If you’re having trouble getting your hands on any of these titles, let me know. I may have a copy you can borrow. Also, if you feel a truly amazing book has been overlooked, feel free to speak up in the comments. It’s not too late.
Posted on December 20, 2009 by katie the librarian
Three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers’ souls:
Goblin Fruit: In Victorian times, goblin men had only to offer young girls sumptuous fruits to tempt them to sell their souls. But what does it take to tempt today’s savvy girls?
Spicy Little Curses: A demon and the ambassador to Hell tussle over the soul of a beautiful English girl in India. Matters become complicated when she falls in love and decides to test her curse.
Hatchling: Six days before Esme’s fourteenth birthday, her left eye turns from brown to blue. She little suspects what the change heralds, but her small safe life begins to unravel at once. What does the beautiful, fanged man want with her, and how is her fate connected to a mysterious race of demons?
Title: Lips Touch Three Times
Author: Laini Taylor
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books (October 1, 2009)
Pages: 272
Posted on December 17, 2009 by katie the librarian
Rules:
1. Vote for the books you want to see removed from the list the most.
2. You may only vote for books you have actually read (or tried to read).
3. You may vote for up to three books.
Feel free to give your reasoning to keep or get rid of particular books in the comments. You might sway your fellow committee members!
Posted on December 14, 2009 by katie the librarian
Before we do our first poll, I thought we should do a quick discussion. Soon we will begin voting books off the long list to make a short list of 10 books. That means we need to vote away 10 books. You can only vote for a book you have actually read. No fair trying to save your favorites when you haven’t given others a chance! So lets have a quick informal discussion. Which books would you vote away? Which books do you want to see on the final short list?
Posted on December 14, 2009 by katie the librarian
If you are having a hard time finding a particular title from the Mock Printz reading list, please let me know. I may be able to lend you a galley copy.
Posted on December 10, 2009 by katie the librarian
Please follow the links below to the book post to have discussion in the title’s comment thread. General comments about the list (including what should be on the next one) can go in the comments of this post.
We’ll begin voting off books next week to get down to a shortlist of ten books. Thanks!
Posted on December 10, 2009 by katie the librarian
Fifteen-year-old Blake has a girlfriend and a friend who’s a girl. One of them loves him; the other one needs him.
When he snapped a picture of a street person for his photography homework, Blake never dreamed that the woman in the photo was his friend Marissa’s long-lost meth addicted mom. Blake’s participation in the ensuing drama opens up a world of trouble, both for him and for Marissa. He spends the next few months trying to reconcile the conflicting roles of Boyfriend and Friend. His experiences range from the comic (surviving his dad’s birth control talk) to the tragic (a harrowing after-hours visit to the morgue).
In a tangle of life and death, love and loyalty, Blake will emerge with a more sharply defined snapshot of himself.
Title: Flash Burnout
Author: L.K. Madigan
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children (October 19, 2009)
Pages: 336
Posted on December 10, 2009 by katie the librarian
dear caitlin, there are so many things that i want so badly to tell you but i just can’t.
Devastating, hopeful, hopeless, playful . . . in words and illustrations, Ingrid left behind a painful farewell in her journal for Caitlin. Now Caitlin is left alone, by loss and by choice, struggling to find renewed hope in the wake of her best friend’s suicide. With the help of family and new-found friends, Caitlin will encounter first love, broaden her horizons, and start to realize that true friendship didn’t die with Ingrid. And the journal which once seemed only to chronicle Ingrid’s descent into depression, becomes the tool by which Caitlin once again reaches out to all those who loved Ingrid—and Caitlin herself.
Title: Hold Still
Author: Nina LaCour
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile (October 20, 2009)
Pages: 304
Posted on December 10, 2009 by katie the librarian
On an island of sandy beaches, dense jungles, and slumbering volcanoes, colonists seek to apply archaic laws to a new land, bounty hunters stalk the living for the ashes of their funerary pyres, and a smiling tribe is despised by all as traitorous murderers. It is here, in the midst of ancient tensions and new calamity, that two sisters are caught in a deadly web of deceits.
Arilou is proclaimed a beautiful prophetess—one of the island’s precious oracles: a Lost. Hathin, her junior, is her nearly invisible attendant. But neither Arilou nor Hathin is exactly what she seems, and they live a lie that is carefully constructed and jealously guarded.
When the sisters are unknowingly drawn into a sinister, island-wide conspiracy, quiet, unobtrusive Hathin must journey beyond all she has ever known of her world—and of herself—in a desperate attempt to save them both. As the stakes mount and falsehoods unravel, she discovers that the only thing more dangerous than the secret she hides is the truth she must uncover.
Title: The Lost Conspiracy
Author: Frances Hardinge
Publisher: HarperCollins (September 1, 2009)
Pages: 576
Posted on December 10, 2009 by katie the librarian
Samara Taylor used to believe in miracles. She used to believe in a lot of things. As a pastor’s kid, it’s hard not to buy in to the idea of the perfect family, a loving God, and amazing grace. But lately, Sam has a lot of reason to doubt. Her mother lands in rehab after a DUI and her father seems more interested in his congregation than his family. When a young girl in her small town is kidnapped, the local tragedy overlaps with Sam’s personal one, and the already-worn thread of faith holding her together begins to unravel.
Title: Once Was Lost
Author: Sara Zarr
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (October 1, 2009)
Pages: 224
