynthia Voigt was excellent.  I loaned it to my mother:

Mother:  I am just calling to tell you that I can't put this book down.

Me: Good.  What do you think of the librarian grandmother?

Mother:  I can't talk right now.  I have to finish the book.  But thank you for lending it to me.


I am now reading Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater.  It is hard for me.  But I am a grandmother who is not all that into cars, explosions and hit men.  Also, a little fantasy-weary right now.

 HOWSOMEVER!!!  if you are into hot cars, kissing dilemmas, explosions, and creepy-not-entirely-unsympathetic-hit-men types, also tortured young men and sassy know-it-all teen girls, AND a huge magical mystery, you will gobble this book up.  Even I, jaded as I am, can see that.

Enough about me.  What are you reading?

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The Raven Boys
Maggie Stiefvater
408 pages 
Young Adult
Scholastic
9780545424929
September 2012
Review copy 

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"Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she'd been told that she would kill her true love." The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater.

How's that for a first sentence?  Blue lives with psychics, her mother and her aunts.  After introducing Blue in the prologue that begins with the sentence above, the action moves to the "corpse road" behind a crumbling church on St. Mark's Eve.  Here, Blue, who is notably NOT psychically talented - just psychically helpful -, sees her first spirit.  Blue and her Aunt Neeve are collecting the names of local people who will die in the upcoming year - read the book if you don't understand.  And this boy appears  - well, his spirit does.  And Blue can see him.  His name, he tells her, is Gansey.

Ahhh, Gansey and his fellow rich boarding school friends!  They have a mission and it involves the "corpse road", the ancient Welsh King, Glendower, a boy who died before his time and one who lived when he should have died - and eventually, it involves Blue.


Here is some noteworthy advice.  Write this down.  Do NOT begin a Stiefvater book in the late evening if you hope to get some sleep.  It was Thursday night after 10:30 pm, and I couldn't sleep.  So, I said to myself, "Self, just start that new Maggie Stiefvater book.  Reading might help you sleep." Hahahahahahahahahahaha!  I could not put the book down. 

The book is due out in September.  Go to your favorite book purveyor - I vote for a local one - and pre-order.  Or request it at your public library.  You will not be sorry.

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If you’re like us, you can’t wait for the next Maggie Stiefvater book (to hit the shelves. We still have several months to wait for “The Raven Boys,” the first in a four book series called the Raven Cycle, which follows... Read the rest of this post

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By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: January 25, 2012

“The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. It is named for a Topeka, Kansas school librarian who was a long-time active member of the Young Adult Library Services Association. The award is sponsored by Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association.” ~YALSA

©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

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The number of Americans who have a tablet or e-reader (jumped significantly between December 2011 and January 2012, thanks to robust holiday sales, according to Pew Research. In fact, among Millennial adults, tablet ownership — at 24%... Read the rest of this post

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