With the new job, came a hour+ long daily commute. If you know me, you know how much I hate driving, so you can guess what I cranky person I was for those first few months. Fortunately, the new job meant that I could finally move out of my apartment of horrors. Unfortunately, finding a place close enough to work was more difficult than I thought. I eventually found a place, but it’s another basement (ick) and it’s a lot more money than I wanted to spend (double ick), but at least my new landlords are nice, reasonable people, the apartment is legit, and it takes me only 15 minutes to get to work.

I had every intention of getting back to blogging once I was settled into my new place. But the day after I moved in, life threw me a major curveball when my Mom underwent an emergency cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal). It was a major, high risk surgery for her. She went into septic shock. She did not wake up for eight days. Then we learned that there had been complications…Her lungs were severely damaged. She was being kept alive by mechanical ventilation. The infection was raging through body, attacking her other organs and systems.

This is the nightmare I have been living for three months now. I have been spending all of my spare time driving back and forth to the city my parents live in to visit my Mom in the ICU. This ordeal has brought me such emotional and physical strain. I’ve never been so exhausted in my entire life. Finally, this week, some good news: the infection is under control—no more fevers. She is regaining a bit of strength and is alert. And, they’ve even been able to reduce her dependency on the ventilator slightly. The road to recovery will be very, very long, but at least it seems she’s on her way. A couple of weeks ago, it sounded like her medical team was ready to give up on her. I’m grateful for small improvements like these.

I want to get back to blogging, but it will be a gradual return. I’ve also changed the focus of this blog. While previously, I focused on Young Adult literature and library services, I will now write about broader aspects of life and librarianship (though there will still be an emphasis on services and materials for children and teens).

This week’s pre-publication “can’t-wait-to-read” selection is:

Sweetly

A Sisters Red companion novel

by Jackson Pearce

Release date: August 23, 2011

From www.jackson-pearce.com: “Twelve years ago, Gretchen, her twin sister, and her brother went looking for a witch in the forest. They found something. Maybe it was a witch, maybe a monster, they aren’t sure—they were running too fast to tell. Either way, Gretchen’s twin sister was never seen again.

Years later, after being thrown out of their house, Gretchen and Ansel find themselves in Live Oak, South Carolina, a place on the verge of becoming a ghost town. They move in with Sophia Kelly, a young and beautiful chocolatier owner who opens not only her home, but her heart to Gretchen and Ansel.

Yet the witch isn’t gone—it’s here, lurking in the forests of Live Oak, preying on Live Oak girls every year after Sophia Kelly’s infamous chocolate festival. But Gretchen is determined to stop running from witches in the forest, and start fighting back. Alongside Samuel Reynolds, a boy as quick with a gun as he is a sarcastic remark, Gretchen digs deeper into the mystery of not only what the witch is, but how it chooses its victims. Yet the further she investigates, the more she finds herself wondering who the real monster is, and if love can be as deadly as it is beautiful.”

My thoughts: This sounds like a really cool retelling of Hansel and Gretel. I loved Jackson’s Pearce’s take on the Red Riding Hood story in Sisters Red—it was one of my top YA reads of 2010. I hope Sweetly will be just as good. Most of the early reviews I’ve read have been very positive, so hopefully I won’t be disappointed. I think I may want to find myself a copy of original Grimm’s Fairy Tales before delving into this one. The version of the Hansel and Gretel story I remember is rather tame.

I was thrilled to learn that LWB is being sponsored by Auryn, a digital publisher of interactive children’s books for the iPad.

From April 22nd – May 3rd,  Auryn will donate $1 of each app sold to Librarians Without Borders!

Auryn has been praised for their visionary work in the mobile kids book app market.  Their work includes Teddy’s Day, Teddy’s Night, Bunny Fun: Head Shoulder’s Knees and Toes and my personal favourite, The Little Mermaid. Please consider purchasing one of these apps and help support the work of LWB during this promotional period.

You can learn more about LWB and the Asturias project here. Also, be sure to follow the group’s progress at Asturias on the Guatemala Trip Blog.

But for now … onto the latest links round-up. Here are a few interesting YA-related links which caught my eye  over the last week or so.

• CLASY’s going to Halifax. Canadian Libraries Are Serving Youth (CLASY) are hosting a pre-conference event at the CLA national conference in Halifax.
• Canadian book review journal Resource Links has released its “Best of” list for 2010. Scroll down to find their picks for top Fiction Grades 7 – 12 and Non-Fiction Grades 7 – 12.
• YA Library UK discusses Creating a Teen Offer without Staff or a Budget, the first post in their On a Shoestring series.
• YA Librarian Sarah shares some nuggets of wisdom as she celebrates Two Years on the Job.
  
• The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have announced the finalists for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.
  
• Finals Service: Illinois Library Association’s YA blog/newsletter on designing teen programing around exam time.
• Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom by Susin Nielsen was named the winner of the inaugural CBC’s Bookies award in the YA category, beating out nominees Plain Kate, Mockingjay, The Secret Fiend, and The Awakening.

Hope to see you there!

This week’s pre-publication “can’t-wait-to-read” selection is:

Corsets & Clockwork

A YA Steampunk Romance anthology edited by Teresa Telep.

Release date: May 10, 2011

From SciFiGuy.ca: “A stunning anthology of the very best of steampunk that’s taking teen fiction by storm. Bestselling romance editor Trisha Telep brings an exciting new element to the fast-growing sub-genre of steampunk, which bends and blends the old and the new in increasingly popular dark urban fantasies. Young heroes and heroines battle evil, in various forms with the help of super-technological or supernatural powers, while falling in and out of love.”

Steampunk is all the rage in YA these days. Lots of awesome authors involved in this one, including Canada’s Lesley Livingston (author of Wondrous Strange). Gorgeous cover, too!

It’s time for another YA links round-up!

• Ottawa Event: Libraries and Teens: My good friend (and future librarian!) Kim, gives a recap of the day.

• Bitch Media has put together a list of 100 YA Books for the Feminist Reader.

• E-Readers Catch Younger Eyes: According to this article from the NYT Books section, teen fiction is “hot, hot, hot” in e-books.

• YA Library UK shares a summary of a symposium on Young People and Media Use (part 1).

• Nicole at WORD for Teens wonders why college seems to be underrepresented in YA fiction.

• School Library Journal‘s Teen Book Buzz Spring 2011 webcast happens this Tuesday, February 8th.

• Getting the Stink Eye in the YA section? This YA brochure idea is kind of awesome (link via @YAaddict).

• “Those mystifying teen years in fiction.“  The Toronto Star reviews four recent YA  novels about teen girls.

• What Should Teen Readers Know About The National Reading Campaign? YA Bookshelf had some great coverage of the TD National Reading Summit in Montreal.

• Speaking of the TD National Reading Summit, you can access the High School/Post Secondary Working Group’s Report here. I really wanted to attend but since I was not eligible for funding from my employer and I had just attended the CLASY Libraries and Teen workshop in Ottawa out of my own pocket, I just couldn’t justify the expense.

Speaking of mystery writing prizes, this week the Canadian Children’s Book Centre announced a new children’s book award. The John Spray Mystery Award will honour excellence in the children’s mystery book format and comes with a $5,000 cash prize. Eligible books must be original works in English, aimed at readers ages eight to sixteen, and written by Canadian authors. For more information about John Spray Mystery Award, visit the Canadian Children’s Book Centre.

I love a good mystery, don’t you?

Librarians without Borders is now accepting nominations for our 2011 Executive team and Board of Directors. For more information, including job descriptions and details for applying, visit our  Volunteer page.

By the way, I’ll be speaking about recent Librarians Without Borders service projects in Costa Rica and Guatemala at the 2011 Canadian Library Association conference in Halifax this May!

It’s time for another YA links round-up. Some are a few weeks old now (sorry!) but I hope you will find them as interesting as I did:

• Jessica Grant has won the Evergreen Award for her novel Come, Thou Tortoise. This novel is a great adult book to suggest for teens.

• There was an excellent interview with Suzanne Collins, author of The Huger Games trilogy in the Huffington Post recently. It’s well worth reading.

• GreenBeanTeenQueen on running a Teen Library Council. I personally found this post very helpful as I’m thinking about starting a TRAC (Teen Reader’s Advisory Committee) at the library I work at.

• Figment.com is a new writing community for teens. It’s a free platform for young people to read and write fiction, both on their computers and on their cellphones. Check out this article about it from the New York Times.  It sounds quite similiar to the Canadian-based Wattpad, which has a sizeable community of teenaged writers.

• Listed: Depression in YA Novels by Court at Once Upon A Bookshelf .

• Today, the Free Technology for Teachers blog highlighted a resource called Own Your Space, a free, ebook for tweens and teens on how to protect themselves and their stuff online. I’ve only had time to browse through it quickly, but it looks to be a very comprehensive and informative resource.  I really like the anime-style artwork.

• Over at Stacked, Kelly J. offers “Ten truths about blogging.”

• YA Library UK muses on the “Importance of Large Print YA (and How To Promote It).”

• The UK’s BBC 4 recently broadcast a show exploring the recent boom in fiction for young adults. Click through to listen to the show (thanks to YA Library UK for the link).

• A new report suggests that Canadian teens are better at reading than their peers anywhere in North or South America.