Read The Summoning online … and a contest!

The Summoning, the first book in the Darkest Powers series, is currently available to read for free over at the Harper Collins site. Darkest Powers is a young adult urban fantasy trilogy by Canadian author Kelley Armstrong. The Reckoning, the highly anticipated third book, is slated for release on April 6th.

For more information about the series, check out the Darkest Powers website.

01/27/2010
Update: To help spread the word about her first free online book, Kelley is hosting a contest.

There are some great prizes up for grabs:

First Prize – 1 to be awarded
Winner’s choice of either:
a) an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) of The Reckoning plus $100USD online bookstore gift certificate
b) a “werewolf pack”–Bitten + Stolen + Broken + Frostbitten + Men of the Otherworld in the new Canadian covers, plus a Frostbitten T-shirt & gym bag

Second Prize – 5 to be awarded
Winner’s choice of a signed copy of any of my books or $20USD online bookstore gift certificate

Head over to Kelley’s website to find out how to enter.

Unsung YA

Kelly from YAnnabe is hosting a awesome project today called The Best YA Books You Haven’t Read. The goal is to highlight YA books that haven’t gotten the attention they deserve.

As Kelly articulates, “many wonderful books get published every year without registering a ripple, let alone a splash.” The vast majority of great books never come lose to the fervor of say, Twilight or the Hunger Games. 

The rules are simple: You can post about any book, as long as it is listed by 500 members or less on Library Thing. For more detailed instructions check out Kelly’s blog.

So, without further ado, here are 5 YA books you probably haven’t read, but should…

My Life from Air-Bras to Zits or A is for Angst
by Barbara Haworth-Attard

My Life from Air-Bras to Zits (2009) was originally published in Canada as A is for Angst (2007). A is for Angst, B is for Boobs (breasts and idiots)…14 year-old Teresa Tolliver narrates her ups and downs of being a teenager through every letter of the alphabet. She stresses about becoming one of the undesirable SNs (Sub-Normals) in the high school food chain and losing all hope of attracting the attention of AAA (Achingly Adorable Adam) who, of course, is one of the ANs (Above-Normals). At home, her soon-to-be married sister has turned into bridezilla, her grandfather is showing signs of dementia, and her middle-aged mother is pregnant. What’s more, Teresa has a knack for getting herself into embarrassing situations, and this book has some of the most painfully awkward yet hilarious scenes I have read. Imagine getting caught making out with your Ken doll or discovering you have a latex allergy while putting a condom on a banana in health class!

The Lit Report by Sarah N. Harvey

Julia and Ruth have been best friends since they first met in Sunday school. Now they’re a year away from graduation and making plans to escape to the big city where they’ll get fabulous high-paying jobs, live in a funky loft apartment and date older men. But their dreams for life after high school are jeopardized when Ruth ends up pregnant. Determined to support her friend, pragmatic Julia comes up with a plan to hide Ruth’s pregnancy from everyone—especially Ruth’s Bible-thumping parents. Julia’s stepmother is also pregnant and has hired a midwife. Under the guise of doing a school report, Julia will interview the midwife, observe her in action and pass on every bit of pre-natal advice to Ruth. When the baby is born, they’ll leave it on the steps of Ruth’s father’s church for a good Christian family to adopt. But as the months pass, Ruth and Julia begin to change, each adapting in ways that neither girl ever planned. Opening lines of great works of fiction by the likes of Dickens and Shakespeare serve as a preface to each chapter, foreshadowing the events to come. Not just another “teen pregnancy novel,” The Lit Report is a wonderful story of friendship between two teenage girls.

Mistik Lake by Martha Brooks

Sally is the only survivor when a carload of teenagers plunges through the ice of Mistik Lake in Manitoba. Twenty years later, Sally’s eldest daughter, seventeen year-old Odella must cope with her mother’s alcoholism, abandonment, and later, her unexpected death. In order to keep what’s left of the family in tact and gain control over her own life, Odella realizes she must uncover the many secrets that began the night of her mother’s accident. This is a beautifully written, multi-layered story about coping with loss, finding closure, and moving on.

The Uninvited by Tim Wynne-Jones

College student Mimi Shapiro is desperate to escape from her professor/ex-lover, so she leaves Manhattan and drives north to her father’s cabin in the Ontario woods. When Mimi arrives, she is shocked to discover there’s someone already living there. Jay—a half-brother she didn’t know existed—is using the cottage as a music studio. Jay’s not pleased to see Mimi—all the more so because lately, an intruder has been entering the cabin and leaving creepy items behind, like a dead bird, a snakeskin and more. With Mimi’s arrival, the mysterious intruder’s “gifts” become even more menacing. Who is the unwelcome intruder and what does he or she want?  This chilling, suspenseful novel is hard to put down.

The Perfect Cut 
by Julie Bertinshaw

The Perfect Cut is an honest and perceptive look at a dangerous practice that has become common among troubled young adults. Since the death of Michelle, his “perfect” older sister, Brian finds it increasingly difficult to care about anything. Struggling to deal with the guilt of his sister “leaving him” and his parents’ rapidly deteriorating marriage, Brian downs vodka and cuts himself with a razor blade for temporary relief. But he never cuts deep enough to cause any real damage—at least, not yet… Will Bryan learn to cope with his grief before it’s too late? Will his parents’ marriage survive? And what is the terrible secret he is keeping about the night that Michelle died?

Twilight: The Graphic Novel

Entertainment Weekly’s Shelf Life has the first look at the graphic novel edition of Twilight. The blog also features an excerpt of an interview with Stephanie Meyer. The full Q&A and a ten-page excerpt from the graphic novel are in this Friday’s issue of Entertainment Weekly.

Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1 will be available for sale on March 16. The graphic novel contains selected text from Meyer’s original novel with illustrations by Korean artist Young Kim.  The publisher describes it as “a rare fusion of Asian and Western comic techniques.”  The first printing is 350,000 copies, which is high for a graphic novel.

I’m curious to see how Twilight will translate in graphic novel format, and I can’t help but wonder what its readership will be. Will it attract fans of the original Twilight series? Could it serve as a gateway to other graphic novels or manga for its readers? Will it introduce new readers to the Twilight phenomenon?

In my experience, graphic novel adaptations are hit or miss. I’ve been surprised at how well some books work  in graphic novel or manga  format but disappointed in others.

Canadian YA Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up

I recently discovered Mouse-traps and the Moon, a blog maintained by Sue Fisher, curator of the Eileen Wallace Children’s Literature Collection at the University of New Brunswick.

Yesterday, Sue shared her thoughts on a new resource called 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up.  Naturally, she is concerned with the presence of Canadian material, noting that “there are some fine Canadian authors included in the list” such as L.M. Montgomery, Tim Wynne Jones, and Deborah Ellis.

This prompts her to consider what works by Canadian authors didn’t make it into 1001 Books. “In the interest of expanding discussion” she provides her own annotated list of Additional Canadian Books That You Should Read Before You Grow Up. Sue’s list is a great resource for anyone beginning to study the canon of Canadian children’s and young adult literature. Notable young adult mentions include:

#20. Gordon Korman: This Can’t Be Happening at MacDonald Hall, 1978
Sue writes: “This novel was written when Korman was in the seventh grade and was published when he was 14 years old. 60+ novels later, Canada’s wunderkind is all grown up and still publishing fun, funny, and sometimes dark novels for children and young adults.”

#21. Brian Doyle: Angel Square, 1984
Sue writes: “An honour book for the Children’s Literature Association’s Phoenix Award in 2004, Doyle’s Angel Square does indeed have staying power. Religion, class and the long shadow of World War II are all mixed up in Angel Square, the neighbourhood where Tommy first enters the world of really knowing.”

#24. Polly Horvath: Everything on a Waffle, 2001
Sue writes: “Whacky, dark and filled with memorable characters who have even more memorable names—that’s what Horvath’s novels are. I particularly liked this one and The Canning Season, 2003, wherein a character actually manages to decapitate herself. Despite the dark overtones to Horvath’s writing, the novels are filled with love and deep, meaningful human connection.”

#25. Arthur Slade: Dust, 2001
Sue writes: “A positively creepy tale set in enchanted-reality version of depression-era Saskachewan. The first chapter had me hyperventilating in fear, and I simply could not exhale or put the book down until I was done. Winner of the Governor-General’s Literary Award.”

#26. Budge Wilson: Fractures, 2002
Sue writes:  “Thanks to Alice Munroe, Canada is known as a literary powerhouse in the short story genre. For the young adult set, I like this collection of dysfuntional domestic tales by Nova Scotia’s Budge Wilson.”

#27. Beth Goobie: Before Wings, 2000
Sue writes: “I think Beth Goobie is one of the best, most literary writers for young adults alive. In Before Wings, 15-year-old Adrien learns to live in the face of death (she’s suffered one brain aneurysm and fears she may suffer another). She does this by spending the summer at her aunt Erin’s camp, where she slips between past and present, uncovering a mystery that has haunted both the camp and her brittle aunt.”

#29. Kenneth Oppel: Airborn, 2004
Sue writes:  “Canada’s other wunderkind, Kenneth Oppel, was discovered by Roald Dahl when he was fourteen years old. He has numerous great books for children of all ages but is most famous for his Silverwing series and his Airborn series…I loved the Airborn series with its hot air balloons and fantastically distorted version of the world we live in. Steam punk has recently become all the rage in YA. The market and my tastes may be reaching surfeit point, but Airborn somehow remains fresh six years later.”

#30. W. O. Mitchell: Who Has Seen the Wind, 1947
Sue writes:  “Reading this novel about growing up on the prairies, about learning of God, love, nature and death, is a mandatory rite of passage isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

#31. Martha Brooks: True Confessions of a Heartless Girl, 2002
Sue writes: “A young woman whose need is great is taken in by a caring community. This novel is the all-grown-up version of Pippin the Christmas Pig, for it reveals how we transform ourselves when we have the courage to accept and nurture others without fear.”

#32. Joy Kogawa: Obasan, 1981
Sue writes: “Naomi, a teacher in her mid-thirties, visits her aging aunt in order to care for her. During her visit she relives her childhood experiences during and following WWII when her family was forcibly moved from BC to Alberta to work on a sugar beet farm as interned Japanese Canadians.”

Sue invites others to add to her list in the comments section of her blog (but keep in mind, her list doesn’t include titles that are included in 1001 Books). Personally, I’d like to see Alice, I Think by Susan Juby and Adam and Eve and Pinch-Me by Julie Johnston on the list.

What about you?

Library Loot: January 11-19

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva at A Striped Armchair and Marg at Reading Adventures that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.

Lots of library loot today as pretty much every hold on my account came in at once.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to read all of the titles nominated for this year’s White Pine Award. Today, I checked out three of them:

The Book of Michael by Lesley Choyce, Half World by Hiromi Goto and The Perfect Cut by Julie Burtinshaw.

I also checked out Goddess Boot Camp by Tera Lynn Childs, the sequel to Oh My Gods which I read and reviewed this past summer. I loved the concept of Oh My Gods and am looking forward to reading the next installment.

Last but not least, I picked up How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier. I’m intrigued by the concept of a world where everyone has their own personal fairy. This sounds like it will be a fun read.

Search for the Top 100 Teen Titles

Practically Paradise, an SLJ blog by Diane Chen, wants you to vote for the Top 100 Teen Titles of all time. Voters are asked to limit their submissions to 10 titles, listed in order of preference. Voters are also asked to briefly explain what they like about each book.  Click here for the complete rules.

Submissions will be accepted until February 14th. Diane will accept votes by e-mail (DianeRChen@gmail.com) or you can fill out the Google form via the blog.

Can’t wait to see the results!  What’s on your top ten?

Cybils finalists announced!

The finalists for the Cybils, or Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards, have been announced!

The Cybils awards were designed to “Reward the children’s and young adult authors (and illustrators) whose books combine the highest literary merit and “kid appeal.” They also aim to “foster a sense of community among bloggers who write about children’s and YA literature.”

This was my first year participating in the Cybils as a blogger. I was privileged to serve as a first-round judge in the Middle Grade and YA Non-fiction category. It was an amazing, challenging, enriching, exciting, frustrating, and intense experience.

I’d like to acknowledge my terrific fellow Round 1 Judges for their hard work and thoughtful input: Alicia Blowers (The LibrariYAn), Sarah Rettger (Archimedes Forgets), Jennie Rothschild (Biblio File), and Jill Tullo (The Well-Read Child). 2009 was an AMAZING year for non-fiction and it was not easy to select only a handful of finalists from the 50+ nominees. A special thanks to organizer Susan Thomsen (Chicken Spaghetti) for keeping us on track.

Here’s the shortlist we’ve handed over to the Round 2 judges:

2009 Finalists
Non-Fiction Middle Grade & Young Adult Books

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
by Phillip Hoose  (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Phillip Hoose’s Claudette Colvin tells the story of a remarkable yet largely unknown civil rights figure. In March 1955, nine months before the famous Rosa Parks incident, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and was arrested and jailed.  What’s more, Colvin went on to serve as a star witness in the landmark court case that ended segregation of city buses.  The compelling narrative—much of which is told in Colvin’s own words—includes plenty of historical context and is complemented by riveting photographs, newspaper clippings, maps and sidebars.

The Frog Scientist
by Pamela S. Turner, photographs by Andy Comins (Houghton Mifflin)

The Frog Scientist follows UC Berkeley researcher Tyrone Hayes through his field and lab experiments in pesticide exposure. With eye-catching photography—and without falling into preachiness—the book explores the scientific process, explains the implications of Hayes’ work, and shows an African-American scientist and his family at work.

I Can’t Keep My Own Secrets: Six-Word Memoirs by Teens Famous & Obscure
by Larry Smith (HarperTeen)

Inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s famous six-word short story (“For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.”), the editors of Smith Magazine challenged readers to create their own six-word memoirs. I Can’t Keep My Own Secrets is a compilation of nearly 800 very short pieces written by teenagers. Creative, chilling, humorous, inspiring—and ultimately honest—these glimpses into others’ lives will stick with the reader far beyond the brief moment it takes to read the words on the page.

Marching For Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary
by Elizabeth Partridge (Viking)

This visually stunning book examines the role that children played during the voting rights struggle, particularly the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery.  The gripping story line, supplemented with large black-and-white photographs, follows several children and teens as they march and protest, and are arrested and subjected to horrific violence.  Despite the odds against them, these children organized and acted to change their lives and their future—and they won.

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland (Exceptional Social Studies Titles for Intermediate Grades)
by Sally M. Walker (Carolrhoda Books)

Written In Bone takes readers along the journey as scientists uncover skeletons and other artifacts from colonial-era Virginia and Maryland.  We learn not only about the skeletons themselves, but also about the way of life during this often brutal and even deadly time period.  Photos, maps, diagrams, and historical documents add to the engaging text, which may inspire kids to explore careers in forensic anthropology.

Best of luck to the Round 2 judges!  Wendy Burton (Six Boxes of Books), Jennifer Donovan (5 Minutes for Books), Dave Judge (Adventures at Wilder Farm), Colleen Mondor (Chasing Ray), and Lisa L. Owens (L.L. Owens-Children’s Writing Blog). 

Head over to the Cybils headquarters to check out the complete list of finalists in all categories.

Library Loot: January 3-9, 2010

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva at A Striped Armchair and Marg at Reading Adventures that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.

This is my first Library Loot post!  Yesterday, I arrived at the library about an hour early to meet my partner for our weekly R.E.A.D. session. I decided to browse the teen section to pass the time, and ended up wandering over to the teen audio book display.  I selected three sparkling new books-on-CD to take home with me:

• Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
• What I Saw And How I Lied by Judy Blundell
• The Treasure Map of Boys by E. Lockhart

I’ll be listening to them while I do chores around my apartment this week.

Reading and blogging goals for 2010.

Kristen at Bookworming in the 21st Century is encouraging bloggers to post their New Year’s Resolutions. I prefer to call them goals rather than resolutions.  I’ve decided to post my blogging- and reading-related goals for 2010.

Here are a few of my blogging-related goals:

• Post more reviews. To start, I’m going to aim for at least one or two reviews per week. This is a realistic goal given the many demands on my time in the coming months (i.e. finishing up grad school, my part-time library job, volunteering, committee work, etc.)
• Improve the quality of my blog content. Rather than simply directing visitors to interesting news and links, I will try to make more in-depth, insightful posts.
• Leave more comments on other blogs. I plan to lurk less and comment more (provided I have something meaningful to contribute to the conversation).
• Participate in the 2010 Support Your Local Library Reading Challenge.  To complement this, I will also be adding a regular feature to the blog called Library Loot in which I will share and discuss the books I’ve checked out from the library. I will most  likely limit this feature to posts about the young adult  materials I’ve borrowed, in keeping with the theme of this blog.
• Move Erin Explores YA to a new hosting site with its own domain. My awesome friend and blogging guru Ehren is helping me out with this. I like WordPress, but I find it a bit limiting in some ways. Ehren’s made some suggestions that will give me more flexibility and control.

As for reading-related goals, here’s what I would like to accomplish in 2010:

• Read all of this year’s White Pine Award nominees by March.  As a member of the White Pine steering committee and an ambassador for the Forest of Reading program, I feel almost obgliated to have read all of the shortlisted books. I’m well on my way to accomplishing this goal having read 5 of the 10 already.
• Give ebooks a chance.  While I don’t think that ebooks will ever usurp my preference for physical books, I’m curious how the two compare in terms of the reading experiences they offer. I will start by reading a couple of electronic ARCs I’ve received on the computer screen, though eventually I’d like to try using an ebook app on a smartphone and/or a device like the Sony Reader or the Kindle.

So, these are my plans for 2010. What are your New Year’s blogging and or reading resolutions?

Return of the Baby-sitters Club

According to this piece in today’s New York Times,  Scholastic plans to reissue repackaged and revised versions of the first two books in the successful Baby-sitters Club series this April.

A prequel called The Summer Before, penned by Ann M. Martin, the original author of The Baby-Sitters Club books, is also slated for publication.

I was one of many preteens who eagerly followed the baby-sitting adventures of Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia and Stacey in the early 90s. I even owned The Baby-Sitters Club board game.  I amassed quite of a collection of BSC books, and was devastated when I returned home from university one summer to discover that my parents had donated the whole lot of them to Goodwill.

I’m delighted that they will be making a comeback, and I’m not alone.  According to David Levithan, editorial director at Scholastic,  “This whole generation of girls who had grown up reading The Baby-Sitters Club were now teachers, librarians or mothers…And at any opportunity they had, they let us know they wanted them back. We couldn’t go to a convention without having women come up to us and say, ‘You’ve got to bring these books back.’”

Levithan goes on to say that while the books will be aimed at a slightly younger age group than it was originally (7-10 rather than 8-12), “some likely readers are older fans, many of them now in their 20s and 30s, who recall the series fondly if not with rabid passion.”