Free Audio Books All Summer

All summer you can get free audio downloads of YA contemporary and classic titles from this amazing program called SYNC: Sync YA literature into your earphones.  The program is sponsored by audiobook publishers and Audio File Magazine.   Their goal is to introduce teens to listening to audio books by giving away two books each week all summer.

Details:  Each book is only available for download for one week, but can then be listened to when you want.  The downloads are in the MP3 format , compatible with both Macs and PCs.  The titles are downloaded through the Overdrive Media Console app, the same one used by the Berkeley Public library for audio and e-books.  Although the first download is a little tricky, it’s easy once you get the hang of it.  (The beauty part is that then you can use it to get e-books for your smart phone, iPad or computer using the same app!)  The weekly downloads will be a pair of related current YA and classic novels.  You can also  sign up at their website for for text or email reminders when new books are available for free download.  Could it be any easier???

Schedule of SYNC Downloads

SYNC Titles
Summer 2012

June14 – June 20, 2012
The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch, Read by Dan Bittner (Scholastic Audiobooks)
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Frank Galati [Adapt.], Read by Shirley Knight, Jeffrey Donovan, and a Full Cast (L.A. Theatre Works)

June 21 – June 27, 2012
Irises by Francisco X. Stork, Read by Carrington MacDuffie (Listening Library)
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, Read by Wanda McCaddon (Tantor Media)

June 28 – July 4, 2012
The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud, Read by Simon Jones
(Listening Library)
Tales from the Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang, Read by Toby Stephens
(Naxos AudioBooks)

July 5 – July 11, 2012
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake, Read by August Ross (AudioGO)
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, Read by Ian Holm (AudioGO)

July 12 – July 18, 2012
Guys Read: Funny Business by Jon Scieszka [Ed.] et al., Read by Michael Boatman, Kate DiCamillo, John Keating, Jon Scieszka, Bronson Pinchot (Harper Audio)
The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Stories by Mark Twain, Read by Norman Dietz (Recorded Books)

July 19 – July 25, 2012
Cleopatra’s Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter, Read by Kirsten Potter (Oasis Audio)
Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, Read by a Full Cast (AudioGO)

July 26 – August 1, 2012
Pinned by Alfred C. Martino, Read by Mark Shanahan (Listen & Live Audio)
TBA (Brilliance Audio)

August 2 – August 8, 2012
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, Read by Khristine Hvam (Hachette Audio)
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Read by Simon Prebble (Blackstone Audio)

August 9 – August 15, 2012
Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy, Read by Rupert Degas (Harper Audio)
Dead Men Kill by L. Ron Hubbard, Read by Jennifer Aspen and a Full Cast
(Galaxy Press)

August 16 – August 22, 2012
The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera, Read by Jay Laga’aia (Bolinda Audio)
The Call of the Wild by Jack London, Read by William Roberts (Naxos AudioBooks)

Cow pies and Wheezers with Alexander Gordon Smith

“Gordon” Smith visited us last week and had us cracking up and getting delightfully grossed out by his stories about growing up as a wild child and his take on writing.  As the writer of the Escape from Furnace series, he stressed that his ideas about writing weren’t about sitting behind a desk tapping words into a computer, but actually trying things and experiencing life.  He shared an anecdote about writing a story when he was a teenager.  He wanted to include rocket-powered boots, so he and his friend created their own take on it using ski boots and gun powder!!!  He also talked about wanting to know what shooting a rifle felt like, so he and a friend went out “hunting” cow pies in a pasture.  Let’s just say the story ended with a waterfall of cow poop falling on his younger brother.

And he looks like such a regular guy…  Our other favorite story was about him building a Wheezer, which is one of the horrific creatures lurking around in the furnace prison books.  They have gas masks literally sewn onto they’re faces, and roam the prison corridors at night abducting boys.  Here’s his mock-up with one of them posing with one of our students.

Creepy, no?  Here are a couple more pictures with some of our kids.

          

We want to give a huge shout out to Amy Cheney, who arranged this visit for her students at the Alameda County Juvenile Hall  and was kind enough to share Gordon with us.  You rock, Amy, and we know your students love you, too.

Teen Tech Week – Get Your Geek On!

Teen Tech Week – Get Your Geek On!

Since this is Teen Tech Week and so many of the new technologies are blocked on our computers, we thought we’d share some fun titles you might want to indulge in.  All of them have some connection to geek in all of us or technology.

A Teen’s Guide to Creating Web Pages and Blogs by Benjamin Selfridge.  A guidebook to HTML leads students step-by-step through the basic functionalities of HTML, as well as more advanced techniques which use Javascript, Flash, sound, and animation.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.  A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda’s freshman year in high school.

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci.  A collection of twenty-nine short stories about geeks.

Fat Cat by Robin Brande.  Overweight teenager Catherine embarks on a high school science project in which she must emulate the ways of hominins, the earliest ancestors of human beings, by eating an all-natural diet and foregoing technology.

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen.  When Auden impulsively goes to stay with her father, stepmother, and new baby sister the summer before she starts college, all the trauma of her parents’ divorce is revived, even as she is making new friends and having new experiences such as learning to ride a bike and dating.

Video Games by Jill Hamilton.  Do video games have a positive impact on society? — How do video games affect players’ health? — Do video games portray minorities fairly?

I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle.  Denis Cooverman didn’t want to give a typical graduation speech, cherishing memories and embracing challenges and crap. So, instead, he stood up in front of his 512 class-mates and their 3,000 relatives and said some-thing really important: “I love you, Beth Cooper”. It would have been such a sweet, romantic moment. Except that: Beth, the head cheerleader, has only the vaguest idea who Denis is.

Fat Kid Rules the Worldby K.L. Going. Seventeen-year-old Troy, depressed, suicidal, and weighing nearly 300 pounds, gets a new perspective on life when a homeless teenager who is a genius on guitar wants Troy to be the drummer in his rock band.

Bill Gatesby Jeanne M. Lesinski.  A biography of the man who created Microsoft, from his childhood to his battle in court after being accused of having a monopoly in the computer industry.

Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Gothgirl by Barry Lyga.   A fifteen-year-old “geek” who keeps a list of the high school jocks and others who torment him, and pours his energy into creating a great graphic novel, encounters Kyra, Goth Girl, who helps change his outlook on almost everything, including himself.

Parrotfishby Ellen Wittlinger.  Grady, a transgendered high school student, yearns for acceptance by his classmates and family as he struggles to adjust to his new identity as a male.

For the Winby Cory Doctorow.   A group of teens from around the world find themselves drawn into an online revolution arranged by a mysterious young woman known as Big Sister Nor, who hopes to challenge the status quo and change the world using her virtual connections.

Looking for Alaskaby John Green.   Sixteen-year-old Miles’ first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash.

The Accidental Billionaires: the Founding of Facebook by Ben Mezrich.  The bestselling author of “Bringing Down the House” pens the incredible true story of the accidental creation of Facebook, and the even more amazing tale of what happened afterward–a real-life adventure filled with unimaginable wealth, sex, exotic locales, six-foot-five identical-twin Olympic rowers, and betrayal.

Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.  Told in the alternating voices of Dash and Lily, two sixteen-year-olds carry on a wintry scavenger hunt at Christmas-time in New York, neither knowing quite what–or who–they will find

Girl Parts by John Cusick.  The lives of David, wealthy and popular but still lonely, and Charlie, a soulful outsider, intersect when Rose, the female Companion bot David’s parents buy to treat his dissociative disorder, forms a bond with Charlie.

Txt me l8r: Using Technology Responsibilityby  Ashley Rae Harris.   Explores the pros and cons of modern techology in the lives of girls.

Flash Burnout by K.L. Madigan.  When fifteen-year-old Blake takes a picture of a random woman in the street, he soon realizes that the woman is in fact his friend Marissa’s long-lost meth-addicted mom. As Blake becomes wrapped up in the ensuing drama, he tries to stay involved and help while juggling his roles as friend to Marissa and boyfriend to another girl.

Minority Report and other Classic storiesby Philip K. Dick.   A collection of eighteen science fiction short stories features “The Minority Report,” in which Commissioner John Anderton’s clever use of “precogs,” people who can identify criminals before they can do any harm, turns against him when they identify him as the next criminal.

READ ACROSS AMERICA

The National Education Association is building a nation of readers through its signature program, NEA’s Read Across America. Now in its 15th year, this year-round program focuses on motivating children and teens to read through events, partnerships, and reading resources.

NEA’s Read Across America Day, NEA’s national reading celebration takes place each year on or near March 2, the birthday of Dr. Seuss. Across the country, thousands of schools, libraries, and community centers participate by bringing together kids, teens, and books, and you can too!

The Berkeley High Library joins this celebration in a few ways.  Come by and see our amazing Cat in the Hat window displays.  Drop in and borrow your favorite childhood Dr. Seuss book.  Listen for a special reading of a Dr. Seuss title (which one is a secret!) during the announcements on Friday!  Stop by the library for a nostalgic Dr. Seuss bookmark from your favorite one of his books!

See you Friday!!!

Macy’s NYC Steampunk Holiday Windows

How did Macy’s know how much our readers love Steampunk?  Some examples of these titles are: Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker series, Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare, Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan series and the Airborn books by Kenneth Oppel.

Designed by Paul Olszewski, the six windows tell the story of a magical ship making a trip to the North Pole.  The theme is inspired by the “Make-A-Wish” foundation, and features the store’s celebrity ornament collection.  “You see this character on a Christmas tree kind of rocket ship that launches and goes to the North Star and decorates the tree.  So all the other windows tell you what’s happening inside the ship, where they’re collecting wishes and their essences,” said the designer to the New York Daily News.

Hunger Game movie trailer

If you are anything like me, you have been dying for this movie to come out.  I’m half-way excited about how great it should be, and half-way scared about how they might manage to mangle the story from the book.  It premiers on March 23; let me know if you’d like to go together as a group!

This in on YouTube so you can see it from home:

Authors visit local bookstore on 11/12

ANDREW SMITH – THE MARBURY LENS Along with LEWIS BUZBEE – THE HAUNTING OF CHARLES DICKENS

Start: Nov 12 2010 7:00 pm

A Great Good Place for Books proudly welcomes award-winning young adult authors Andrew Smith and Lewis Buzbee and they read from their new books THE MARBURY LENS and THE HAUNTING OF CHARLES DICKENS on Friday, November 12^th at 7:00 p.m

6120 LaSalle Avenue
Oakland, CA 9461     Click HERE for directions

THE MARBURY LENS

Sixteen-year-old Jack gets drunk and is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is kidnapped. He escapes, narrowly. The only person he tells is his best friend, Conner. When they arrive in London as planned for summer break, a stranger hands Jack a pair of glasses. Through the lenses, he sees another world called Marbury. There is war in Marbury. It is a desolate and murderous place where Jack is responsible for the survival of two younger boys. Conner is there, too. But he’s trying to kill them. Meanwhile, Jack is falling in love with an English girl, and afraid he’s losing his mind. Conner tells Jack it’s going to be okay. But it’s not.

Andrew Smith has written his most beautiful and personal novel yet, as he explores the nightmarish outer limits of what trauma can do to our bodies and our minds.

THE HAUNTING OF CHARLES DICKENS

Meg Pickel’s older brother, Orion, has disappeared. One night, she steals out to look for him, and makes two surprising discoveries: She stumbles upon a séance that she suspects involves Orion, and she meets the author Charles Dickens, also unable to sleep, and roaming the London streets. He is a customer of Meg’s father, who owns a print shop, and a family friend. Mr. Dickens fears that the children of London aren’t safe, and is trying to solve the mystery of so many disappearances. If he can, then perhaps he’ll be able to write once again.

With stunning black-and-white illustrations by Greg Ruth, here is a literary mystery that celebrates the power of books, and brings to life one of the world’s best-loved authors.

Nina Lacour visits Montclair Village bookstore

NINA LACOUR – HOLD STILL

Nina visited us last year and was a huge student favorite.  She’s a local writer and English teacher whose first book completely overwhelmed me.  See my review HERE.  Here’s a LINK to the entry about her visit to BHS.  I strongly encourage you to hear her talk and read from her amazing book.

We own four copies of  Hold Still; please come by to check out the great book even if you don’t have time to see Nina in Oakland!

Start: Nov 3 2010 7:00 pm

ATTENTION YOUNG ADULTS

Come meet Oakland author Nina LaCour, on Wednesday November 3rd at 7:00 p.m as she reads from her Young Adult book HOLD STILL.

Summary:

After losing her best friend, Ingrid, to suicide, Caitlin is completely immobilized. Unable to function, and refusing to visit a therapist, she begins the long journey to wellness alone. During this year of heart-wrenching, raw emotion, Caitlin finds Ingrid’s journal, which not only reveals her descent into irreversible depression, but also serves as Caitlin’s vehicle for renewed hope in the future. The book is written with honesty, revealing one’s pain after the loss of a loved one. Caitlin learns, with the help of new friends and her parents, that there is life after Ingrid.

Nina talking to us in the library last spring.

Teen Read Week 2010

Books with Beat @ your library®! October 17-23. Stop by the Berkeley High Library during Teen Read Week  and check out our Books with Beat! Pick up books and other materials about poetry, music, and more or listen to an audiobook. We have a large display of great books on the display case right as you enter the library.

Stop by today and find a page turner that you can read or listen to, just for the fun of it!

While you’re here, vote for your favorite Top Ten Books of 2010.  The local contest, sponsored by the Berkeley Public Library will end Friday, Oct. 22.  Your choices are:

Watersmeet
by Ellen Jensen Abbott.

Wintergirls
by Laurie Halse Anderson

Hate List
by Jennifer Brown

Heist Society
by Ally Carter

Fire
by Kristin Cashore

City of Glass
by Cassandra Clare

The Roar
by Emma Clayton

Catching Fire
by Suzanne Collins

Along for the Ride
by Sarah Dessen

Incarceron
Catherine Fisher

hush hush
by Becca Fitzpatrick

If I Stay
by Gayle Forman

Beautiful Creatures
by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd

Edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci

Dragonfly
by Julia Golding

The Reformed Vampire Support Group
by Catherine Jinks

I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President
by Josh Lieb

Twenty Boy Summer
by Sarah Ockler

Witch and Wizard
by James Patterson

By the Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead
by Julie Anne Peters

Bloodhound
by Tamora Pierce

Strange Angels
by Lili St. Crow

Shiver
by Maggie Stiefvater

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
by Nagaru Tanigawa

Leviathan
by Scott Westerfeld

City of Fire
by Laurence Yep

About Teen Read Week:

Teen Read Week is an initiative of the  Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Teen Read Week started in 1998. This year’s theme is Books with Beat @ your library®,” which encourages teens to read poetry, audiobooks, books about music, and more. Libraries across the world celebrate Teen Read Week with a variety of special events and programs aimed at encouraging teens to read for pleasure and to visit their libraries for free reading materials.

Author reading: RICK YANCEY – THE CURSE OF THE WENDIGO

Thursday, October 14, 2010 – 7:00pm

A Great Good Place for Books
6120 LaSalle Avenue
Oakland, California 94611

This is part two of Montrumologist.  Although we didn’t review it here (it was way to gory for Ms. P to finish), it’s become a super popular horror title at the BHS library, and we will surely purchase this second installment, too.

A Great Good Place for Books proudly welcomes Rick Yancey, award-winning author of the Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp series, as he reads from his novel, THE CURSE OF THE WENDIGO Thursday, October 14^th at 7:00 pm.

Summary:

While attempting to disprove that Homo vampiris, the vampire, could exist, Dr. Warthrop is asked by his former fiance to rescue her husband from the Wendigo, a creature that starves even as it gorges itself on human flesh, which has snatched him in the Canadian wilderness. Although Warthrop also considers the Wendigo to be fictitious, he relents and rescues her husband from death and starvation, and then sees the man transform into a Wendigo. Can the doctor and Will Henry hunt down the ultimate predator, who, like the legendary vampire, is neither living nor dead, whose hunger for human flesh is never satisfied? This second book in The Monstrumologist series explores the line between myth and reality, love and hate, genius and madness.

Friday’s Litquake Teen Crawl (Oct. 8)

Not Your Mother’s Book Club (5-7 pm)

There’s a cool event being held at Books Inc in Opera Plaza (right off the Metro/Civic Center Bart Station) in San Francisco.  It’s from 5 – 7 PM, so would be perfect for an after school, start-off-your-weekend adventure.

A panel discussion and book signing by authors writing fiction for teens co-presented with Not Your Mother’s Book Club™, a monthly literary salon for teenagers in the Bay Area that also offers weekly online author interview, online contests, and in-school author events. For more information check out notyourmothersbookclub.com.

The authors include:Kristen Tracy, Cameron Tuttle, Katie Williams

Held at:

Books Inc. Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco

Banned Books Week

During the last week of September every year, hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a variety of events. The 2010 celebration of Banned Books Week is being held from September 25 through October 2.

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the National Association of College Stores. Banned Books Week is also endorsed by the Center for the Book of the Library of Congress.

The Berkeley High School Library is proud to participate in this yearly event.  Please stop by the library, see our display, get a very cool Freedom to Read bookmark, and check out a banned or challenged book.  We are proud to say that we own copies of all the books on the following list with the exception of the elementary level picture book.

10 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2009

1. “TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: Nudity, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs

2. “And Tango Makes Three” by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: Homosexuality

3. “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Anti-Family, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs, Suicide

4. “To Kill A Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee
Reasons: Racism, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

5. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

6. “Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

7. “My Sister’s Keeper,” by Jodi Picoult
Reasons: Sexism, Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs, Suicide, Violence

8. “The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things,” by Carolyn Mackler
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

9. “The Color Purple,” Alice Walker
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

10. “The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Nudity, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

(Information in this post has been obtained by the website of the American Library Association.)

Lauren Kate in da house, well, almost…

Kate Lauren, author of Fallen, will be at Barnes & Noble in El Cerrito Plaza this Tuesday.  See our review of Fallen HERE.

Barnes & Noble

El Cerrito Plaza

510-524-0087

6:30 PM
Note:Join us as Lauren Kate reads from her novel, Torment, the second book in her ‘Fallen’ series, where love never dies. After the reading, Lauren will be signing copies purchased at B&N. Bring your NOOKs to this event to be signed by the author.

Synopsis

Hell on earth.

That’s what it’s like for Luce to be apart from her fallen angel boyfriend, Daniel.
It took them an eternity to find one another, but now he has told her he must go away. Just long enough to hunt down the Outcasts—immortals who want to kill Luce. Daniel hides Luce at Shoreline, a school on the rocky California coast with unusually gifted students: Nephilim, the offspring of fallen angels and humans.

At Shoreline, Luce learns what the Shadows are, and how she can use them as windows to her previous lives. Yet the more Luce learns, the more she suspects that Daniel hasn’t told her everything. He’s hiding something—something dangerous.
What if Daniel’s version of the past isn’t actually true? What if Luce is really meant to be with someone else?

The second novel in the addictive FALLEN series . . . where love never dies.

Biography

Lauren Kate recently finished her M.A. in Creative Writing at UC Davis, where she also teaches. She lives and writes in an old farm house in Winters, California. Her first novel, The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove goes on sale one month beforeFallen.

Author Visits – August 2 – 9

The two authors visiting this week are folks whose books are on my “to be read” list.  Believe it or not, I’m number 52 for the first title on the hold list at the Berkeley Public Library!  Good thing I have so many other books in my book pile.

Award-winning GARY SHTEYNGART presents Super Sad True Love Story, a deliciously-dark tale of America’s dysfunctional coming years.

The author of two critically acclaimed novels, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook and Absurdistan, Gary Shteyngart has risen to the top of the fiction world. Now, in his hilarious and heartfelt new novel, he envisions a deliciously dark tale of America’s dysfunctional coming years—and the timeless and tender feelings that just might bring us back from the brink.

In a very near future—oh, let’s say next Tuesday—a functionally illiterate America is about to collapse. But don’t that tell that to poor Lenny Abramov, the thirty-nine-year-old son of an angry Russian immigrant janitor, proud author of what may well be the world’s last diary, and less-proud owner of a bald spot shaped like the great state of Ohio. Despite his job at an outfit called Post-Human Services, which attempts to provide immortality for its super-rich clientele, death is clearly stalking this cholesterol-rich morsel of a man. And why shouldn’t it? Lenny’s from a different century—he totally loves books (or “printed, bound media artifacts,” as they’re now known), even though most of his peers find them smelly and annoying. But even more than books, Lenny loves Eunice Park, an impossibly cute and impossibly cruel twenty-four-year-old Korean American woman who just graduated from Elderbird College with a major in Images and a minor in Assertiveness.

After meeting Lenny on an extended Roman holiday, blistering Eunice puts that Assertiveness minor to work, teaching our “ancient dork” effective new ways to brush his teeth and making him buy a cottony nonflammable wardrobe. But America proves less flame-resistant than Lenny’s new threads. The country is crushed by a credit crisis, riots break out in New York’s Central Park, the city’s streets are lined with National Guard tanks on every corner, the dollar is so over, and our patient Chinese creditors may just be ready to foreclose on the whole mess. Undeterred, Lenny vows to love both Eunice and his homeland. He’s going to convince his fickle new love that in a time without standards or stability, in a world where single people can determine a dating prospect’s “hotness” and “sustainability” with the click of a button, in a society where the privileged may live forever but the unfortunate will die all too soon, there is still value in being a real human being.

Wildly funny, rich, and humane, Super Sad True Love Story is a knockout novel by a young master, a book in which falling in love just may redeem a planet falling apart. (Description from Goodreads.com)

Location:

Thursday, 08/05/2010 , 7:00pm

Books Inc. in Berkeley
1760 4th Street
Berkeley, California 94710

Launch party for Berkeley writer Rosemary Graham.  This YA novel sounds fascinating, and is being released this week.

How do you know when you’ve crossed the line between curiosity and obsession?
Carly never meant to become a stalker. She just wanted to find out who Brian started dating after he dumped her. But a little harmless online research turns into a quick glance, and that turns into an afternoon of watching. Soon Carly is putting all of her energy into following Brian’s new girlfriend — all of the sadness she feels about her mom’s recent breakup, all of the anger she feels over being pushed aside by her dad while he prepares for his new wife’s new baby. When Carly’s stalking is discovered in the worst possible way by the worst possible person, she is forced to acknowledge her problem and the underlying issues that led to it. (Description from Goodreads.com)

Location:

Monday, August 9, 3 P.M.

A Great Good Place for Books
6120 LaSalle Avenue
Oakland, California 94611

Chocolate Extravaganza at BPL

I saw a flier when I was picking up my book holds at the North Branch last week, and just had to post this reminder.

Chocolate Extravaganza at Central

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

4:00—5:00 PM

Central library, 2090 Kittredge St., 3rd Floor.

Taste different varieties of chocolate, play chocolate-themed games, and win chocolate prizes.

This program is intended for teenagers.

Due to limited samples, we will not be able to accommodate school or camp groups at this event.

Samples donated by Poco Dolce.  Event sponsored by the Friends of the Berkeley Public Library.

Call 981-6107 or email  bplteens@ci.berkeley.ca.us for more information.

Darn, I would’ve been there in a minute if they didn’t mention that business about “intended for teenagers.”  Have a great time, guys, and eat some for me!

You can click here to link to the BPL Teen site and see tons of book reviews and keep up on all the latest events.

Author Readings, June 8-14

Not as slow this week for readings, but I couldn’t resist adding this one, even though it’s all the way down @ Kepler’s in Palo Alto.

We had Nina here at BHS to speak, she was wonderful and her book Hold Still is super popular.  We also loved Jandy Nelson’s book The Sky is Everywhere. And…I’ve heard nothing but great things about Sea.

Reality Bites
Teen Realistic Fiction: Heidi Kling, Nina LaCour, and Jandy Nelson

Thursday June 10, 7:00 p.m.

Join us to meet three of our favorite new writers of teen realistic fiction:

Heidi R. Kling: Sea

Still haunted by nightmares of her mother’s death, Sienna Jones reluctantly travels to Indonesia with her father’s relief team to help tsunami orphans with their post-traumatic stress disorder. The last thing she expects is to fall for Deni, a brooding Indonesian boy who lives at the orphanage. When Deni hears a rumor that his father may be alive, Sienna doesn’t think twice about running away with him to the epicenter of the disaster. Unfortunately, what they find there could break both their hearts.

Nina LaCour: Hold Still

Ingrid left a painful farewell in her journal for Caitlin. Now Caitlin is left alone, struggling to find hope in the wake of her best friend’s suicide. With the help of family and friends, Caitlin will encounter first love, broaden her horizons, and realize that true friendship didn’t die with Ingrid.

Jandy Nelson: The Sky Is Everywhere

Lennie Walker plays second clarinet and lives in her sister, Bailey’s, shadow. But when Bailey dies abruptly, Lennie is catapulted to center stage and finds herself struggling to balance two boys: Toby , Bailey’s boyfriend; whose grief mirrors her own and Joe, a transplant from Paris whose grin is matched by his musical talent. For Lennie, one boy takes her out of her sorrow, the other comforts her in it. But they can’t collide without the world exploding.

(from the Kepler’s Bookstore website)

Kristin Chandler  Discusses her novel Wolves, Boys and other Things That Might Kill Me

KJ Carson lives an outdoor lover’s dream. The only daughter of a fishing and wildlife guide, KJ can hold her own on the water or in the mountains near her hometown outside Yellowstone National Park. But when she meets the shaggy-haired, intensely appealing Virgil, KJ loses all self-possession. And she’s not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that they’re assigned to work together on a school newspaper article about the famous wolves of Yellowstone. As KJ spends time with Virgil, she also spends more time getting to know a part of her world that she always took for granted . . . and she begins to see herself and her town in a whole new light.

(from A Great Good Place for Books website)

June 12, 2010 – 4:00pm

A Great Good Place for Books
6120 LaSalle Avenue
Oakland, California 94611