OPEN BOOK: AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER FOR TEENS
from the Weston Public Library
Open Book is an email newsletter of book recommendations for teens. It is sent twice a month and includes book excerpts in six teen fiction categories (realistic fiction, historical fiction, action/ adventure/fantasy/science fiction, romance, the buzz: middle school, and the buzz: high school). If you wish to subscribe to Open Book, please email smatathia@minlib.net or sign up in person at the Youth Services desk at the Library. Open Book email newsletters are also archived here on our blog.
Here are the picks for this week…
Don’t forget to click on the title to be connected to our catalog where you can
-Request the book
-Read reviews of the book from multiple sources
Realistic Fiction
The Final Four by Paul Volponi
Four players at the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament struggle with the pressures of tournament play and the expectations of society at large.
See excerpt
The Firefly Letters by Margarita Engle
Draws on little-known Cuban history to tell a stirring story in poetry. Based on the diaries and letters of Swedish suffragist Fredrika Bremer, who spent three months in Cuba in 1851, the story focuses on oppressed women, the privileged as well as the enslaved, in three alternating free-verse narratives.
See excerpt
Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction
The Obsidian Blade by Pete Hautman
After thirteen-year-old Tucker Feye’s parents disappear, he suspects that the strange disks of shimmering air that he keeps seeing are somehow involved, and when he steps inside of one he is whisked on a time-twisting journey trailed by a shadowy sect of priests and haunted by ghostlike figures.
See excerpt
Sisters of Glass by Stephanie Hemphill
Maria is the younger daughter of an esteemed family on the island of Murano, the traditional home for Venetian glassmakers. Though she longs to be a glassblower herself, glassblowing is not for daughters-that is her brother’s work. Maria has only one duty to perform for her family: before her father died, he insisted that she be married into the nobility, even though her older sister, Giovanna, should rightfully have that role. Not only is Giovanna older, she’s prettier, more graceful, and everyone loves her.
See excerpt
A Beautiful Friendship by David Weber
Twelve-year-old Stephanie Harrington, a genetically-enhanced girl on the pioneer planet of Sphinx, bonds with a treecat, a telepathic and fully sentient animal, putting her in danger from highly placed enemies who want to ensure that the planet remains entirely in human hands.
See excerpt
Ripper by Stefan Petrucha
Adopted by famous Pinkerton Agency Detective Hawking in 1895 New York, fourteen-year-old Carver Young hopes to find his birth father, but when he becomes involved in the pursuit of notorious killer Jack the Ripper, Carver discovers that finding the truth can be worse than ignorance.
See excerpt
July 1, 2012 at 9:44 pm |
I am trying to remember the title and author of a juvenile fiction book I read in the early 1970′s. The story is about a miniature or miniaturized boy who has to go on a mission, riding in a cockpit strapped to a seagull or another kind of bird, flying across an ocean, to steal an extremely powerful explosive capsule of some kind from a mad dictator or scientist.
July 12, 2012 at 2:55 pm |
I’m not sure what your book is…but I’ll keep thinking! It does sound familiar, and I can almost picture the cover. If we have it, I may come across it while shelving.