12 Books of Christmas for Young Adults

In honor of the traditional holiday song, the 12 Days of Christmas, we will celebrate reading with the 12 Books of Christmas project.  Titles have been recommended by our staff, and consultation with best books of the year lists, and professional book reviews. I will post links to the best books lists at the end of my list.

On the first day of Christmas, my good friend gave to me-

All the Bright Places - by Jennifer Niven

The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park in this exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.  (Goodreads) Read it before the movie comes out! Ms. Chiu, our Mathematics teacher, who is a voracious reader, loved it. booktrailer  and...

On the second day of Christmas, my mother gave to me -

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

A sweeping tale of seventeen-year-old Mare, a common girl whose once-latent magical power draws her into the dangerous intrigue of the king's palace. Will her power save her or condemn her? Enthusiastically endorsed by members of the Salpointe Book Club. booktrailer and...

On the third day of Christmas my brother gave to me-

All American Boys - by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend. Told through Rashad and Quinn's alternating viewpoints.(PCPL) (NPR story from the Code Switch team Or if you enjoy non-fiction, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which seems to be on everyone’s list this year. and...

On the fourth day of Christmas my girlfriend gave to me:

Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen

"Saint Anything is a poignant, honest story about how we might suffer the misfortune of someone else's bad choices, how people who love us can become family when we desperately need it, and how starting over might - miraculously - mean taking a solid leap forward." NYT booktrailer http://bit.ly/1OQP1Uk  and...

On the fifth day of Christmas my Grandma gave to me:

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

In 1945, World War II is drawing to a close in East Prussia, and thousands of refugees are on a desperate trek toward freedom, almost all of them with something to hide. Among them are Joana, Emilia, and Florian, whose paths converge en route to the ship that promises salvation, the Wilhelm Gustloff. Forced by circumstance to unite, the three find their strength, courage, and trust in each other tested with each step closer toward safety.

Just when it seems freedom is within their grasp, tragedy strikes. Not country, nor culture, nor status matter as all ten thousand people aboard must fight for the same thing: survival (Goodreads)  Ruta Sepetys will be at this year’s Tucson Festival of Books March 12-13, 2016. and...

On the sixth day of Christmas my aunt gave to me:

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

Everyone knows Bone Gap is full of gaps—gaps to trip you up, gaps to slide through so you can disappear forever. So when young, beautiful Roza went missing, the people of Bone Gap weren’t surprised. After all, it wasn’t the first time that someone had slipped away and left Finn and Sean O’Sullivan on their own. Just a few years before, their mother had high-tailed it to Oregon for a brand new guy, a brand new life. That’s just how things go, the people said. Who are you going to blame? (lauraruby.com) And...

On the seventh day of Christmas my tio gave to me:

Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older

When the murals painted on the walls of her Brooklyn neighborhood start to change and fade in front of her, Sierra Santiago realizes that something strange is going on--then she discovers her Puerto Rican family are shadowshapers and finds herself in a battle with an evil anthropologist for the lives of her family and friends. PCPL And…

On the eighth day of Christmas my Grandpa gave to me:

The Emperor of Any Place by Tim Wynne-Jones

When Evan’s father dies suddenly, Evan finds a hand-bound yellow book on his desk—a book his dad had been reading when he passed away. The book is the diary of a Japanese soldier stranded on a small Pacific island in WWII. Why was his father reading it? What is in this account that Evan’s grandfather, whom Evan has never met before, fears so much that he will do anything to prevent its being seen? And what could this possibly mean for Evan? In a pulse-quickening mystery evoking the elusiveness of truth and the endurance of wars passed from father to son, this engrossing novel is a suspenseful, at times terrifying read from award-winning author Tim Wynne-Jones. Amazon. And...

On the ninth day of Christmas my father gave to me:

Finding Jake by Bryan Reardon

While his successful wife goes off to her law office each day, Simon Connolly takes care of their kids, Jake and Laney. Now that they are in high school, the angst-ridden father should feel more relaxed, but he doesn't. He’s seen the statistics, read the headlines. And now, his darkest fear is coming true. There has been a shooting at school. (Goodreads) And…

On the tenth day of Christmas my swim coach gave to me:

Girl Underwater by Claire Kells

A "debut novel that cross cuts between a competitive college swimmer's harrowing days in the Rocky Mountains after a major airline disaster and her recovery supported by the two men who love her--only one of whom knows what really happened in the wilderness" (Amazon.com) booktrailer

On the eleventh day of Christmas my teacher gave to me:

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”  On the Adult Books 4 Young Adults list from School Library Journal and Goodreads.  booktrailer And...

On the twelfth day of Christmas my librarian gave to me:

Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

A tale of two sisters, bolder Isabelle enjoys her life in Paris, while older Viann lives peacefully in the country with husband Antoine. Their bond is tested when war comes and their father sends Isabelle to help Viann as Antoine marches off to battle.

With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women's war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France--a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime. (Amazon.com) Also on the Adult Books 4 Young Adults list from School Library Journal and Goodreads.

"Best Books of 2015." Goodreads Choice Awards. Goodreads, 2015. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.

<https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-books-2015>.

Bunker, Lisa. "The Best Books of 2015, A List of Lists." Pima County Public Library. Pima County,

27 Nov. 2015. Web. 10 Dec. 2015. <http://www.library.pima.gov/blogs/post/best-books-of-2015-lists/>.

Enjoy the holidays!

Book Trailers

Movie trailers give the viewer an incentive to see the next big thing.  The best book trailers, like their cousin the movie trailer, give you a real feel for a book.  Reading is a commitment and it helps to have a preview of the book.  If you search YouTube for booktrailers you will find thousands, mostly created by students.  It is the newest version of the book report.  The quality as you would expect, varies from innovative to sleep inducing.  Many go on far too long.  The most interesting ones are created by the book publishers to sell their novels.  The trailers I have added to this playlist are all books available through the Salpointe Library.

 

Click Family Library

YAC - Young Adult Choices

The International Literacy Foundation wants students to choose the books that will appear on the 2016 list of their best books for young adults.  The Salpointe Library has joined the effort to pick the best books for next year.  We have a collection, donated by publishers, that students can read and rate.  It is a "win win" situation, we get a selection of the newest and the best YA literature for free, and they get student feedback.   My most dependable readers, the Salpointe Book Club members have been reading and rating for a couple months, but I could use some more volunteers.

You can look at the list through our online catalog by searching for Young Adult Choices.  I found book trailers for a few of the titles.  Each book has a link to the google rating form, which takes less than a minute to fill out.

Read, Succeed

Read, Succeed (original, larger)

Works Cited

Databases Interact With Chrome

Everyone has wasted long periods of their life looking for just the right information they need through Google Search.  When you have thousands of results it takes time to cull through them for something spot on, and usable in an academic setting.  Google is ubiquitous, but academic databases are not.  Databases have to be paid for, and therefore don't show up in a google search.  Lots of magazines and  newspapers post articles on the internet, but between the advertising and requests for payment it can be a frustrating experience.  We have a solution - databases.

Opposing Viewpoints was created for the argumentative essay.  It has pro and con articles for hundreds of topics with magazines, newspapers, video clips and reference book articles to provide evidence for class projects and papers. Articles are vetted by publishers and editors, making the reliability of the information much higher than is generally accessible on the web.

The Student Resources in Context database has books, magazines, newspapers, video clips, primary source documents and more, on every topic.  A library's worth of information in a database, accessible from anywhere with a wifi connection.

Both of these databases are available from the library website, but even better, they have been included in the students' bookmarks on every Chromebook.  If students are accessing from home the need to use our password, lancers.  After choosing an article students can highlight it, make notes and save it to a folder.  Use the More button to open the folder to select and download the articles to their Google Drive.  Every article or video comes with a MLA formatted citation that can be exported to Easybib to create their works cited.

The Academic OneFile database is meant to be used at the college level.  It has been added to our database choices because in the near future we will be able to access it in Google Scholar from documents in Drive (use the Tools drop down to open the Research panel). It will make Google Scholar more usable for the students.  No more frustration locating an article only to have it hit a pay firewall, or only allow access to the abstract.

The state of Arizona offers quite a few more databases, 27 or more, available through the LAPR website.  You log on with your zipcode for access.  Pima County Public Libraries has even more, but you have to have a library card to access some of them online.  

Directions for using databases with Google Chrome

12 Secrets About Writing and Rules of the Read

On the Friday before the Tucson Festival of Books we were invited to attend a special event for young authors, the Fiesta CATS Friday (Creative Arts Teen Summit).  It was sponsored by the Fiesta Bowl. Students started the day at an author/illustrator panel that included Jason Reynolds and Amy Nichols.  The authors talked their journeys to publication and the obstacles they had to overcome.  Our students spent some quality time with Amy Nichols, author of Now That You Are Here.  Among other things she gave us her "12 Secrets About Writing", Emma Winn took notes during the presentation.

1. The secret to writing is WRITING. 
2.  "The writer is the person who stays in the room"  quoting Ron Carlson
3.  If you want to write, READ.
4. If you're not surprised while you are writing, the reader won't be either.
5.  Aim to the side of the target.  Don't attack something head-on.
6. You don't have to share the whole room, show what's important to your character.
7.  The magic happens in REVISION.
8.  It gets ugly before it gets beautiful.
9.  When in doubt cut.
10.  Love your characters at all times.
11.  There is always someone who is better than you.  Get over it.
12.  Finish!

Most of us are readers not writers.  As usual, I was over committed during the Tucson Festival of Books.  I picked up my author early in the morning and dropped her off for her first presentation.  I had a few minutes to kill before I escorted Pam Munoz Ryan and Cynthia Kadohata to their venue, so I stopped by the Arizona Daily Star tent to see the current attraction.  It was Julia Keller, a mystery author laying out her "Rules of the Read".  It was one of those serendipitous accidents that makes the festival a wonder to behold. I missed half of the presentation, but what I did hear was awesome.  Her rules apply to new readers and old hands alike.

She began with a quote "Paths of glory lead but to the grave" a line from a Thomas Gray poem.  I can only surmise that she was encouraging her audience to read what they want, not what they should read because time is short for all of us.

Next she explored the idea that you can get just as many facts from fiction as you can from non-fiction.  Julia Keller is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. She calls fiction, the shadow behind the facts. Fiction informed by fact is its own genre.  To read this genre you have to be more discerning, but it is a lot more fun to get your facts from historical fiction.

The experience of writing for a newspaper is very different than the solitary pursuits of the fiction writer. The author writes his book in solitude and a reader consumes the book in solitude.  Solitude is the bridge between a writer and a reader.

You can judge a book by its cover, most of the time.

That book that you've tried to read a couple times could be the right book but you are just trying  to read it at the wrong time.  It's not what you read, but when you read it.  I've heard authors reveal that they read certain books over and over, finding new inspiration, ideas and passion with each reading. 

Beware of genre - don't let it limit you.  It benefits Barnes and Noble to sell to you by genre because people tend to stick to the same type of book.  Read outside your comfort zone.

Argue passionately for the books you love.  You have Ms. Keller's permission to be a book snob, advocate for a book you love.

Make plans now to attend next year's Tucson Festival of Books.

An AZPM video segment about the CATS Fiesta Friday event.  Some of Salpointes own appear in the background.

Works Cited

"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard: Stanza 9 Summary." Shmoop.com. Shmoop
     University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.

Keller, Julia. "Rules of the Read: 10 Essential Truths about Books and Life." Tucson
     Festival of Books. Arizona, Tucson. 14 Mar. 2015. Speech.

Nichols, Amy. "12 Secrets About Writing." Fiesta Cats Friday. University of Arizona,
     Tucson. 13 Mar. 2015. Lecture.

"Thomas A. Gray: Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard." Genius. Genius Media
     Group, Aug.2014. Web. 14 Apr. 2015. <http://genius.com/2138039/Thomas-gray-
     elegy-written-in-a-countrychurchyard/The-paths-of-glory-lead-but-to-the-grave>. 

Jonathan Maberry@Salpointe

Zombies scare me.  I can barely sit through an episode of Walking Dead without getting up to walk around the room, yet I loved Jonathan Maberry's series that starts with Rot & Ruin.  Benny Imura lives in a town fortified against the zombie plague.  His famous brother Tom makes a living helping the locals arrange peaceful deaths for their zombified family members.  Benny, raised by his older half-brother, has nothing but disdain for his quiet, respectful sibling.  Instead he glorifies the local bounty hunters who fan the flames of adoration with stories of slaughter and near escape.  At age 15, if you want to remain inside the fence, you have to choose a profession.  Benny reluctantly follows Tom into the Rot & Ruin, as his apprentice.

Benny's experiences in the zombie wasteland, known as the Rot & Ruin, drag him kicking and screaming, into a new understanding of what it is to be a man.  His friends Morgie, Chong and Nix, come along for the ride.  Unlike the Walking Dead, Maberry gives us reason to hope for a better future for the characters who have become our friends.  I usually don't read a series because I just don't have the time, but I made an exception for this one.  Addicted, I read them one after the other.  I even paid money to get the next book, rather than waiting, as I usually do, in the queue at the public library

Jonathan Maberry is a prolific author, thank goodness.  He has a popular series of books featuring the former detective, Joe Ledger and several stand-alone books and graphic novels.  I have loaded Ghost Road Blues onto my ipad to read over Rodeo.  While he is here for the Tucson Festival of Books, Jonathan Maberry has graciously accepted an invitation to join the Salpointe Book Club during our March 13th meeting.  If you have read any of his titles, feel free to join us.

 

Tucson Festival of Books 2015

 March 13 -14

  
For the first time, the Tucson Festival of Books will not coincide with the Salpointe Spring Break.  I'm hoping this encourages more teens to attend the festival.  They always have a very eclectic group of authors for teens to choose from every day.   This year I am excited to attend talks featuring young adult authors E. Lockhart, Andrew Smith and Jonathan Maberry.  The Salpointe Book Club is reading Heist Society by Ally Carter, hoping to get answers from the source.  

It's a great volunteer opportunity for teens and adults.  I've been a driver for R.L Stine and Lisa Lutz and a moderator for Arizona authors Erin Lange and Tom Leveen.  As a volunteer you get a parking pass and a t-shirt, almost enough incentive by itself.  Salpointe's own Marcy Euler marshalls her volunteer army and runs the whole show.

This year the Rock Bottom Remainders, a band of authors, featuring Amy Tan, Mitch Albom, Scott Turow and Dave Barry will be providing a night of entertainment, raising funds for literacy organizations.  Since its inception in 2009 the TFOB has given more than one million dollars to organizations providing literacy education. 

You go to see specific authors, but you get so much more.  One year while wandering through the booths I stopped to listen to J. A. Jance and Janis Ian (singer, songwriter) discussing writing and their lives that had me rolling on the ground with laughter.  This year I intend to get to the presentations by Leonard Pitts and Amy Tan among others.  The National Parks area is always one of my favorites with native American music, naturalists and a great book display.  The Science Alive area is very popular as are the chef/cooking venues.  They will be instituting a system to circumvent the waiting times at author venues so you can see more of the presentations.

Join the fun! Help your kids understand the importance of literacy and dedicate themselves to lifelong learning through reading.