Book Trailer for ARTICHOKE'S HEART, by Suzanne Supplee (Original Post was on March 6, 2009)

This trailer for ARTICHOKE'S HEART by Suzanne Supplee was created by Mrs. Schauer. It is appropriate for middle grades and up and there is an AR quiz available for the book.

PRETTY LITTLE LIARS, by Sara Shepard posted by Mrs. Schauer

PRETTY LITTLE LIARS
by Sara Shepard
AR: yes
Interest Level: Upper Grades


Last year, one of our seniors, Hannah, begged me to buy all the books in this series...but our budget was completely GONE by the time she asked, so I had to wait until this year to get them. Every person who has read this book,has also flown through the next three in the series, one after the other, so I knew it was a book I needed to read! (Not only that, Hailee read it in two days...so I knew it had to be a page-turner)

I took Hailee, Savannah, Ashlynn and Amy to Fiesta Texas during spring break, and decided to take this book along for company. (How can you tell a high school librarian from a regular person at Six Flags? She's the one reading a YA book in the ride lines!)

From the first few pages, I could definitely see why everyone's reading the series! It's a fast-paced, tension building mystery with lots of catty girl stuff and high dollar fashion thrown in. The "pretty little liars" the title refers to are: Spencer, Hannah, Aria, and Emily--four girls who were all part of a clique in the 7th grade, led and controlled by Alison...who mysteriously disappeared on the last day of school, never to be heard from again. All of the girls harbor secrets...secrets about their parents, about horrible accidents, about infidelity, sexual indescretions, eating disorders...and more. They are bound by their secrets, and the fact that their leader took the most serious of them with her when she disappeared.

It's been four years since Alison disappeared. The girls, now in their junior year of high school, have drifted apart. There are new secrets piled on top of those from the past...each girl is hiding something. When they each begin recieving text messages and emails from "A," the mystery deepens. Could Alison be alive, watching them? If she's back....has she brought their secrets back with her?

I want to read all of the books in this series...Hailee has the second book now...but I'll have to buy them on my Kindle, or put myself on the waiting list for the library copies!

ARTICHOKE'S HEART, by Suzanne Supplee posted by Mrs. Schauer

ARTICHOKE'S HEART
by Suzanne Supplee
AR: Yes
Interest Level: Middle and Upper Grades

I picked this book up at TLA (Texas Library Association's Conference) almost a year ago. I was so excited about getting it, and then for some reason it took me until now to read it--but I'm so glad I finally did. Since I got an "advanced reader copy" I don't have it on the shelves yet, but it's already been ordered, so it should be here soon--and I'm sure when it gets here it won't spend a lot of time on the shelf.
Rosemary Goode (Rosie to the people who love her) has always been overweight--well, not just overweight--she's always been fat. She got the nickname "Artichoke" in the sixth grade, when she got a new winter coat in an awful shade of green--and the cruel girls at school said she looked like a giant artichoke. Raised by a single mom who got pregnant in high school, she's always soothed herself with food--until one day, she decides enough is enough. This book follows her journey, from being harassed by the popular girls at school, to getting her first boyfriend, and dealing with her mom's battle with cancer--her story is chronicled in the pages. As the pounds melt away, the reader gets to see Rosie come into her own and develop into a better, stronger version of the person who's always been there on the inside. I don't want to give too much of the story away, but I do want to encourage everyone to read it--it's a fantastic story.

SLAM, by Nick Hornby Posted by Mrs. Schauer

SLAM, by Nick Hornby
AR: Yes
Interest Level: Upper Grades

When I first picked this book up, I was browsing the YA aisle at Barnes and Noble, looking for hot new reads for my increasingly insatiable readers at PHS. I read on the jacket that it was about a boy who deals with the perplexities of his life by conversing with Tony Hawk, via a poster of the skating virtuoso that hangs on his wall. Now, for the part that is going to make the fact that I'm OLD glaringly obvious....for some reason, I deduced that Tony Hawk was a hockey player...and promptly put it back on the shelf. Living in South Texas, I couldn't imagine that many of my young adult patrons would clamor to read about a teenage skating aficionado who waxes philosophical with an image on a poster. At some point, a few months later, I heard someone say "Tony Hawk" and was like, "I didn't know you like Hockey." My daughter, who was in the library at the time, rolled her eyes, and said, "OMG Mom...seriously? Tony Hawk isn't a HOCKEY PLAYER...he's a skater" (or something like that) Well, that comment, aside from making me feel ancient and out of touch (when did I turn into my mother?) also made me realize that I needed to purchase this book for my library. The book is on order, so I couldn't "read" it, so I did the next best thing--I downloaded the audio book and listened to it on a road trip. While it wasn't exactly my cup of tea, I think it is sure to be a hit with some of the guys in our library.

SLAM is a slang term used by skaters to describe a wipe-out while attempting a trick. (terms I also learned while listening) It's about a fifteen year old skater (who worships Tony Hawk...he would even swear on his autobiography, which he describes as his Bible) who finds himself free-falling in slow motion toward the most harrowing slam of his life--finding out that his girlfriend is pregnant. While trying to deal with the emotional upheaval of becoming a father at fifteen, he begins talking to a poster of his hero--and the hero talks back, offering advice, and even swooshing him into the future a couple of times--kind of like fast-forward glimpses into what fatherhood will hold for him. It's a quick read (7 hour listen) and is full of funny as well as poignant moments. I don't think this one is going to spend a lot of time on my shelves.