STACKED

books

Giveaway: Paperback Release of The Cinderella Society by Kay Cassidy

|

One of my favorite under-the-radar releases of 2010 was Kay Cassidy’s The Cinderella Society. When sixteen-year-old Jess Parker is invited to join the Cindys, a secret society dedicated to defeating the Wickeds, the mean girls of the world, she is swept into a world of secrets, makeovers, and self-improvement. But when the Wickeds strike back, Jess finds out a bit more about the powers that be behind the Cindys and the other girls who are falling to the wayside in this confrontation, ultimately having to decide whether she herself is meant to be a Cindy. The Cinderella Society is a total girl-power tale that encourages girls, as their tagline says, “to celebrate your strength, embrace your future, be extraordinary.”

June 28th marks the paperback release of The Cinderella Society, and Kay has generously offered a signed copy of The Cinderella Society to one lucky reader (US only), along with a special Cinderella Society glass slipper bookmark!

This contest will run until July 12, 2011.

Kay is a great advocate for teen literature and libraries, and is the founder and host of The Great Scavenger Hunt Contest reading program, a 100% free program for teen and youth librarians. This year-round programs features over 200 MG and YA authors who have each created 10-question trivia quizzes for their books. When kids and teens answer these questions and turn the quiz in to their librarians, they are then entered into a contest to win a $50 gift card to the bookstore of their choice (And their librarian doesn’t walk away empty handed either!). It’s a great, no-cost and low-effort way to get kids reading and to add another program to your library. There are currently over 800 participating libraries across the US and Canada, and the program has been featured in VOYA, School Library Journal Teen, and Publisher’s Weekly Children’s Bookshelf. Kay funds and runs the entire program herself as part of her Pay It Forward outreach platform to give back to libraries and keep kids reading!

Thanks again to Kay Cassidy for the fantastic giveaway!

Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter

|

In Uncommon Criminals, Ally Carter’s sequel to the fun and well-written Heist Society, fifteen-year-old Katarina Bishop is back for another heist.  This time, she’s been directed by “Visily Romani” to take a break from returning priceless stolen works of art to their rightful owners to steal the famous Cleopatra emerald, which had been stolen from an excavation in Egypt many years ago.  Visily Romani’s messenger tells Kat that the emerald will be given back to an Egyptian museum, and Kat is all too willing to undertake the job, even though the emerald is rumored to be cursed and impossible to steal.  After all, even her Uncle Eddie wasn’t able to steal it when he attempted it years before.
But Kat is smart and a very, very good thief, and she sets in motion a heist that is sure to work.  She has Hale with her, of course, as well as Gabrielle and eventually the Bagshaw brothers and Nick.  Things aren’t what they seem with the pseudonymous Visily Romani and his messenger, though, and the book quickly takes a turn – Kat and her crew must steal the emerald once more, and also exact a little revenge on someone who conned them.
I really enjoyed Heist Society.  It’s the kind of popcorn book that I’ve always loved – a fun, fast-paced story, snappy dialogue, sarcastic characters who banter with each other endlessly, and a promise that everything will turn out alright in the end.  Nothing about it was terribly realistic, but that’s not really why I read most genre fiction anyway.  So, I was excited to get my hands on its sequel and I sped through it in a day.  I enjoyed it a lot, but I had a few gripes.
Uncommon Criminals, while a fun follow-up, feels too slight.  Events happen so quickly that there’s hardly any time for the reader to process them, making the twists and turns not as impactful as they should have been.  The crew from the first book are all back, but only Kat and Hale really have any development.  The Bagshaw brothers, Gabrielle, and Nick all make token appearances, but it felt they were only included because it was expected.  Gabrielle, who turned out to be a surprisingly complex character in Heist Society, is here reduced to comic relief.
This is not to say that Uncommon Criminals wasn’t a fun read.  It does have its moments.  Carter gives us more tidbits into certain characters: Uncle Eddie’s background is illuminated a bit more, Kat and Hale’s relationship grows, and the history of the thieving families is expanded upon (very slightly).  The central plotline is certainly entertaining, albeit a bit too breakneck for my taste.  I often complain that thrillers or spy novels written for adults are too long-winded, but Uncommon Criminals could have taken a page (or maybe a hundred pages) from them and given the reader more: more time to understand the heist, more insight into the secondary characters, more of that witty banter and narrative style so prevalent in Heist Society.  
Overall, this is a definite recommend for fans of the first novel, but Carter can do better.

Copy borrowed from my local library.

YA Contemporary Lit: The Presentation

|

Unable to make it to Sarah and my’s presentation about contemporary ya lit on Sunday at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference? Did you attend and want a copy of our presentation?

Look no further!

You can make this full screen, as well as zoom in and out however you want to. And if you have questions or want more information about contemporary ya lit, drop a line. As always, steal our lists as much as you’d like. Just get the word out there about this amazing body of work your teens want to be reading.

.prezi-player { width: 400px; } .prezi-player-links { text-align: center; }

Contemporary YA fiction and how to use it on Prezi

* With huge thanks to the wonderful Contemps authors for helping out with making these videos!
** Some of the videos aren’t loading how I want them to on the Prezi, but I’ll come back and post a link to the videos on YouTube this week. They’re worth your time.

Double Take: Shadows in the Water

|

Check out this double take, wet pavement style.


The Lucky Kind by Alyssa B. Sheinmel: I’ve reviewed this title before. I really like this cover, despite the fact I don’t think it represents the story at all, except for maybe reflecting the quiet nature of the story inside. I like the coloring, and I like the font quite a bit. The Lucky Kind was published in May by Knopf/Random House.

Then I saw this one:


Dry as Rain by Gina Holmes will be published by Tyndale House in September. When I first saw the cover, I thought it looked familiar, but it was different enough not to be a double take. But upon closer look, it is actually the same stock photo, just stretched and cut through the middle by the title and author bar; it was so blown up that the street lamp from the cover above doesn’t make it into this cover. You can tell it’s the same photo by the way the couple holds their hands, by the umbrella in both images, and by the outfit the guy is wearing in both photos.

I haven’t read Holmes’s book, but it seems like the image fits with this book a little bit more. Perhaps because these do look like adults and it does give an idea of a book for more mature readers than the Sheinmel book.

I don’t think one cover does it better than the other, though I think they so give quite different feelings to each cover with the placement of text and sizing of image. The first gives more insight into environment and offers the idea that place is an important element in the story, whereas the second, focused in more on the couple, offers the idea that the relationship is more important than the environment.

What do you think? Does one do it better?

The Visconti House by Elsbeth Edgar

|

In Elsbeth Edgar’s debut, The Visconti House, fourteen year old Laura Horton lives in a crumbling old mansion in Australia with her parents and her pet cat, Samson.  She loves living there, but the kids at her school consider it to be haunted and tease her for hanging out with “ghosts.”  Laura is somewhat ostracized in other ways too: she likes to write (her current project is an illustrated dragon encyclopedia), her parents are always having weird visitors over (although she does love these weird visitors), and socializing with other girls doesn’t come easily to her.
Then Leon moves in with his grandmother, who lives next door to Laura.  Leon is considered just as weird as Laura, if not more so, and the kids speculate as to why he doesn’t live with his parents.  His father is occasionally around, but his appearance is scruffy and the kids start to spread rumors that he’s a criminal.  Leon himself is somewhat odd-looking – he’s always a little scraggly – and his attitude is sullen.  He also turns out to be a math whiz, which doesn’t endear himself to his peers.  His grandmother is already seen as odd by the other kids, so that doesn’t help Leon’s situation either.
It’s inevitable that Laura and Leon will become friends, although it takes some time, since Laura is desperate to fit in and initially pushes Leon away, not wanting to be ridiculed for being friends with him.  What eventually brings them together is the mystery of Laura’s house, which was built by a man named Mr. Visconti in the early 20th century.  Mr. Visconti built the strange but magnificent house as a young man and remained in the town afterward, alone and quietly friendless.  He, too, was seen as odd by the townspeople.  Laura and Leon know this much about Mr. Visconti, but they want to know more – why he built the house in the first place, if he built it for anyone in particular, and why he remained there alone for so long.
The mystery of the house is really just a frame story and isn’t the focus of the book.  In researching Mr. Visconti, whose tragic story mirrors Laura’s life to some degree, Laura and Leon’s friendship (and sweet, semi-romance) blooms and Laura learns that it’s OK to be different from everyone else.  The mystery is purely a device whose purpose is to reveal this lesson to Laura, so it doesn’t really succeed as much of a mystery in the end.  The clues are pretty obvious and Laura and Leon encounter very few stumbling blocks on their path to the truth.  The book is more concerned with developing the friendship between Laura and Leon, and it’s more successful there.
Although the book’s protagonist is fourteen, this is really a middle grade book.  The Visconti House is definitely a Book With a Message, and I think it needs a bit of a lighter touch to really appeal to teens (the message is blatantly stated by at least three characters near the end of the book).  For younger kids, however, the overt lesson they are supposed to take away may not interfere so much with their enjoyment of the book.  Many kids can relate to Laura’s feeling of alienation from her peers.  Laura wants to fit in at school, but she also really likes her odd house, her family with its strange visitors, and Leon, who no one else seems to like.  I don’t have to think too hard to remember how this felt when I was a kid.
Review copy received at TLA.