SkimWhen her classmate Katie Matthews is dumped by her boyfriend, who then kills himself, the entire school goes into mourning overdrive. It's a weird time to fall in love, but Skim does just that after secret meetings with her neo-hippie English teacher, Ms. Archer.
Nation
Baby
5. The Hunger Games
3. Mexican Whiteboy
Waiting for Normalby: Conner, Leslie
Addie is waiting for normal.
But Addie's mom has an all-or-nothing approach to life: a food fiesta or an empty pantry, jubilation or gloom, her way or no way.
All or nothing never adds up to normal.
All or nothing can't bring you all to home, which is exactly where Addie longs to be, with her half sisters, every day.
In spite of life's twists and turns, Addie remains optimistic. Someday, maybe, she'll find normal.
Leslie Connor has created an inspiring novel about one girl's giant spirit. waiting for normal is a heartwarming gem.
Top Ten YA Books Special : It's Complicated: The American Teenager
0 comments Posted by sam.ae at 2:52 AM
It's Complicated : The American Teenager
by: Bowman, Robin
Robin Bowman’s five-year journey into the heart of teenage America created a series of 414 “collaborative portraits,” wherein she shares her discoveries of a generation now coming of age. In searing and intimate photographs, presented alongside the young people’s voices of passion, pride, embarrassment, lust, pain, bewilderment, anxiety, joy, uncertainty, and rage, the book charts the coming of age of the largest generation in America—77 million strong—in every region of the country and every socioeconomic group: from a Texas debutante to teenage gang members in New York City, from a drag queen in Georgia to a coal miner in West Virginia.
Bowman’s intimate photographs ask us to reconcile preconceived ideas and stereotypes of teenagers with the diversity of individuals in the portraits. This book and the traveling exhibition it accompanies are about the inside lives of these kids and how they see their reality in their own voices.
*So this means this book is more on photography? Hmm. I think it's good to explore another way of perceiving messages from people other than words. Maybe photographs are good message transmitters too? It's up to you.
As I was randomly surfing the net, I stumbled at the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) website and found out that The Best Books for Young Adults committee of YALSA each year selects and annotates a list of significant adult and young adult books. It is a general list of fiction and nonfiction titles selected for their proven or potential appeal to the personal reading tastes of the young adult. I viewed the top 10 list and decided to let you guys know the must have books this 2009.
1. It's Complicated: The American Teenager
by : Bowman, Robin
ISBN : 978-1-884167-69-0
2. Waiting for Normal
by : Conner, Leslie
3. Mexican WhiteBoy
by : de la Pena, Matt
ISBN : 978-0-385-73310-6
4. Bog Child
by : Dowd, Siobhan
ISBN : 978-0-385-75169-8
5. The Hunger Games
by : Collins, Suzanne
ISBN : 978-0-439-02348-1
6. Ten Cents a Dance.
by : Fletcher, Christine
ISBN : 978-1-59990-164-0
7. Baby
by : Monninger, Joseph.
ISBN : 978-1-59078-502-7
8. Nation
by : Pratchett, Terry.
ISBN : 978-0-06-143302-3
9. Skim
by : Tamaki, Mariko and Jillian Tamaki
ISBN : 978-0-88899-753-1
10. The Brothers Torres
by : Voorhees, Coert
ISBN : 978-1-4231-0304-2
Don't worry, I won't let you rush in to a bookstore and buy a book without knowing anything about it! You deserve more that that. :) So I'll make a Top 10 YA Books special, where every day, I will post something about these books so that you'll know if the story jives with your taste for stories. So stay tuned!
* http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/bestbooksya/09topten.cfm
Background information on A Walk to Remember
by Nicholas Sparks(from a speech given in Berlin, Germany for Heyne Verlag, 2000)
". . . I'm often asked which novel is my favorite, but that's a question I can't really answer. It's like trying to choose between my children and all I can say is that I like them all for different reasons.
I can say however, that A Walk to Remember was my favorite novel to write. I enjoyed the process of capturing the voice of a smart-alecky 17-year-old kid, and found him to be fun to write. Likewise with Jamie Sullivan. There was something intrinsically sweet about her character that gradually seemed to take over the book. It was also the only novel that made me cry while writing.
A Walk to Remember was inspired by my sister.
In many ways, Jamie Sullivan was my younger sister. Like Jamie, my sister was sweet. Like Jamie, my sister had tremendously strong faith. Like Jamie, my sister loved church. Like Jamie, my sister wasn't popular at school. Like Jamie, my sister was always cheerful. Like Jamie, all my sister wanted in life was to get married.
And like Jamie, my sister got cancer.
Like Jamie, my sister met someone. And like Landon, there was a long period of time when this fellow couldn't imagine himself marrying a girl like her. And yet, in the end, he couldn't help himself. Even when he knew she was sick, even when he knew that she might not make it, this man asked my sister to marry him.
It was just about the sweetest thing that's ever been done for anyone, and I suppose I wrote this novel not only so that you could get to know my sister, but so that you would know what a wonderful thing it was that her husband once did for her.
Sadly, my sister died in June (2000). She was thirty-three years old. . ."
This novel has a lot of sentimental value than I thought. I'm almost finished so stay keep viewing my site for updates.
* http://www.nicholassparks.com/Novels/AWalkToRemember/BackInfo.html
Rule: Copy and change the answers and pass it on. Be sure to tag the person who sent it to you!
1. Where is your cell phone? lost. LOL
2. Your hair? midlength
3. Your mother? loving
4. Your father? hardworking
5. Your favorite food? siomai
6. Your dream last night? forgot
7. Your favorite drink? juice
8. Your dream/goal? executive
9. What room you are in? bedroom
10. Your hobby? reading
11. Your fear? loss
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? US
13. Where were you last night? home
14. Something that you aren’t? expressive
15. Muffins? craving
16. Wish list item? books!
17. Where you grew up? philippines
18. Last thing you did? study
19. What are you wearing? casual
20. Your TV? sony
21. Your pets? dogs
22. Friends? fantastic
23. Your life? content
24. Your mood? nervous
25. Missing someone? dad
26. Car? green
27. Something you’re not wearing? jewelry
28. Your favorite store? bookstore
29. Your favorite color? yellow
30. When is the last time you laughed? earlier
31. Last time you cried? june
32. Who will resend this? friends
33. One place that I go to over and over? malls
34. One person who emails me regularly? friendster
35. My favorite place to eat? home
Thank you Full Time Mom for this tag. It was fun answering it! I'd like to share this tag with my friends ... Aneuk Nanggroe and MNG15 :))
At last, I've been able to finish reading The Luxe, and now I'm reading this book, Summer Confidential:Sunrise by Melissa J. Morgan. Let me show you a glimpse of this novel.
What could be more fun than a coed water-sports camp in Hawaii?
a. nothing
b. they have cute boys there, right?
c. anything that doesn’t involve water sports or boys
Cassie Hamilton is a professional surfer who also happens to be a total hottie. So why in the world is she so nervous about being a counselor-in-training at Camp Ohana this summer? She’s never been a genius in the social department, but that’s only part of it…Cassie has a deep dark secret. And if it ever got out, her summer, not to mention her life, would be completely ruined.
The Luxe
I'm not usually an i-love-novels-about-scandalous-elite-life type of reader before. To be honest, The Gossip Girl series didn't captivate me(although I love the TV series, i never bought the books). When I've read the glimpse of Anna Godbersen's The Luxe, I said to myself, "Why not give it a try?", I was urged to buy the book because it's not about the lives of the scandalous lives of the elites in Manhattan nowadays-coz it's too common already-but during the 1800's, and The Luxe didn't fail me. I absolutely fell in love with the story, and I'm sure to buy the sequel to this book.
So I did a little research about the brilliant author of the The Luxe Series but unfortunately, there is only a few information so I patched together the data that I've been able to find and here it is. I hope this short biography will help.
Anna Godbersen was born in Berkeley, California in 1980. She was educated at Barnard College in Manhattan, and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
She is the author of the The Luxe series, with The Luxe, the first book in the series,(her debut novel) which was published on 23 November 2007 by Harper Collins. It was followed by Rumors, and a third, Envy, was released in January 2009. A fourth book called Splendor, which concludes The Luxe series, will be published on October 27, 2009.
Anna Godbersen is the former literary editor's assistant at Esquire. She wrote weekly book reviews for the magazine's website and has written for The New York Times Book Review and The Chattahoochee Review, where she is a contributing editor.
Another book in my wishlist is The End of Forever by Lurlene McDaniel. The part of the glimpse that i've read that caught my eye was :
"Lurlene McDaniel explores the complexities not only of accepting unexpected
loss, but also of moving on to live and love again."
I'll let you read the whole preview so that just maybe, it would interest you to purchase a copy.
For sisters Amy and Erin, the night of their high school drama group’s cast party starts out as fun.
But their lives come crashing down when Amy takes the car to get more food and has a horrible accident. Now Amy lies somewhere between life and death.
Erin and her parents must find the courage to accept Amy’s life-support system will never bring her back. Can Amy’s dying become hope for someone else’s living?
The doctors assure Erin Bennett and her parents that they can’t find a physical cause for her headaches. But the throbbing, violent pain is so intense that Erin knows she needs help. Even landing the lead in the senior musical opposite David Devlin doesn’t give her much pleasure.
The headaches started just after the death of Erin’s younger sister, Amy. Erin thought her grieving was over. A therapist begins to help her deal with her pain, but what is it about David that triggers Erin’s violent reaction?
In these companion novels, now together in one volume, Lurlene McDaniel explores the complexities not only of accepting unexpected loss, but also of moving on to live and love again.
Anna Godbersen has finished the concluding novel to her The Luxe series, Splendor, and will be published this October 27, 2009. I hope it would be released here in the Philippines soon after it will be relesed at the States. :(
Another Anna Godbersen novel to devour, and I can't wait to get a copy and devour every page rich of controversy about Manhattan's elite who's lives we all would die to live. Another novel in The Luxe sequel, Envy.
Jealous whispers. Old rivalries. New betrayals. Two months after Elizabeth Holland's dramatic homecoming, Manhattan eagerly awaits her return to the pinnacle of society. When Elizabeth refuses to rejoin her sister Diana's side, however, those watching New York's favorite family begin to suspect that all is not as it seems behind the stately doors of No. 17 Gramercy Park South. Farther uptown, Henry and Penelope Schoonmaker are the city's most celebrated couple. But despite the glittering diamond ring on Penelope's finger, the newlyweds share little more than scorn for each other. And while the newspapers call Penelope's social-climbing best friend, Carolina Broad, an heiress, her fortune—and her fame—are anything but secure, especially now that one of society's darlings is slipping tales to the eager press. In this next thrilling installment of Anna Godbersen's bestselling Luxe series, Manhattan's most envied residents appear to have everything they desire: Wealth. Beauty. Happiness. But sometimes the most practiced smiles hide the most scandalous secrets…
Just remember, the richest among us hides the most comtroversial secrets.
