Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains (Simon & Schuster)
Kathi Appelt, The Underneath (Atheneum)
Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied (Scholastic)
E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (Hyperion)
Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now (Alfred A. Knopf)Of these five, I've read (and loved) three. And I'll certainly be getting my hands on What I Saw and How I Lied and The Spectacular Now at my earliest opportunity.
I found out via Jocelyn that ALA has announced the Teens' Top Ten List:
No surprises there and I'm particularly happy to see Before I Die on that list, as that was one of my favorites of last year.
- Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
- Vampire Academy by Rachel Mead
- Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports by James Patterson
- City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
- The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
- Extras by Scott Westerfeld
- Before I Die by Jenny Downham
- Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
Speaking of spectacular booklists, the lists of the Cybils nominees are up! There are 136 nominees in the YA Fiction category, so I'll be a busy little librarian for the next couple of months! Certainly the Cybils shortlists will be excellent resources for book recommendations, but there's something to be said for the nominee lists as well. Although some of them won't be your cup of tea, it's a great starting place if you need to, say, come up with some middle grade novels or picture book nonfiction books for booktalks.
And speaking of booktalks, The YA YA YAs have a post up about booktalking tips that you'll want to check out. I'll heartily second Trisha's advice to find your own style (there's not one way to deliver a perfect booktalk... do what works for you and what you are comfortable with) and Gayle's advice to practice, practice, practice! From my own bag of tricks, I'll add that what I try to do with booktalks is to find the hook... When you started reading the book, what made you keep reading it? What made it interesting to you? What built suspense?
Lastly, I want to report that the ALSC blog will have a new feature starting in November: "Things I Didn't Learn in Library School..." ALSC bloggers will post about things they've learned since being on the job and anyone is welcome to submit anecdotes (head over to their post to share). It's certain to be useful and probably amusing, so I'll be on the lookout for those posts.