GreenBeanTeenQueen

Rating: 4/5 Stars Genre: Historical Mystery/Ghost Story Release Date: 6/21/11 Add to Goodreads About the Book: Violet Willoughby has grown up around spirits. Or at least pretending to see spirits. Her mother is one of the most famous spiritualists, but Violet knows it's all a sham. Until the day Violet starts to ghosts herself. While visiting the estate of a wealthy Lord for a spiritualist performance, a very persistence ghost appears and needs Violet's help. Her drowning accident a year before was anything but an accident and Violet is in danger. Violet may not believe in ghosts, but they believe in her. GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: If you're looking for a good historical ghost story, add Haunting Violet to your reading pile! Violet is an engaging character who I liked from the very beginning. I think what I liked most was her distrust in ghosts and spiritualists. For me, this made her a more interesting character because of the transformation she has to go to as she accept

Please welcome Nova Ren Suma to GreenBeanTeenQueen! Nova is visiting blogs and spilling secrets about her new book, Imaginary Girls and I've got secret #3! Check out Nova's Twitter for all her tour stops! Be sure to enter for your chance to win a signed copy of the book!! I’m here spilling secrets about my book Imaginary Girls. As the cover says, “Secrets never stay below the surface.” I guess not, because here’s another one bubbling up now… Secret #3: I don’t always know my characters’ full names. And sometimes I steal names from questionable places. I know everything about Ruby and Chloe, the two sisters in Imaginary Girls. I created them, I built them up from nothing, and I know what they’d say, what they’d think, and what they want for breakfast. But there’s one thing about them I’ll admit to you I don’t know, something I never decided. Their last names. All I know is that Ruby and Chloe have different fathers—they’d slap you if you called them half-sisters, so don’t do i

Tween Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted here at GreenBeanTeenQueen to highlight great reads for tweens. Join the fun and add your post below! Rating: 4.5/5 Stars Genre: Non-Fiction Release Date: 6/7/2011 Add to Goodreads About the Book: Answers to questions kids want to know! An illustrated guide with facts and info in various subject areas, Big Book of How has the answer! GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: Working in the children's department of my library again, I'm reminded every day how tweens are very inquisitive! They love non-fiction and I love when that non-fiction is easily accessible to wide audience. That's one of the reasons I think Big Book for How is a book that will be an easy booktalk to tweens. The subject areas in the book range from animals and science to survival and transportation. The book is arranged with lots of pictures and facts in boxes throughout each page. The various boxes are for different things like factoids, an introduction, and information boxes.

ALA is my favorite event of the year! I get to hang out with my favorite people, meet other librarians, network like crazy, learn new things to take back to my library, and of course meet authors! As a librarian and book lover, what's not to love?? This year's ALA will be my fourth conference, so I thought I'd give some advice for conference newbies (or even conference oldies!) because it never hurts to hear someone's take on the massive event that is ALA! - Make a schedule, but don't be strict about sticking to it . There is a lot to do and there's no way you can do it all, so schedules help a lot. Even if you're not normally a schedule person it can be a lifesaver. It helps to make a schedule before you get to ALA and then look over the conference booklet and add anything else you want. I'm obsessive and color code mine and add times and locations of everything I think I'm interested in attending. - Don't worry if a session is not for you. Lik

I'm sure you've all seen the news about Pottermore ! I'm a HUGE Harry Potter fan, so you can imagine my excitement. Plus, I work in a library with lots of other HUGE Harry Potter fans, so the library staff were all abuzz yesterday with what it could mean! My guess is that this will be the announcement about the Harry Potter encyclopedia. Since there's a website waiting to come, I'm wondering instead of publishing the encyclopedia in book form, we'll get an online, interactive version instead. Since her publicist says it's not another Harry Potter book, I think a website encyclopedia is the best guess. Although, you could say that a book set in the Harry Potter world isn't exactly a Harry Potter book....:) I also love that this announcement happens right before ALA-you know what librarians will be talking about!!! So what do you think? Will you be staying up to watch the announcement on YouTube? Any guesses on what it will be?

Last year my teen library council came up with a program idea called The Moonlight Masquerade Ball. It was tons of fun and I wanted to repeat something similar this year, but I also wanted something with a broader appeal, since the Ball was very girl heavy (meaning only one boy showed up!) This year I hosted Geek Prom. Held in May (just like the Ball) on a Friday night, Geek Prom was our big Spring/welcome Summer Reading bash. Geek Prom had a better turn out (around 40 teens showed up) and while it was still girl heavy, I had around 10 guys this time. I made a geeky playlist on playlist.com and had that playing through the auditorium computer and speakers. The playlist included songs like the Doctor Who theme, Time Warp, The Mysterious Ticking Noise by The Potter Puppet Pals, White and Nerdy by Weird Al, Buddy Holly by Weezer and other random geeky songs and theme songs. I also mixed in popular songs and lots of Lady Gaga since the teens love dancing to anything Gaga! I decora

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars Genre: Contemporary Release Date: 6/7/2011 Add to Goodreads About the Book: When Lilian receives an early morning phone call from her sort-of friend Penny saying "I did it" and Lil knows that Penny has faked her own kidnapping. Now the police are looking for Penny and asking Lil questions! Lil has an idea that Penny might be in Portland, so she enlists the help of her friend Josh to go on a quest to find Penny and bring her back. Josh isn't just Lil's best friend-he's Lil's long time crush. But Josh doesn't want to "ruin" their amazing friendship. Will a cross-country road trip help Lil figure things out? GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: I really think Julie Halpern's books get better with each one she writes-which is saying a lot because I think all of her books are pretty awesome!! I swear Ms. Halpern looked into my road trip dreams and wrote this book. I've always wanted to take a massive road trip stopping at cheesy tour

Tween Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted here at GreenBeanTeenQueen to highlight great reads for tweens. Join the fun and add your post below! Rating: 5/5 Stars Genre: Historical Release Date: 10/12/2010 Add to Goodreads About the Book: Abilene has just arrived in her father's old stomping grounds, Manifest, KS. He doesn't think hopping trains and traveling is a good life for a young lady, so he's sent Abilene to Manifest, a town he stayed in as a boy. In her room she stumbles across a box with mementos and a box of letters from a boy named Ned, who lived in Manifest the same time as Abilene's father-and who claims a spy once lived in Manifest. As she gets to know the town, the people and Manifest, Abilene uncovers the truth she is looking for and more. Told in various time periods with different narrators, Moon Over Manifest is the story of a girl and a town and how the two can change each other. GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: I wasn't familiar with this book until the Ja

Rating: 4/5 Stars Genre: Science Fiction/Mystery/Time Slip/Romance Release Date: 6/14/2011 Add to Goodreads About the Book: Emerson Cole sees things. People that just appear that no one else around her seem to see or hear. She's tried everything to make them disappear and be normal, but the people keep appearing. When Michael Weaver, a member of an organization called the Hourglass arrives, he tells Emerson that she isn't the only one who sees these visions of people and that she belongs to a special group of people with special powers and abilities. Michael also claims that Emerson has a power that he needs to save his mentor and without her, the Hourglass and their future is in trouble. GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: It's hard to write a good synopsis for Hourglass because it's a book that has several twists that are better left uncovered while reading. Hourglass is a book I think most people would categorize as Science Fiction, but I'd give it to readers who say th

Remember when I mentioned my new job a few weeks ago? Well, now that I'm the Youth Services Manager, my reading has expanded. I've always read picture books, but now I'm reading them even more! When I mentioned picture book reviews on the blog, there was lots of positive feedback, so here are a few of my favorites I've read recently. Press Here by Herve Tullet Add to Goodreads About the Book: Press Here-right here-on the yellow dot. See what happens? Another dot appears! Follow the instructions in this interactive, imaginative picture book. Green Bean TeenQueen Says: I LOVE Press Here ! One of my favorite picture books of the year! I loved what the Booklist review said "without so much as a single tab to pull or flap to turn, this might be the most interactive picture book of the year."-so true and I couldn't agree more. The book encourages readers to use their imagination and believe in the magic of the book. Tilt the book left and the dots fall to the

Rating: 4/5 Stars Genre: Contemporary Release Date: 6/28/2011 Add to Goodreads About the Book: Amber's life is spinning out of control. All she wants is one day to herself. So Amber takes off to the beach is search of her one perfect day-the day before her world comes crashing day. There she meets Cade, another teen in search of a perfect day. Amber is instantly drawn to Cade and they decide to spend their perfect days together-no talking about the past or the future-just now. But Amber and Cade have secrets-and Amber is noticing that Cade's secrets seem dark and that he's living this day as if it's his last. GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: I will try not to say anything about the plot for this book, because I think not knowing anything makes the book that much better. I went into this book not really knowing what it was about-just that it was by Lisa Schroeder, who I think is fantastic. I really think part of the wonderfulness of this book is going in blind and discovering

This time, it's a friend's wedding weekend and I didn't get my posts scheduled like I wanted too! You all forgive me, right? Be back soon!!

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine . I don't always post Waiting on Wednesday posts, but I like to post them around ALA so I can keep track of my most anticipated books. These are books that my librarian self are very excited about and I can't wait to see if they live up the hype! Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler, illustrated by Maira Kalman About the Book: Min Green and Ed Slaterton are breaking up, so Min is writing Ed a letter and giving him a box. Inside the box is why they broke up. Two bottle caps, a movie ticket, a folded note, a box of matches, a protractor, books, a toy truck, a pair of ugly earrings, a comb from a motel room, and every other item collected over the course of a giddy, intimate, heartbreaking relationship. Item after item is illustrated and accounted for, and then the box, like a girlfriend, will be dumped. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin About the Book: Mara Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger