We've been neglectful...

Shame on us for not updating the blog in a more timely manner. We mean to, really, we do! It just seems to get swallowed up in our other job duties. I plan to try better this year. Here's to 2014!

Last night, a few former teen librarians met up and watched The Book Thief movie. I had been looking forward in a sort of excited but also melancholy way. How do you get excited to see a movie about being a regular German girl during the Nazi regime? Plus, we all had read the book so we know that the movie should be a Kleenex worthy film.

I was not disappointed. I loved the adaptation. It kept the meat of the book and more importantly, the spirit of the book. The movie does limit the narrator--Death's -- role, but I was fine with that because honestly, Death was a bit of a jerk sometimes in the book. The movie passed one final test for me--did it make me want to read the book? Yes, it did. I want to go back into that world Markus Zusak created with his wonderful array of words and re-live the heartbreak all over again.

Can I just say--I like the German edition book cover (Amazon.com for the image) better than the US edition with the dominoes? And finally, I really want to read Zusak's next book. It looks like it may now come out in fall, 2015.

Next, team building movie outing? Fault in our stars, perhaps?

Hunger Games poster

Now that the final Harry Potter movie has been released (and since I'm not a fan of the Twilight movies), the next movie being made from a teen novel that I'm excited about is The Hunger Games. It's too early for a movie trailer or even a teaser of this movie that comes out next march, but here is a digital motion poster. Enjoy!

Teen Books in the News

This past week, we've three different interesting things on the Internet about teen books or authors. I thought I'd share the info just in case you hadn't heard.

Earlier this week, John Green announced the title of his new book, The Fault in Our Stars. Then he announced that he would sign every pre-ordered copy. By 9 p.m. that night it was #1 on Amazon's bestselling list. (It currently is still #1). With no cover art, no description beyond "the story of two young cancer survivors" AND it doesn't come out until MAY, 2012. That's very awesome. John Green has some pretty amazing fans. You can read a story about this from the Wall Street Journal.

Next yesterday, I found out that Drew Barrymore has selected Heist Society by Ally Carter as her next directing project. I love when teen novels get made into movies. Not necessarily because the movies are so good (Blood and Chocolate was soooooo bad), but because it introduces new readers to the books and perhaps to other books in the collection. But I'm particularly excited about this movie deal. Ally Carter has great strong girl characters which stay true to the situations they are put in. I talked about I'd tell you I love you, but then I'd have to kill you earlier this week. It's only fitting that I finish the week with her newest series.

And finally, for those Stephenie Meyer fans out there. No this isn't breaking news about a new Twilight story. I think I'm all Twlighted/Twilit out. No, her stand alone adult novel, The Host, is also being made into movie and has a release date! It also has a star, but I haven't heard who is directing it.

That's all the news I have to share today.

I Am Number Four Readlikes

Alright, it was the number 1 movie this weekend, but have you read the book?


Alright, you've seen the movie and read the book, what's next? You can try some of these books while waiting for book #2 (coming out in August). I focused on the action of I am Number Four and not the alien aspect, so if you want the alien aspect, write a comment and I'll post another list!


The Awakening by Michael Carroll
Superheroes (and villains) disappeared ten years ago, but two teen boys’ developing powers are gaining attention
from all sides.


Thieves like Us by Stephen Cole
Teen geniuses/delinquents are handpicked for this Indiana Jones-esque adventure to decipher clues to the secret of everlasting life.


The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Thomas wakes up in a stone maze with no memory of how he got there.


Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
The daughter of the warden helps Finn, a prisoner, escape from Incarceron, a prison with a mind of its own. (and it's going to be a movie too starring Taylor Lautner and Emma Watson!)


Sure Fire by Jack Higgins with Justin Richards
What would you do if you found out your father was a spy?

Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
Think of a Young James Bond action series—and the movie starred Alex Pettyfer (with his British accent).


Maximum Ride: the Angel Experiment by James Patterson
Genetic experimented orphans ban together to be a family and to protect each other against the “School.”


Disclaimer: I wrote an article on this topic for AZLA's (Arizona Library Association) newsletter.

Year of the Bomb

Paul, Arnie, Oz and Crank are big horror movie fans. I mean love being scared silly.
If it is a horror film, they've seen it. So can you imagine how they feel when they find out "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is going to be filmed in their little town of Sierra Madre, CA. This is only the best and biggest thing in their lives.

However, the background action is beyond what they ever expected. The boys manage to become friends with one of the extras and the director. They are allowed on the set and are invited to watch the entire filming, what more could a horror movie buff as for?

The boys are pretty much regular kids who have their disagreements and fights but there is nothing extraordinary about their lives, except they live in times when they have a daily drill of dropping to the floor under their desks. They do not question why they have to do this or that they are supposed to fear Russia and the communists.

As the boys get involved with the movie, they find more is happening than just the filming of a movie. People's livelihoods could be in jeopardy, perhaps even their freedom. Paul and his friends discover that there are FBI agents on the set. Why are they there, who are they investigating? This situation starts Paul thinking about how the fear the country is living with is affecting people who may be innocent. He even starts thinking about his own family situation. Each of the boys change as the story unfolds and not always for the better. It is difficult to see the fear and anger displayed by the four young men. Still this reader had to admire a willingness on the part of Paul to ask questions and not be a pod person. One also wonders how we would deal with the circumstances, hopefully, we would be more objective and open-minded.

The novel does not hit you over the head with the paranoia that was rampant in those days. It is horrifying knowing that once again American citizens could so easily turn against their neighbors and friends. This is a thought provoking work and one that should not be missed. Parallels can be drawn from this book to our current society.

I was not sure what to expect when I picked up this book but I am very glad I did. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes reading a novel that has substance and an ending that is bittersweet and not predictable.

Paranoid Park

I recently saw the film Paranoid Park based on the teen novel by Blake Nelson. I liked the film and wanted to compare and contrast to the book. As it turns out, I whipped through the book in less than a day. I felt compelled to keep reading even though I already had a pretty sound idea what would happen. Knowing didn't stop me from wanting (needing, in some sense) to hear the story from the sixteen-year-old narrator himself as he records the story of a night gone wrong in a series of letters to an unknown recipient. (Unknown until the end of the book, that is). On the night in question, the narrator goes to the "sketchy" underground skate park called Paranoid Park. He meets up with a "Streeter" named Scratch who takes him to a nearby trainyard to hitch a ride on a freight train. When the train yard's security guard discovers the hitchers, he confronts them--violently--and suddenly the narrator finds himself responsible for a terrible crime.

But was it a crime? The narrator isn't really sure. Will anyone, most importantly, the police, believe that what happened wasn't intentional? In an instant the narrator's life has changed forever: "I had blown it. That was the truth of the matter. I had blown my whole life. With one wrong move, I had destroyed any chance for a normal existence." But as it turns out, no one except Scratch witnessed the crime, so our narrator is able to make a run for it, free and clear.

That's the thing, though. He isn't free. The guilt is eating him alive and not being able to tell anyone is perhaps the worst punishment of all.

What was most interesting to me in terms of the book versus the film was the pacing. The film moved slowly, almost too slowly in parts for my taste. The actual crime isn't revealed in the film until midway through, whereas in the book, the reader sees what happens--in horrifying though not over-the-top detail (unlike the film)--on page 22. In fact, the book is incredibly fast-paced, the narrative carried along by the sixteen-year-old's simple, tortured telling of the facts and the aftermath. After reading the book, it amazes me that the filmmakers were able to translate the tale to film at all--so much of the book is internal thought in the narrator's mind. A few exciting scenes, among them my favorite in the book, don't happen at all in the movie. Reading the book made me think strongly of Crime and Punishment, and I just noticed that there's a quote from C and P preceding chapter one. Cool. I understand why the filmmakers needed to approach the film differently than the author approached the book, but when all is said and done, I've got to say I prefer the book. An excellent read.

Book of the Day

Can I tell you how cool it is to be a reviewer? I review for a lot of journals--VOYA, Library media connection; Video librarian, but my newest and coolest one is ICV2.com's guides. First of all, ICV2.com is a great website. But secondly, they get me the coolest stuff to review! Sure sometimes I have to review some stinkers (in my mind, of course, someone else may find them to be "gems").

Anyway, the book I was just sent to review totally made my day! Train Man by Hitori Nakano--I actually squeled with delight when I got it. The Train Man story is infamous--well to me at least. Supposedly a true story, but perhaps not, this is a love story of a techie geek and the girl he saves from a drunk man on the train. With the help of his Internet bulletin board comrades, he woes "Lady Miss Hermes."

Apparently from my previous posts, I really like titles that work in various mediums. This title has 3 different manga series (1 stand alone title; 2 trilogy series). At the library, we have the VIZ manga series. We will be getting the novel soon--I promise! Besides the book versions, there was a live action TV show and a movie! The movie has also been released here in America by VIZ Media. And the library will be buying it soon.... I highly recommend it. I'll be screening it on Saturday, May 12th at the Foothills Library!

One Story -- Three Formats

Does hearing a story read count as reading? How about reading an comics adaptation of a book? Or a comics adaptation of a movie? Is it the same experience, or is it different?

I don't know anybody that would argue that reading a book and watching a movie are the same thing, but does the way you get the information change the information itself? I started thinking about this lately, specifically as it relates to one of my favorite writers, Neil Gaiman, and Neverwhere.

The story behind Neverwhere goes something like this. A very ordinary young man, Richard Mayhew, finds a wounded girl on the streets of London. Against the wishes of his fiancee, Richard decides to help the strange girl. Door, as the girl is called, is part of "London Below" a subterranean world of magic and mystery, and she is on the run from two vicious killers who slaughtered her family. By helping her, Richard becomes invisible to everyone but those who dwell in London Below. He must journey with Door and the mysterious Marquis de Carabas in an attempt to get his life back.

So the story is pretty simple -- a nice little urban fantasy. But this is a story that has been through three different formats, and changes each time it gets told.

Neverwhere started life as a BBC mini-series, conceived of by Gaiman and comedian Lenny Henry. Despite some really good actors working with some really interesting material, this is... not very good. Really. It was shot on the cheap, and it shows. The lighting is weird, the effects are awful, and without giving away too much of the plot -- be prepared to be underwhelmed at the big battle at the end. A lifetime of watching Doctor Who has taught me not to expect too much from the BBC's special effects team, and even I was disappointed by this. Got to love that Dave McKean designed DVD cover though.

Evidently, Gaiman was so upset about the way Neverwhere looked onscreen that he wrote Neverwhere the Novel. This is sort of like a director's cut of the mini-series. Scenes that were cut from the mini-series are included from the novel, so its bigger, the details are more filled out and the whole thing just makes more sense. The best part about the novel is that Gaiman writes wonderful descriptions, and novels have no effects budgets, so the cheese factor that almost ruined the mini-series is gone here. Don't let the kind of boring cover fool you - its an excellent book.

The novel has a lot of fans, including some of the executives at comics publisher Vertigo. Last year, Vertigo published a Neverwhere comic mini-series, based on the novel, written by Mike Carey. Carey wrote the Sandman spin-off Lucifer and has worked on Hellblazer, featuring John Constantine, so he's pretty comfortable using Gaiman's characters and working in a magic environment. He does a pretty good job with the material; compressing of Gaiman's work into a 9 issue series must have been tough. Glen Fabry, from Preacher, handles the artwork, and I have to say, I'm not a fan. His uber-realisitc style seems to be mismatched to the magical material, and I don't like what he did with the Marquis de Carabas, who was my favorite character from the TV series and the novel. I did like the look he gave Door though, and the final battle that he and Carey show is a lot better than the TV miniseries.

It's interesting to me how the story changes between each version, with different things getting compressed and expanded each time. I would say that the novel is the best version, with the comic coming second, and finally the mini-series. We have all three at GPL, so you can read and watch and read and decide for yourself. A full length audio book is coming out this year, and I can't wait to listen to that, to see how the story changes again.

Eragon

So guess how I spent my Friday night? That's right--waiting to see Eragon. It was so much trouble! First I bought my tickets online, but coordinating with my friends and my husband had the movie time changed three times. The we get there 45 minutes early--have to have good seats. Five minutes before the movie begins--they inform us that the film we bought tickets for has really bad scratches on it. So we changed tickets to a later movie--another 45 minute wait and finally we see the movie. Which sucked. Really it did. I've read the book (about three years ago) and I had problems following the movie.

My husband was really upset, since Eragon is one of his favorite books. So now Jason--that's my husband--is worried that people will see the movie and not want to read the book. I've assured him that this probably won't happen (as anyone who has not read the book will probably not go see the movie in the first place). Anyway, I'm here to tell you-- Read the Book. It's so much better than the movie--though the dragon was cool looking.

And if you've read Eragon already and are looking for something similar, then I have a list of other books for you to try out.

Eldest by Paolini (You know that this will be a trilogy, right?)
The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima (Probably my favorite fantasy of the year)
Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones

and a whole lot more. I have a bookmark at Foothills in the Quaranteen area (teen section) all on this, so if you want more--let me know.