GreenBeanTeenQueen

Happy Holidays!! I hope you have a wonderful day and get all the books you wanted! :) I will be taking a blogging break and will be back in 2013! See you in the new year.

I try to repost my review of this book every year because I love it so much! Also, I think the cover changes are interesting. Here's the original cover, published in 2008: And then the next cover:  And yet another cover: I think all three covers are good but I like 1 and 3 the best. Rating: 5/5 Stars Genre: Romance Release Date:  October 2008 About the Book:  Let It Snow is a new holiday offering from three popular teen authors. Each author contributed a holiday romance short story to add to the collection. Maureen Johnson starts things off with  The Jubilee Express , in which Jubilee (no, not a stripper, but named for a piece in her mother’s collection of the Flobie Santa Village) finds herself stranded on a train in Gracetown in a huge snowstorm. A trip to the Waffle House introduces her to Stuart and friendship, or maybe something more, starts to form. In  A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle , author John Green hilariously describes the mission

  Please welcome author Karen Cushman to the blog! I am so delighted to be hosting Karen Cushman  on tour for her latest book, Will Sparrow's Road. I have been a long time fan and no one writes historical fiction like the amazing Ms. Cushman.   Her latest book is a bit different-this is the first male narrator for the author! Here's Ms. Cushman to talk about why she chose to write from a male point of view this time around.   Why did I write a book about a boy?  I had in mind a story about a child alone and on the road in Elizabethan England.  I knew a girl likely would not survive there in those somewhat brutal times.  And I don’t believe that in a world with so little privacy, she could successfully disguise herself as a boy for long.  She wouldn’t have access to a private bedroom or dressing rooms or bathrooms. London did have one public restroom—a plank with 18-holes, emptying directly into the Thames River.  In fact using the whole world as a toilet—streets, f

This week is a big deadline for all of my committee reading. So as I'm working my through my reading and nearing that deadline, I've decided to take a blog hiatus for the rest of this week. I'll be back next week!

I've got more hardcover to paperback changes! What do you think of these? Hardcover Paperback -I think both of these are well done and reflect the bleakness of the landscape in the story. Hardcover Paperback -As fun as I think the paperback is, I think it's marketing more to an adult audience. It looks like your typical adult mystery bestseller. The hardcover looks like lots of fun and like the book will have lots of action (which it does) Hardcover Paperback -I'm not a big fan of either covers, but I gotta got with the hardcover because it's creepier. Hardcover Paperback -I like the hardcover on this one. The paperback is too simple and I think the hardcover has a cool computer/techy/time travel feel to it which matches the book. Hardcover Paperback -The paperback for this one changes the entire look of the book! Now it looks like a steamy romance novel instead of historical fiction

\ \ One of the joys of working at the library is that I get to work with lots of wonderful people who geek out about the same things I do! One of my coworkers (C.) is a huge Tolkien fanatic, so she organized a giant series of programs called Tolkien Fest. \ The library district hosted programs kicking off with Bilbo's birthday in September, book discussions and a Tolkien Scholar talk in October and November and culminating in watching all three Lord of the Rings movies on the library's big screen in December. To help celebrate, I hosted a birthday party for Bilbo Baggins on World Hobbit Day (September 22, which is also Bilbo and Frodo's birthday). It was a huge program with lots of activities-we hosted it in our auditorium with various stations set up around the room. In the end, over 100 people attended the event! Here's what I did: Station 1:  - Name Tags (with your name written in dwarven runes) I used the nametags and dwarven runes from Houghton Mi

The Wright and Wong Mysteries by Melinda Metz and Laura J. Burns were first published in 2005. The books feature two tween detectives who couldn't be more different- B. Orville Wright has Aspberger's Syndrome with a high IQ and great eye for detail where Agatha Wong is able to see the big picture. Together they make a great detective team. This series is especially important because it features a main character with Aspberger's Syndrome. This is such an important topic and kids need to see main characters with Aspberger's and Autism featured in books. Authors Melinda and Laura have put together a petition asking for The Wright and Wong series to go back into print.  If you believe in this important topic and series, please sign the petition . Hopefully together we can bring this great series back into the publishing world and into the hands of tween readers.

I love looking at covers! And I think we all judge books by their covers to some extent. Here are some recent hardcover to paperback changes: Hardcover: Paperback: -I gotta got with the paperback on this one. It just looks more appealing to me. Hardcover: Paperback: -I think both covers are appealing. I think the paperback has more action and the hardcover is more subtle, but both fit the book well. I think I still like the hardcover better. Hardcover: Paperback:  -The paperback looks like a comic book. It's still really cool and I think this cover change is interesting because I think each cover markets to a different group. The first looks like fun and fluffy and the second looks more serious. I'm not sure which one I like more. Hardcover:  Paperback: -I love both of these covers, but I think I like the darkness of the paperback. I do think the hardcover has more of a Sleeping Beauty feel which matches the boo

We had our last week of storytime this past week since we take the month of December off. There are always such sad sighs from the parents when we tell them this and I assure them that we still have lots of programming happening, just not weekly storytimes. I decided to do a Winter themed storytime, even though it's been warm here and hardly feels like Winter. It's the though that counts, right? :) Here's what we did: Opening Song : I recently started doing two opening songs (Wake Up Hands off a CD that I can't remember the name of right now! and Finger Poppin by Georgiana Stewart) I got the idea from another branch in our library district and I like that it gives parents and kids just a bit longer to arrive. Racing to Read Skill: Talk and Read-we were exploring lots of winter words in our storytime this week! Read : Kitten's Winter by Eugenie Fernande s (for toddler storytime)-I love this book because it has great pictures and vocabulary-"scurries

Did you know that anyone can suggest a title for the YALSA Book Awards? You have until Decmeber 1st to get your suggestions in for what titles you think committees need to take notice of. You can suggest titles for Best Fiction for Young Adults , Fabulous Films for Young Adults , Amazing Audiobooks , Alex Awards . You can even suggest a title for the Printz Award . Your suggestion doesn't mean a book will be nominated, but it does let your voice be heard. Kelly at Stacked has a great post about why we should do our part and suggest titles for these awards. Hurry because suggestions close on December 1st!

Suzanne Collins has a new book coming next year-and it's a picture book! According to Publisher's Weekly the book is an autobiographical picture book about a young girl's year when her father is serving in Vietnam. So what do you think? I'm happy to have another book by her, but I do wish it was another YA series. Maybe someday!

Rating: 4/5 Stars Genre: Mystery/Humor Release Date: 1/1/2010 Add to Goodreads About the Book: 12-year-old Teddy lives in a zoo. His mom is a top zookeeper and his dad is an animal photographer, so Teddy is the only kid who lives year round at FunJungle-the ultimate zoo vacation spot. When the zoo's mascot, Henry the Hippo, goes belly up, Teddy sneaks in on the autopsy and learns that the Hippo was murdered. Teddy is on the case trying to figure out what happened to Henry before more animals meet the end. GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: Belly Up is another book that is on our state book award list this year and I've had book clubs about the book. Our discussion over Belly Up was one of the liveliest discussions we've had this year. This is a great tween mystery-the story keeps them guessing and none of the tweens in my book clubs guessed who the murderer was from the start and all were surprised. The book moves along at a good pace and keeps readers engaged. The

I've been thinking about book blurbs. Do you notice them? Do they make you pick up a book or not? Many years ago, before I was a librarian and blogger, I was browsing in Borders. I came across a  book that was chick lit and was blurbed by an author who had written a couple of books I read and loved. I bought the book based on the blurb. As a browsing reader, the blurb helped sell me on the book. Now that I'm a librarian, I read many, many review sources. I have a giant blog feed that I read various reviews on. And I love checking out Goodreads to see what a book is currently rated and what others have to say about the book. I also still pay attention to book blurbs, but I don't know that they carry as much weight for me as a reader anymore. I still like what other authors have to say, but I also notice the dark side of book blurbs. I notice when authors become like Marshall in How I Met Your Mother and their Stamp of Approval and I start to doubt their blurbs. Or t

I love looking at cover changes! I understand how covers change because of marketing, but sometimes a book will have a cover I really love and change to something I'm not a fan of in the paperback.Here are some I've come across recently-what do you think? Across the Universe has had many changes-I've posted about it before. But I think the cover evolution is interesting: Hardcover Paperback New Series Covers -I think all the covers are nice and I like each of them. I also think the latest series design has the broadest appeal. Now for a cover change that I don't think I like as well- Hardcover Paperback (and new series design) -I think this one freaks me out mostly because I don't starting into a creepy eye on the cover. But it does give a very chilling feel, which is a great marketing effect. Hardcover Paperback -I like both of these covers for Born Wicked . I think the first one stands out a bit more, but

Rating: 4/5 Stars Genre: Humor Release Date: 9/27/2011 Add to Goodreads About the Book: Rob never cleans his closet. Instead he tosses random junk and the books his mom gives him to read all into his closet. He even thinks that the beared man on his doorknob is a little weird, so he'd rather not think about his closet at all. Until one day a strange creature appears from the closet-it's Wonkenstein-half Willy Wonka, half Frankenstein. Rob needs to figure out a way to get the creature back where it belongs-and he might just discover reading along the way. GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: Author Obert Skye recently visited a local middle school and he obviously made an impression on the students because they have been asking for this series non-stop! I decided I had to see what all the talk was about. The Creature From My Closet: Wonkenstein is a great start to a hilarious new series that is perfect for readers who love humor and illustrations (ala Wimpy Kid style) in

I've been wanting to do a life size game of some sort at my Library for awhile. So when this year's Big Read book was The Maltese Falcon, I knew a game of Life Size Clue would work well for the mystery theme. I sort of made up how to run the game and hopefully I can explain it well enough for others to copy. Here's what we did: We had a room set up perfectly for the game board already. Our Storyhour Room has a tile floor with squares. Using masking tape, I tape off six rooms (the game board has nine, but I wanted to make sure the game didn't take forever if we only had a couple of teens playing). I counted off tile squares for the size of the rooms, made doorways, and made sure to include signs in four rooms that listed secret passages that would lead you directly across the game board into another room. The rules we followed were just like the game board. We had a case file box in which we placed a weapon, suspect, and room. Then we passed out one card for each r

Rating: 3/5 Stars Genre: Mystery/Historical (set in 1985-yep, that's historical!:) Release Date: 4/15/2010 Add to Goodreads About the Book: When Sadie and her younger sister Zuzu move to Salt Lake City, they discover a room in the attic called Palace Beautiful. Inside Palace Beautiful is a journal belonging to a girl named Helen who lived in the house in 1918. Along with their next door neighbor Bella, the girls decide to read the journal entries which have parallels to what's happening in their lives. The girls become obsessed with the story of the influenza outbreak that happens and are determined to find out what happened to Helen. GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: Palace Beautiful is on our state book award list for grades 4-6 (Mark Twain Award) and it's the book my Chat & Chew (aka book clubs) are talking about this month. So far the three groups I've visited with about the book have all loved it. Palace Beautiful is a gentle read and a light mystery. Th

Hello Springfield Leadership Academy! I hope you're enjoying your Library visit and scavenger hunt and have a wonderful education day!

Rating: 4/5 Stars Genre: Animal Stories/Historical Release Date: 10/13/2011 Add to Goodreads About the Book: Did you know mice in houses and wear clothes and take the family name of the family they live with? The mouse Cranstons live within the walls of the human Cranston family home. When the human Cranstons decide to travel to England to find a husband for one of their daughters, the mice Cranstons decide they must follow their humans and travel over the scary sea as well. As the mice try to secretly help their humans out on their adventure, they have adventures and romance of their own! GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: If you're looking for historical fiction ala Downton Abbey , Secrets at Sea would fit that need-and would be perfect for tweens who are fans of the BBC show along with their parents. (I've had a few tween fans come into my library-they do exist!) The story is a humorous historical fiction with a twist because the entire story is told from the point of v

I am so late in posting about this! Lalitha at Masala Reader asked me ages ago to write up what we did for our Zombie Prom and I'm finally getting around to it. Zombie Prom happened at my library this past summer. It was the brainchild of my Young Adult Librarian. For the past two years I had run an end of school/start of summer dance at the library. The first year was Moonlight Masquerade  and the next year Geek Prom . So we decided to repeat that idea this year only with zombies. We had also been contacted be a local band whose members are in middle school and high school and they really wanted to play a show at my branch. I had talked to the teens earlier about them playing and they weren't too thrilled with the idea. So I suggested the band become the live music for our Zombie Prom. It ended up working out really well because they got the crowd they wanted and we didn't have to worry about creating a playlist for the event. (We did make a short playlist for the ban

The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit by Emma Thompson, Illustrated by Eleanor Taylor   Rating: 4/5 Stars   About the Book: Peter Rabbit can't stay away from adventure! This time he travels beyond the McGregor's garden and encounters new friends and challenges. GreenBeanTeenQueen Says:   I was nervous when I heard there would be a new Peter Rabbit book, but Emma Thompson captures the essence of the original tales perfectly. It's a fun, delightful tale that fits Peter wonderfully and I really enjoyed it. It has a sly sense of humor. The illustrations are beautiful and look just like the original Peter Rabbit tales. A very nice addition to any collection. Perfect for Peter Rabbit fans new and old alike!