Jennifer Brown – The Hub

Booklist: Life is a Highway

Road trip books make people happy – maybe it’s because they’re seeing the world from the character’s view, maybe it’s because the characters are visiting places we long to visit ourselves, maybe it’s the feel of freedom, maybe it’s the change that inevitably happens to the characters along the way – or maybe it’s a combination. Now that it’s spring time, I’m ready to get in the car, crank the music, and see where the road takes me.

So here are a few road trip books – and because the video’s short, I’ll ask you to add your favorites in the comments.

Books in the Video:
Crash into Me by Albert Borris
The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour
Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown
Two-Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt
Reunited by Hilary Weisman Graham
Going Bovine by Libba Bray (2010 Printz winner)
Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson
Let’s Get Lost by Adi Alsaid

-Jennifer Rummel, currently reading Flunked by Jennifer Calonita

Booklist: Extreme Weather in YA Lit

You know the saying, “April showers bring may flowers!” As we experience some changing weather this month, let’s take a look at some teen novels that center on extreme weather to drive their plots.

Tornadoes/Hurricanes

Torn Away by Jennifer Brown (2015 Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers)

How to Build a House by Dana Reinhardt (2009 Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults, 2009 Best Books for Young Adults)

Hurricane Song by Paul Volponi (2010 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults)

Empty by Suzanne Weyn

Continue reading Booklist: Extreme Weather in YA Lit

ALA Midwinter 2015: Best Fiction for Young Adults Feedback Session Recap

BFYA session On Saturday, January 31, I had the privilege to not only attend the “Best Fiction for Young Adults (BFYA)” feedback session, I also was able to bring four of my local library teens to participate in the session. Here is a picture of the five of us after the session posing with all of our swag bags. My four teens joined up with other teen readers to comprise a group of 60, all ready to do what teens do best: share their opinions.

Just a little background, if you are unfamiliar with the BFYA list: throughout the year, librarians add books published that year to a nomination list. From this nomination list, a committee reads the titles and ultimately whittles the list down to a BFYA Top Ten list. In order to ensure that the best books make the Top Ten list, the committee holds a feedback session in which teens can share why they think a book should or should not be on the list. The teens lined up at microphones that faced the committee members rather than the large crowd of librarians and teachers who stopped in to get the firsthand knowledge presented by the teens. Each teen had no more than 90 seconds to prove their point and were allowed to write up their reviews ahead of time. Unfortunately, due to the length of the nomination list, not every title was reviewed by the teens during the session.

Before I begin to share the details of the session, here is the BFYA Top Ten list:

The Carnival at Bray by Jessie Ann Foley

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander