Friday, February 13, 2009

READ this Book! Digital Dares and Graveyards!


my friend, Adam Yeargin - Library Media Specialist from Bonnie Branch Middle School sent me this email!....

Little Brother

“A wonderful, important book…I’d recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I’ve read this year, and I’d want to get it into the hands of as many smart thirteen-year-olds, male and female, as I can. Because I think it’ll change lives. Because some kids, maybe just a few, won’t be the same after they’ve read it. Maybe they’ll change politically, maybe technologically. Maybe it’ll just be the first book they loved or that spoke to their inner geek. Maybe they’ll want to argue about it and disagree with it. Maybe they’ll want to open their computer and see what’s in there. I don’t know. It made me want to be thirteen again right now, and reading it for the first time.”

—Neil Gaiman, author of Sandman and American Gods on Little Brother"

i won't say when he sent this to me [coughAugustcough] so, i'm ordering it along with the Newberry Award Winning Book: Speaking of Neil Gaiman.....

"It takes a graveyard to raise a child. My favorite thing about this book was watching Bod grow up in his fine crumbly graveyard with his dead and living friends. The Graveyard Book is another surprising and terrific book from Neil Gaiman."
-- Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife


FINALLY a Newberry book i can actually get behind....i am SO gosh darn tempted to RANT about how i view the Newberry Awards and the Oscar Awards...sappy dramatic books/movies where someone has to get cancer or die....never something uplifting, exciting, or spooky!
But YAY! The Graveyard book is ALL that and a bag of bones....so adding to my Amazon.com cart is that book plus that Little Brother book...and not to be outdone by Adam back at ya, man!

READ THESE BOOKS!~ (trying to be artsy in my digi pics...don't snarf!)

The Steampunk (and geek) in me Loves
Brave New Words:
The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction

"Bottom Line:This admirable and unique source demonstrates on nearly every page the surprising extent to which the language of science fiction has entered everyday English-terms and concepts such as beam me up, cyberspace, downtime, gateway, morph, newspeak, robot, and space cadet. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries with an interest in science fiction."--Library Journal

and

Aliens Are Coming!: The True Account Of The 1938 War Of The Worlds Radio Broadcast

"In this picture-book account of the 1938 broadcast of Orson Welles's adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel, the author employs several creative methods to transport readers back to the heyday of radio. She leads into the story with a punchy introduction to the period, which is delivered in the form of a speech bubble by a smiling radio announcer. From there, black-and-white illustrations depict a family listening to an ordinary broadcast, which is interrupted by reports of an alien invasion. For the rest of the book, events described on the radio appear in lurid color illustrations reminiscent of old science-fiction magazines, while events in the real world remain in black and white. Excerpts from the actual radio play describe a vicious extraterrestrial attack, while the text describes the pandemonium ensuing outside the radio station and across the country. In the end, McCarthy reveals that the invasion was just a story, and an author's note gives a more detailed account of the play's creation and broadcast. In the spirit of the original, the author does not reveal the fact that the broadcast was actually a play until the end. This conceit would make the book a great read-aloud to introduce a unit on the 1930s. The interplay between the text of the play and the author's description of actual events is effective, and the illustrations are exaggerated and funny. A unique treatment of a fascinating topic, and sure to have wide appeal."

-Rachael Vilmar, Atlanta Fulton Public Library, GA

Take That, Mr. Yeargin!!! What?! You got anything ELSE to share~??? Bring it~!


LOL Murray Hill Rules!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You didn't ask my permission to use my likeness on your blog. You'll be hearing from my lawyer.

The Daring Librarian said...

I'm not afraid of any suits, Yeargin! I'm afraid your kids aren't going to read as many cool books as my kids! maybe we could start a cool book smackdown!