Open Book: January 15, 2016

Posted by BellaOnBooks - Weston Public Library

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 once 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 smitchill@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

Emperor of Any Place by Tim Wynne-Jones

When Evan’s father dies suddenly, he finds the book his father had been reading, a diary of a Japanese soldier stranded on a Pacific Island during World War II. There was also an American soldier stranded there.

Read an excerpt

Historical Fiction / Nonfiction

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans graphic novel by Don Brown

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina’s monstrous winds and surging water overwhelmed the protective levees around low-lying New Orleans, Louisiana. Eighty percent of the city flooded, in some places under twenty feet of water. Property damages across the Gulf Coast topped $100 billion. One thousand eight hundred and thirty-three people lost their lives. The tale of this historic storm and the drowning of an American city is one of selflessness, heroism, and courage — and also of incompetence, racism, and criminality. Don Brown’s kinetic art and as-it-happens narrative capture both the tragedy and triumph of one of the worst natural disasters in American history.

Read an excerpt

Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman

The planet Kerenza is attacked, and Kady and Ezra find themselves on a space fleet fleeing the enemy, while their ship’s artificial intelligence system and a deadly plague may be the end of them all.

Read an excerpt

Romance

Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern

Born with cerebral palsy, Amy can’t walk without a walker, talk without a voice box, or even fully control her facial expressions. Plagued by obsessive-compulsive disorder, Matthew is consumed with repeated thoughts, neurotic rituals, and crippling fear. Both in desperate need of someone to help them reach out to the world, Amy and Matthew are more alike than either ever realized. When Amy decides to hire student aides to help her in her senior year at Coral Hills High School, these two teens are thrust into each other’s lives. As they begin to spend time with each other, what started as a blossoming friendship eventually grows into something neither expected.

Read an excerpt

Listen to an interview with the author on WBUR

Buzz: Middle School

Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir by Margarita Engle

In this poetic memoir Engle, the first Latina woman to receive a Newbery Honor, tells of growing up as a child of two cultures during the Cold War. Her heart was in Cuba, her mother’s tropical island country, a place so lush with vibrant life that it seems like a fairy tale kingdom. But most of the time she lived in Los Angeles, lonely in the noisy city and dreaming of the summers when she can take a plane through the enchanted air to her beloved island. When the hostility between Cuba and the United States erupted at the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Engle’s worlds collided in the worst way possible. Would she ever get to visit her beautiful island again?

Read an excerpt

Buzz: High School

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

A teenage boy struggles with schizophrenia.

Read an excerpt

Open Book: November 20, 2015

Posted by BellaOnBooks - Weston Public Library

OPEN BOOK: AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER FOR TEENS from the Weston Public Library

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 Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz

Fourteen-year-old Joan Skraggs, just like the heroines in her beloved novels, yearns for real life and true love. But what hope is there for adventure, beauty, or art on a hardscrabble farm in Pennsylvania where the work never ends? Over the summer of 1911, Joan pours her heart out into her diary as she seeks a new, better life for herself–because maybe, just maybe, a hired girl cleaning and cooking for six dollars a week can become what a farm girl could only dream of–a woman with a future.

Read an excerpt

Historical Fiction / Nonfiction

Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin

The story of Daniel Ellsberg and his decision to steal and publish secret documents about America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.

Read an excerpt

Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction–if they don’t kill each other first.

Read an excerpt

Romance

Kissing in America by Margo Rabb

When she falls for a boy who moves to California without any warning, sixteen-year-old Eva and her best friend, Annie, set off on a road trip to the West Coast to see him again, confronting the complex truth about love along the way.

Read an excerpt, read the reviews and listen to an author interview

Buzz: Middle School

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Book 1: The Sword of Summer

Magnus Chase has seen his share of trouble. Ever since that terrible night two years ago when his mother told him to run, he has lived alone on the streets of Boston, surviving by his wits, staying one step ahead of the police and truant officers.

One day, Magnus learns that someone else is trying to track him down—his uncle Randolph, a man his mother had always warned him about. When Magnus tries to outmaneuver his uncle, he falls right into his clutches. Randolph starts rambling about Norse history and Magnus’s birthright: a weapon that has been lost for thousands years.

The more Randolph talks, the more puzzle pieces fall into place. Stories about the gods of Asgard, wolves, and Doomsday bubble up from Magnus’s memory. But he doesn’t have time to consider it all before a fire giant attacks the city, forcing him to choose between his own safety and the lives of hundreds of innocents. . . .

Sometimes, the only way to start a new life is to die.

Read an excerpt and watch the book trailer

Buzz: High School

Symphony for the City of the Dead by M.T. Anderson

An account of the Siege of Leningrad reveals the role played by Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich and his Leningrad Symphony in rallying and commemorating their fellow citizens.

Read an excerpt and read the WBUR story

Open Book: June 26, 2015

Posted by BellaOnBooks - Weston Public Library

OPEN BOOK: AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER FOR TEENS from the Weston Public Library

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

Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen

Sydney’s charismatic older brother Peyton has always been the center of attention in the family, but when he’s sent to jail, Sydney struggles to find her place at home and the world until she meets the Chathams, including gentle, protective Mac, who makes her feel seen for the first time.

Read an excerpt

Historical Fiction / Nonfiction

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pederson and the Churchill Club by Phillip Hoose

At the outset of World War II, Denmark did not resist German occupation. Deeply ashamed of his nation’s leaders, fifteen-year-old Knud Pedersen resolved with his brother and a handful of schoolmates to take action against the Nazis if the adults would not. Naming their secret club after the fiery British leader, the young patriots in the Churchill Club committed countless acts of sabotage, infuriating the Germans, who eventually had the boys tracked down and arrested. But their efforts were not in vain: the boys‘ exploits and eventual imprisonment helped spark a full-blown Danish resistance. Interweaving his own narrative with the recollections of Knud himself, here is Phil Hoose’s inspiring story of these young war heroes

Read an excerpt

Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Mosquitoland by David Arnold

When she learns that her mother is sick in Ohio, Mim confronts her demons on a thousand-mile odyssey from Mississippi that redefines her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane.

Read an excerpt

Romance

Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone

If you could read my mind, you wouldn’t be smiling.

Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can’t turn off.

Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn’t help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush. Yet Sam knows she’d be truly crazy to leave the protection of the most popular girls in school. So when Sam meets Caroline, she has to keep her new friend with a refreshing sense of humor and no style a secret, right up there with Sam’s weekly visits to her psychiatrist.

Read an excerpt

Buzz: Middle School

I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda

Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda met as pen pals in 1997 and are still best friends today.

NY Times Review
Read an excerpt

Buzz: High School

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

An historic literary event: the publication of a newly discovered novel, the earliest known work from Harper Lee, the beloved, bestselling author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Originally written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman was the novel Harper Lee first submitted to her publishers before To Kill a Mockingbird. Assumed to have been lost, the manuscript was discovered in late 2014.

Go Set a Watchman features many of the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird some twenty years later. Returning home to Maycomb to visit her father, Jean Louise Finch—Scout—struggles with issues both personal and political, involving Atticus, society, and the small Alabama town that shaped her.

Exploring how the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird are adjusting to the turbulent events transforming mid-1950s America, Go Set a Watchman casts a fascinating new light on Harper Lee’s enduring classic. Moving, funny and compelling, it stands as a magnificent novel in its own right.

Read an excerpt from To Kill a Mockingbird

Go Set a Watchman comes out on July 14. Request a copy today!

OPEN BOOK: April 17, 2015

Posted by BellaOnBooks - Weston Public Library

OPEN BOOK: AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER FOR TEENS from the Weston Public Library

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

A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman

In India, a girl who excels at Bharatanatyam dance refuses to give up after losing a leg in an accident.

Read an excerpt

Historical Fiction / Nonfiction

The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming

When Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II, inherited the throne in 1894, he was unprepared to do so. With their four daughters (including Anastasia) and only son, a hemophiliac, Nicholas and his reclusive wife, Alexandra, buried their heads in the sand, living a life of opulence as World War I raged outside their door and political unrest grew into the Russian Revolution. Deftly maneuvering between the lives of the Romanovs and the plight of Russia’s peasants and urban workers–and their eventual uprising–Fleming offers up a fascinating portrait, complete with inserts featuring period photographs and compelling primary-source material that brings it all to life.

Read an excerpt
Watch the book trailer

Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction

We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach

The lives of four high school seniors intersect weeks before a meteor is set to pass through Earth’s orbit, with a 66.6% chance of striking and destroying all life on the planet.

Read an excerpt

Romance

Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson

Taylor Edwards’ family might not be the closest-knit–everyone is a little too busy and overscheduled–but for the most part, they get along just fine. Then Taylor’s dad gets devastating news, and her parents decide that the family will spend one last summer all together at their old lake house in the Pocono Mountains. Crammed into a place much smaller and more rustic than they are used to, they begin to get to know each other again. And Taylor discovers that the people she thought she had left behind haven’t actually gone anywhere. Her former best friend is still around, as is her first boyfriend…and he’s much cuter at seventeen than he was at twelve. As the summer progresses and the Edwards become more of a family, they’re more aware than ever that they’re battling a ticking clock. Sometimes, though, there is just enough time to get a second chance–with family, with friends, and with love.

Read an excerpt

Watch the author talk about the book

Buzz: Middle School

Drums, Girls, & Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick

When his younger brother is diagnosed with leukemia, thirteen-year-old Steven tries to deal with his complicated emotions, his school life, and his desire to support his family.

Read an excerpt

Buzz: High School

Hunt for the Bamboo Rat by Graham Salisbury

Zenji Watanabe, seventeen, is sent from Hawaii to the Philippines to spy on the Japanese during World War II and, after he is captured and tortured, must find a way to survive months of being lost in the jungle behind enemy lines.

Read an excerpt

OPEN BOOK: February 27, 2015

Posted by BellaOnBooks - Weston Public Library

OPEN BOOK: AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER FOR TEENS from the Weston Public Library

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

This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki (graphic novel)

Rose and her parents have been going to Awago Beach since she was a little girl. It’s her summer getaway, her refuge. Her friend Windy is always there, too, like the little sister she never had, completing her summer family. But this summer is different. Rose’s mom and dad won’t stop fighting, and Rose and Windy have gotten tangled up in a tragedy-in-the-making in the small town of Awago Beach. It’s a summer of secrets and heartache, and it’s a good thing Rose and Windy have each other.

Read an excerpt from this Printz Honor and Caldecott Honor book

Historical Fiction / Nonfiction

Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery

As the youngest marcher in the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Albama, Lynda Blackmon Lowery proved that young adults can be heroes. Jailed eleven times before her fifteenth birthday, Lowery fought alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. for the rights of African-Americans. In this memoir, she shows today’s young readers what it means to fight nonviolently (even when the police are using violence, as in the Bloody Sunday protest) and how it felt to be part of changing American history.

Read an excerpt

Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Insignia by S. J. Kincaid

Tom, a fourteen-year-old genius at virtual reality games, is recruited by the United States Military to begin training at the Pentagon Spire as a Combatant in World War III, controlling the mechanized drones that do the actual fighting off-planet.

Read an excerpt

Romance

The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider

Star athlete and prom king Ezra Faulkner’s life is irreparably transformed by a tragic accident and the arrival of eccentric new girl Cassidy Thorpe.

Read an excerpt

Buzz: Middle School

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

Fourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health.

Read an excerpt

Buzz: High School

Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by Christine Heppermann

Every little girl goes through her princess phase, whether she wants to be Snow White or Cinderella, Belle or Ariel. But then we grow up. And life is not a fairy tale.Christine Heppermann’s collection of fifty poems puts the ideals of fairy tales right beside the life of the modern teenage girl. With piercing truths reminiscent of Laurie Halse Anderson and Ellen Hopkins, this is a powerful and provocative book for every young woman. E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars, calls it “a bloody poetic attack on the beauty myth that’s caustic, funny, and heartbreaking.”Cruelties come not just from wicked stepmothers, but also from ourselves. There are expectations, pressures, judgment, and criticism. Self-doubt and self-confidence. But there are also friends, and sisters, and a whole hell of a lot of power there for the taking. In fifty poems, Christine Heppermann confronts society head on. Using fairy tale characters and tropes, Poisoned Apples explores how…

Read an excerpt

Open Book: December 5, 2014

Posted by BellaOnBooks - Weston Public Library

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 smitchill@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

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

A story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal told from different points in time, and in separate voices, by artists Jude and her twin brother Noah.

Read an excerpt

Find out what all the praise is about…

“This is the big one—the blazing story of once inseparable twins whose lives are torn apart by tragedy.”—Entertainment Weekly, “5 YA Novels to Watch Out For”

“Have you ever wanted to put a book in all of your friends’ hands? This is that kind of book . . . Heartbreakingly honest.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Bold, even breathtaking. You get the sense [the] characters are bursting through the words, breaking free of normal metaphors and constructions, jubilantly trying to rise up from the prison of language . . . The book celebrates art’s capacity to heal, but it also shows us how we excavate meaning from the art we cherish, and how we find reflections of ourselves within it. . . . I’ll Give You the Sun is a dazzling mirror”—Lauren Oliver for the New York Times Book Review*”

A resplendent novel…Art and wonder fill each page.”—School Library Journal, starred review

*”Nelson’s prose is replete with moments of stunning emotional clarity, and her characters are as irresistible to the reader as they are to each other . . . No matter how they hurt each other, the love among all the characters is huge here—huge enough to destroy, huge enough to forgive, and huge enough to put their broken world back together again.”—BCCB, starred review

“The novel is structurally brilliant, moving back and forth across timelines to reveal each teen’s respective exhilaration and anguish . . . Nelson’s prose scintillates . . . dizzyingly visual . . . Here’s a narrative experience readers won’t soon forget.”—Kirkus

“Told in poetic prose with the barest hint of magical realism . . . a compelling meditation on love, grief, sexuality, family, and fate.”—Horn Book”

I’ll Give You the Sun is a daydream . . . otherworldly and mesmerizing . . . Nelson’s evocative language envelops one’s imagination . . . an exquisite surrender to wonder and possibilities.”—The Boston Globe”

It’s a meditation on life, art, family, fate, and how even the most broken people can help fix one another . . . This book will tear through you like a hurricane, leaving you in ruined awe.”—Huffington Post

Historical Fiction / Nonfiction

Unbroken: An Olympian’s Journey from Airman to Castaway to Captive by Laura Hillenbrand

The young adult adaptation of Hillenbrand’s Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

On a May afternoon in 1943, an American military plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary sagas of the Second World War.

The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. As a boy, he had been a clever delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and stealing. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a supreme talent that carried him to the Berlin Olympics. But when war came, the athlete became an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a sinking raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would respond to desperation with ingenuity, suffering with hope and humor, brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would hang on the fraying wire of his will.

In this captivating young adult edition of her award-winning #1 New York Times bestseller, Laura Hillenbrand tells the story of a man’s breathtaking odyssey and the courage, cunning, and fortitude he found to endure and overcome. Lavishly illustrated with more than one hundred photographs and featuring an exclusive interview with Zamperini, Unbroken will introduce a new generation to one of history’s most thrilling survival epics.

“Every young person should have the chance to read this book. It’s easy to think, growing up, that bravery is for other people, who are simply born heroic. But nothing about Louis marked him out for greatness. He started out as a misfit and troublemaker, but became a great man because of his choices. His story shows that everyone has the potential to rise above obstacles. It is not where you start out in life that counts the most, it is how you choose to face it.”—Angelina Jolie

Read an excerpt

Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction

The Young Elites by Marie Lu

Adelina Amouteru survived the blood fever, a deadly illness that killed many, but left others with strange markings and supernatural powers. Cast out by her family, Adelina joins the secret society of the Young Elites and discovers her own dangerous abilities.

Read an excerpt

Romance

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

Born with bird wings, Ava Lavender is well aware that love has long made fools of her family. When pious Nathaniel Sorrows mistakes her bird wings for angel wings, 16-year-old Ava faces the man’s growing obsession, which comes to a head with the rain and feathers that fly through the air during a nighttime summer solstice celebration.

Read the first chapter

Buzz: Middle School

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

The author shares her childhood memories and reveals the first sparks that ignited her writing career in free-verse poems about growing up in the North and South.

Winner 2014 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature
Read an excerpt

Buzz: High School

Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

Jam Gallahue, fifteen, unable to cope with the loss of her boyfriend Reeve, is sent to a therapeutic boarding school in Vermont, where a journal-writing assignment for an exclusive, mysterious English class transports her to the magical realm of Belzhar, where she and Reeve can be together.

Read an excerpt

Open Book: October 17, 2014

Posted by BellaOnBooks - Weston Public Library

OPEN BOOK: AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER FOR
TEENS from the Weston Public Library

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

Let’s Get Lost by Adi Alsaid

During her cross-country adventures following the tragic death of her family, Leila touches the lives of four strangers — Hudson, Bree, Elliot, and Sonia. While forever changing the lives of these four, Leila also discovers an important truth about herself.

Read the first 70 pages

Historical Fiction / Nonfiction

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens (2014 edition) by Sean Covey

Explores the adolescent years and draws on extensive research to offer teens practical ways to cope with such important issues as peers, parents, relationships, school choices, and the future.

Read an excerpt

Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire

In 1905 czarist Russia, an impoverished country girl Elena and the aristocratic Ekatrina meet and set in motion an escapade that includes mistaken identity, a monk locked in a tower, a prince traveling incognito, and the witch Baba Yaga.

Read an excerpt

Read the first 50 pages

Romance

Like No Other by Una LaMarche

Though their relationship is strictly forbidden, Devorah and Jax arrange secret meetings and risk everything to be together. But how far can they possibly go? Just how much are they willing to give up?

Read an excerpt

Buzz: Middle School

The Great Greene Heist by Varian Johnson

Jackson Greene has a reputation as a prankster at Maplewood Middle School, but after the last disaster he is trying to go straight–but when it looks like Keith Sinclair may steal the election for school president from Jackson’s former best friend Gabriela, he assembles a team to make sure Keith does not succeed.

Read an excerpt

Buzz: High School

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Spending the summers on her family’s private island off the coast of Massachusetts with her cousins and a special boy named Gat, teenaged Cadence struggles to remember what happened during her fifteenth summer.

Read an excerpt

Open Book: March 14, 2014

Posted by BellaOnBooks - Weston Public Library

OPEN BOOK: AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER FOR
TEENS from the Weston Public Library

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

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah’s voice recounting the events leading up to her death.

Read an excerpt

Read reader reactions to this bestselling novel

Historical Fiction / Nonfiction

The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin

Presents an account of the 1944 civil rights protest involving hundreds of African-American Navy servicemen who were unjustly charged with mutiny for refusing to work in unsafe conditions after the deadly Port Chicago explosion.

Read an excerpt from National Book Award Finalist Steve Sheinkin

Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Half Bad by Sally Green

In modern-day England, where witches live alongside humans, Nathan, son of a White witch and the most powerful Black witch, must escape captivity before his seventeenth birthday and receive the gifts that will determine his future.

Read an excerpt

Watch the book trailer

Romance

The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski

An aristocratic girl who is a member of a warmongering and enslaving empire purchases a slave, an act that sets in motion a rebellion that might overthrow her world as well as her heart.

Read an excerpt

Buzz: Middle School

The False Prince by Jennifer Nielson

In the country of Carthya, a devious nobleman engages four orphans in a brutal competition to be selected to impersonate the king’s long-missing son in an effort to avoid a civil war.

Read an excerpt

Buzz: High School

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits–smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

See what book made John Green say “Eleanor & Park reminded me not just what it’s like to be young and in love with a girl, but also what it’s like to be young and in love with a book.” The New York Times Book Review

Read an excerpt

OPEN BOOK: February 14, 2014

Posted by BellaOnBooks - Weston Public Library

OPEN BOOK: AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER FOR
TEENS from the Weston Public Library

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

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda’s freshman year in high school.

Read an excerpt from this National Book Award Finalist

Historical Fiction / Nonfiction

The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible…on Schindler’s List by Leon Leyson

The biography of Leon Leyson, the only memoir published by a former Schindler’s List child.

Read an excerpt

Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Crater: A Helium 3 Novel by Homer Hickam

In the twenty-second century, sixteen-year-old Crater Trueblood, who mines the moon for Helium-3 to produce energy for a desperate, war-torn Earth, undertakes a deadly mission that could mean the difference between life and death for every inhabitant on the moon.

From the author of Rocket Boys

Read an excerpt

Watch the book trailer

Romance

Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier

Sixteen-year-old Gwyneth discovers that she, rather than her well-prepared cousin, carries a time-travel gene, and soon she is journeying with Gideon, who shares the gift, through historical London trying to discover whom they can trust.

Read an excerpt from this international bestseller

Buzz: Middle School

Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool

Odyssey-like adventure of two boys’ incredible quest on the Appalachian Trail where they deal with pirates, buried secrets, and extraordinary encounters.

“Just the sort of book that saves lives by igniting a passion for reading.” –James Patterson

2014 Printz Honor Book, An ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection, An ALA-ALSC Notable Children’s Book, A New York Times Editor’s Choice, A New York Times Middle Grade Bestseller, An Indie Pick , A School Library Journal Best Books 2013, A Kirkus Best Book, A Booklist Books for Youth Editors’ Choice Selection, A BookPage Best Children’s Book, A Texas Lone Star Reading List Selection

Read an excerpt

Buzz: High School

Muckers by Sandra Neil Wallace

Felix O’Sullivan, standing in the shadow of his dead brother, an angry, distant father, and racial tension, must lead the last-ever Muckers high school football team to the state championship before a mine closing shuts down his entire town.

Read an excerpt

OPEN BOOK: January 10, 2013

Posted by BellaOnBooks - Weston Public Library

OPEN BOOK: AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER FOR TEENS
from the Weston Public Library

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

Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Children by Ransom Riggs

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was the surprise best seller of 2011—an unprecedented mix of YA fantasy and vintage photography that enthralled readers and critics alike. Publishers Weekly called it “an enjoyable, eccentric read, distinguished by well-developed characters, a believable Welsh setting, and some very creepy monsters.”

This second novel begins in 1940, immediately after the first book ended. Having escaped Miss Peregrine’s island by the skin of their teeth, Jacob and his new friends must journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. Along the way, they encounter new allies, a menagerie of peculiar animals, and other unexpected surprises.

Complete with dozens of newly discovered (and thoroughly mesmerizing) vintage photographs, this new adventure will delight readers of all ages.

Read an excerpt

Historical Fiction

The Right Fight (WW2#1) by Chris Lynch

The author of the acclaimed Vietnam series sets his sights on World War II.

There are few things Roman loves as much as baseball, but his country is at the top of the list. So when it looks like the United States will be swept up into World War II, he turns his back on baseball and joins the US Army.

Roman doesn’t mind. As it turns out, he is far more talented with a tank than he ever was with a baseball. And he is eager to drive his tank right into the field of battle, where the Army is up against the fearsome Nazis of the Afrika Korps.

The North African terrain is like nothing Roman has ever known, and desert warfare proves brutal. As Roman drives his team deeper into disputed territory, one thing becomes very clear: Life in wartime is a whole new ball game.

Read an excerpt

Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Panic by Lauren Oliver

In the poor town of Carp, New York, a group of teens enters a high-stakes game that involves a series of secretive, possibly deadly challenges throughout the summer, with the winner receiving more than $50,000–enough money to start a new life.

Watch Lauren Oliver read the first chapter. Panic is coming out on March 4.

Romance

Shadows by Robin McKinley

Magic is illegal in Newworld, so Maggie struggles to explain the strange shadows–that only she can see–that seem to accompany her new stepfather everywhere.

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Buzz: Middle School

The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb

Recounts how, sixteen years after the end of World War II, a team of undercover Israeli agents captured the Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, in a remote area of Argentina and brought him to trial in Israel for crimes committed during the Holocaust.

Read an excerpt

Buzz: High School

The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson

Hayley Kincaid and her father move back to their hometown to try a “normal” life, but the horrors he saw in the war threaten to destroy their lives.

Read the first six chapters here