Project Runway!

Anyone watching this season of Project Runway? It's my favourite reality TV show. So inspirational!

 If you haven't seen it before, did you know HPL has all seasons on DVD? Marathon time! Place them on hold here.

 Project Runway also has a new book out celebrating their ten years of fabulous fashion designers.

Click to place on hold!

There are also lots of other fashion-inspired YA titles out there. Here are just a few...

You can also find lots of books on how to design too by checking out fashion design in the catalogue. Happy designing! 

Trailer Tuesday: Joy of Books!

Today's trailer is less a trailer for a particular book and more a trailer for a lot of books. If you're a bit of a book geek (or even just a stop animation geek), check out the video below for a fantastic stop motion book movie (it's under two minutes and I know you're probably putting off homework already):

I've actually been to the bookstore in the video (Type) and I'd recommend it if you're ever on Queen St. W in Toronto. It's very nicely curated and lovely for browsing.

Craziest news

So imagine that you e-mail your favourite writer and tell them how much you admire them and then they turn around and e-mail you and ask you to collaborate with them on a book. Can you imagine? That's so crazy!

This isn't just me daydreaming about collaborating with my favourite author - this actually happened! Thirteen year old Ross Workman e-mailed Walter Dean Myers and they wrote a book together! The resulting book is called Kick and is "a novel about a star soccer striker who's about to end up in juvie unless a cop assigned as his mentor can help him turn things around." (according to School Library Journal)

You can read an interview with Workman and Myers here and learn about what it's like working with your favourite author and how the book came together.

If you had a chance to work with your favourite author, who would you work with?

(I think I would be too stressed out to work with my favourite author! Talk about pressure!)

New Books!

Lots and lots of popular sequels this month! Check out the rest of the new books here.



Happy reading!

Books to Movies

Have you guys seen the trailer for Eagle? In case you haven't, it's below.



I thought it looked pretty interesting. It's based on the Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff originally published in 1954. It's already been made into a mini-series by BBC but the updated version is sure to be a hit.

Happy Weekend!

Cover story (or, an extra WoW)

The cover for the new Jackson Pearce book, a modernization of Hansel and Gretel has been released. You'll remember Jackson Pearce from her fantastic adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood - Sisters Red. I loved that cover and I think I love this one too, even if it's a bit creepy.

Here's the description from Gooodreads:


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.


Oooh, doesn't it sound good? The cover reminds me of the Linger and Shiver covers, with the branches making pictures. What do you think?

New books!

New titles from Carrie Ryan, L. J. Smith (actually two titles) and Lisi Harrison probably don't need any promotion but these are other titles by new or relatively unknown authors that you might want to check out. This is just a tasting, check out the rest here!

More Best Books of 2010

GalleyCat, a publishing blog, has more best YA books of 2010 with sample first chapters of all of them! Not sure if you want to give a book a try? Why not take a little sample and see? There are too many to list here - forty-one! - but a lot of your favourites are on the list so take a look! (I'm especially excited that Matched is on their list with two chapters to read).

Some of these books I hadn't heard of yet, so I can't wait to give them a glance and see which ones I want to commit to. (As always, if you see a book on a list that you want to read but we don't have at the library, you can always suggest it for purchase. Mention the list you saw it on too!).

Books to Movies

Lately there have been a lot of books being turned into movies. The first that comes to mind is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (which was amazing by the way!).

A couple more coming out soon - I Am Number Four (based on the book by Pitticus Lore)



Also, by the director of Twilight comes an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood. The novel, Red Riding Hood, is in the catalog now. Check out the trailer below.



It has a definite Twilight feel and the visuals seem like they're going to spectacular.

And finally, Beastly looks like it is finally a go! It's not out until July which gives you plenty of time to read the book by Alex Flinn.



I wasn't a huge fan of the book - I found the character development a bit unbelievable - but I think it will work really well on the big screen.

What books are you hoping to see on the big screen soon? Hunger Games, anyone?

Best of 2010... part I

I asked you to make up your best of 2010 lists (and you have until December 16th to post the link) but I thought in the meantime I'd post some other lists from around thet web. This is a list made by librarians and reviewers (not teens, in other words) from School Library Journal. 

• King of Ithaka by Tracy Barrett  
• Zombies vs. Unicorns eds. Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier
• Annexed by Sharon Dogar
• Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
• Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
• Black Hole Sun by David Macinnis Gill
• Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray
• Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials by Stephanie Hemphill
• Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta
• Trash by Andy Mulligan
• Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve
• The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt
• Three Rivers Rising: A Novel of the Johnstown Flood by James Richards
• Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
• Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters by Natalie Standiford
• The Ring of Solomon: A Bartimaeus Novel by Jonathan Stroud
• Toads and Diamonds by Heather Tomlinson
• A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner
• Numbers by Rachel Ward

What do you think? Were any of these your favourites?

New Books!

The latest teen reads are in the catalog! I had such a hard time picking only 12 to show off so make sure you click the link and check out the rest!

Make 'em laugh!

If you're looking for a lighter read to make you laugh, check out the scrolly thinger (yes, that's the technical term) above with a few more recent funny reads.

To the left is one of my favourite funny series, the Georgia Nicholson books. Amazon has a sneak peak and I'd definitely recommend reading the first few pages.

Don't see your favourite funny read? Link below in the comments!

Red Maple Nominees 2011

The Red Maple Award Nominees were announced last week. The Red Maple Award is given to a Canadian book aimed at grades 7-8. The best part? The readers actually pick the winner. Do you guys have a Red Maple club at your school?

Here are some of the nominees! Check out the rest of the list here!