Wendelin Van Draanen

Amazing Audiobooks (#AA2023) Featured Review of The Peach Rebellion by Wendelin Van Draanen

The Peach Rebellion by Wendelin Van Draanen
Narrated by Laurie Jo Daniels and Emily Ellet
Listening Library
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 9780593585009

When Ginny Rose and Peggy are children, they form a fierce friendship as they pick peaches in the orchards on Peggy’s family farm in central California. Ginny Rose’s family travels there in the summers to escape the Oklahoma Dust Bowl and earn a wage doing farm work. Ten years and a world war later, Ginny Rose’s family is back in town permanently but the differences between their families that didn’t register when they were children seem to loom above every interaction. It doesn’t help that Peggy’s best friend Lisette, a wealthy banker’s entitled daughter, is constantly putting Ginny Rose on edge.

Amazing Audiobooks (#AA2021) Nominees Round Up, July 15 Edition

Click here to see all of the current Amazing Audiobooks nominees along with more information about the list and past years’ selections.

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson; narrated by Marin Ireland
HarperAudio / Ecco
Publication Date: October 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-0062957863

Lillian, a scholarship student, and Madison, a debutante, were unlikely roommates at their elite boarding school. But ever since Lillian covered for Madison, getting Lillian expelled from the school, she has been drifting from one dead end job to the next. Now, years later, Lillian gets a call from Madison, seeing if she can come and nanny her twin step-children, whose mother has just died, and are now in Madison and her politico husband’s care. However, the twins are a special case, they burst into flame when upset. It doesn’t hurt them, but certainly causes destruction around them.

#ALAAC18 Recap: #BFYA2019 Teen Feedback Session

The Best Fiction for Young Adults feedback session is one of the best parts of every ALA conference. Local teens get the opportunity to read books that have been nominated for #BFYA and give their feedback about the titles. It’s always interesting to hear the perspective of real teens, and the group in New Orleans were particularly amazing. They all sounded like professional book reviewers, and I wish there had been time to talk with them at length about the books they enjoyed.

Here are some of the titles the teens particularly liked from this year’s #BFYA nominees list along with a little of their feedback and a link to each title’s nomination post (when available.)

Continue reading #ALAAC18 Recap: #BFYA2019 Teen Feedback Session

Best Fiction for Young Adults 2019 (#BFYA2019) Nominee Round Up

It’s time for more selected lists nominees! Stay tuned to the Hub as we reveal the nominees for 2019’s Quick Picks, Amazing Audiobooks, Great Graphic Novels for Teens, and Best Fiction for Young Adults!

Today you can see our first Best Fiction for Young Adult 2019 (#BFYA2019) nominee.

Wild Bird by Wendelin Van Draanen
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: September 5, 2017
ISBN: 9781101940440

Wren is just fourteen years old, but she is out of control: she drinks, smokes pot, shoplifts, and lies compulsively to cover up her destructive behaviour. Her parents, bewildered and at a loss for how to help her, ship her off to a wilderness therapy program for troubled teens in a last-ditch attempt to get her clean. Continue reading Best Fiction for Young Adults 2019 (#BFYA2019) Nominee Round Up

#QP2018 Nominees Roundup

Freya by Matthew Laurence
Imprint
Publication Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 9781250088178

Sixteen-year-old Sara Vanadi has been hiding out in a quiet little hospital where she gets three square meals a day and is basically left alone. Her peace is shattered when Garen, an agent of a vicious corporation that is abusing forgotten deities, comes to her with an offer she wants to refuse: work for us or die. Continue reading #QP2018 Nominees Roundup

Dealing with Tragedy and Terrorism in YA Lit

Last Patriot’s Day – a state holiday observed predominantly in Massachusetts but Maine and Wisconsin get in there Massachusetts honoring the first American patriots of the Revolution – was a strange and hard day for many of us in the Bay State. It was a day off for many, and a start to school vacations for most students. There was the perennially inspiring promise of the Boston Marathon with such big stories as the amazing elite runners, the Hoyt father/son team running their last race, and the triumphs of every day people running their first or special race.

Shoes at the Boston marathon bombing memorial 2013 photo by Flickr user Megan Marrs

Then the bombs went off and the difficulty began. Over the next few days and since then, I’ve thought how about the marathon bombings might affect teens and especially those teens who may have been on lockdown in their homes in Boston and many surrounding cities as the hunt for the subjects spewed gunfire along their streets.

One year later, I’ve looked to YA literature to see if anything can help us and help those teens near the disaster to deal with it. A far as I know no YA novels have been written about the tragedy yet, but it may happen as it does with many major news stories. Instead here are some books deal with running injuries or terrorism and the healing that can come after those.

Gone, Gone, Gone by Hannah Moskowtiz – Set in 2002 with the two main characters still reeling from the September 11 attacks in their two respective hometowns of Washington D.C. and New York, Craig and Lio try to figure out how to be normal teens in love when the Beltway sniper attacks start. I admit to having mostly forgotten about these murders when I picked up the book, but Moskowtiz captures what I would the imagine the paranoia and terror of that situation would feel like. Through her two characters, she allows us to ponder the meaning of safety and how that affects who we love and how we recover from trauma. Continue reading Dealing with Tragedy and Terrorism in YA Lit

Teen Tech Week: Building a Better Human

March 9 – 15 is YALSA’s annual Teen Tech Week, when libraries shine a spotlight on all of the great technological tools that they offer for their patrons. And though this event only lasts for one week, technology is a core element of most libraries’ mission year round. More and more are offering digital labs and makerspaces where patrons can learn to use technology to create fantastic projects and give free rein to their imagination.

One of my favorite examples of this is the prosthetic Robohand that was recently created for a young boy using the 3-D printer at the Johnson County Library Makerspace. As soon as I read the story, it got me thinking about all of the great stories I have read about technology being used to augment the human body or even change what it means to be a person. And, so, in honor of Teen Tech Week, I decided to create a list of some of my favorite books about technology being used to augment the human body or fundamentally alter humanity as we currently conceive of it. Continue reading Teen Tech Week: Building a Better Human

What Would They Read: Glee Edition, Part 2

Since I got so much positive feedback from last month’s Glee edition of Glee-Themed-Karaoke-Revolution-Announced-2 “What Would They Read?,” I thought I would continue with a few more characters. I actually had some recommendations in the comments section which I plan to include in this post.

Last month I tackled reading options for Finn, Rachel, and Quinn. In order to include as many characters as possible, I’m going to do a quick Reader’s Advisory for several more people.

Santana Lopez – I’m going to start this off with one of the recommendations left in last month’s comments section. While Santana does not appear to be a very big reader, she would definitely find some common ground in Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina (2014 Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers). In Medina’s book, Piddy discovers that Yaqui, a girl she doesn’t eve know, has decided to target her in an aggressive bullying situation. Santana would like the book not only because of the strong anti-bullying sentiments she developed while protecting Kurt, but also because of the strong Latina characters with whom she can relate culturally.

Tina Cohen-Chang – As we all know, Principal Figgins has revealed his dislike for Tina’s wardrobe, stating that it makes Vampire_Kisses her look like a vampire. I assume Tina would appreciate a few vampire novels once in a while. In particular, I would give her Vampire Kisses by Ellen Schreiber. While this is a bit of an oldie in the YA perspective (it came out in 2003), I believe that Tina would breathe new life into the title. In Vampire Kisses, Raven is an outcast who dresses in all black and dreams of someday becoming a vampire. When new neighbors move in next door, Raven can’t help but notice that they do not venture out during the daytime and Alexander, the teenaged son, hangs out in the cemetery quite frequently. This could be Raven’s chance to embrace the afterlife of a vampire.

Continue reading What Would They Read: Glee Edition, Part 2