Book Recommendation

Metamorphosis (Graphic Novel)

by Franz Kafka and adapted in a Graphic Novel
by Peter Kuper

This week I read the graphic novel version of Franz Kafka’s short story The Metamorphosis. Peter Kuper both adapted the story and illustrated the graphic novel. Having never read the short story myself, I cannot compare it to the original. I really did though enjoy the graphic novel.

The story is about a traveling salesman named Gregor Samsa who hates his job. He works hard and supports his parents and his sister Grete. One morning he wakes up to find himself transformed into a large insect. His family is repulsed by him, thought they still love him. As an insect his spends much of his time hiding under the furniture in his bedroom, staying out of the way of his family who do not want to see him. Will Gregor stay an insect forever? Will his family be able to support themselves now that Gregor cannot work? Find out the answers to these questions and immerse yourself in an interesting story. Read The Metamorphosis the graphic novel.

Teen Top 10 Books

YALSA's 2008 Teens' Top Ten
The vote is in! More than 8,000 teens voted on this year's winners. The 2008 Teens' Top Ten is:

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 Richelle 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

About the Teens' Top Ten*

Teens' Top Ten is a "teen choice" list, where teens nominate and choose their favorite books of the previous year! Nominators are members of teen book groups in fifteen school and public libraries around the country. Nominations are posted in April during National Library Week, and teens across the country vote on their favorite titles each year during Teen Read Week.

*This list is taken directly from the YALSA Website (also know as Young Adult Library Services Association)

DIY-Do It Yourself

The joy making something with your own hands is something everyone should experience. Sometimes we might use materials that we can find around our home, other times we have to go out and buy the materials (or search for them). Here are some books that might inspire you to make or create things. These books might even provide ideas of things you can make for other people to give as gifts. So go ahead, give it a try!

Cooking

Cooking up a storm / Sam Stern, with Susan Stern

Designing Clothing/ Jewelry

Hardwear : jewelry from a toolbox / Hannah Rogge

Rip it! : how to deconstruct and reconstruct the clothes of your dreams / Elissa Meyrich

99 ways to cut, sew, trim & tie your t-shirt into something special / Faith Blakeney

Sew subversive : down & dirty DIY for the fabulous fashionista / Melissa Rannels, Melissa Alvarado, Hope Meng

The hip handbag book : 25 easy-to-make totes, purses, and bags / by Sherri Haab

Fashion DIY : 30 ways to craft your own style / Carrie Blaydes and Nicole Smith

Second-time cool : the art of chopping up a sweater / Anna-Stina Lindén Ivarsson

Knitting

Teen knitting club : chill out and knit / Jennifer Wenger, Carol Abrams, Maureen Lasher

Knitgrrl 2 : learn to knit with 16 all-new patterns / Shannon Okey

Photography and Making Movies

My so-called digital life : 2,000 teenagers, 300 cameras, and 30 days to document their world / created by Bob Pletka

Duct Tape

The jumbo duct tape book / Jim and Tim

Ductigami : the art of the tape / Joe Wilson

Got tape? : roll out the fun with duct tape / Ellie Schiedermayer

Drawing Manga/ Creating Graphic Novels

Making comics : storytelling secrets of comics, manga and graphic novels / Scott McCloud

Fantasy! cartooning / Ben Caldwell

Manga Mania: Chibi and Furry Characters: How to Draw the Adorable Mini-Characters and Cool Cat Girls of Japanese Comics

Household Repairs

Popular mechanics when duct tape just isn't enough : quick fixes for everyday disasters / by C.J. Petersen

Technology to Try

Recently, I started using the photo sharing site Flickr as part of my library work. Flickr is way to share pictures with friends and the outside public. Users can decide between making their photo’s public or just sharing their photos with friends or groups. Here is the website if you would like to see what it is all about: http://www.flickr.com/.

If you would like to learn more about Flickr check out these useful links:
Flickr Learn More tour (6 steps)
Mediamazine Flickr Tutorials
Flickr: Popular tags

Flickr Services (3rd party applications & mashups)

Or Learn More about Flickr in this book:

Flickr hacks by Paul Bausch and Jim Bumg

So go ahead, explore the site and have some Flickr photo fun.

PS: A quick word about photo posting etiquette - When posting identifiable photos of other people it is a good idea to get the person’s permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload pictures that weren’t taken by you (unless you have the photographer’s consent) and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else if you choose to use the pictures in a blog.




I wanted to share with you a something I made using a flickr mashup. Using FD’s Flickr Toys I made this fake magazine cover using a photo of the Dragon Wagon Library van.

by Katie at the Chester County Library

Go Phillies!

How About those Phillies? If you are interested in reading about the Phillies check out these titles!

Books About the Phillies

The Phillies encyclopedia by Rich Westcott (2004)

The fall of the 1977 Phillies : how a baseball team's collapse sank a city's spirit by Mitchell Nathanson

Phillies essential : everything you need to know to be a real fan by Rich Westcott (2006)

The Phillies Reader by edited by Richard Orodenker (2005)

Almost a dynasty : the rise and fall of the 1980 Phillies by William C. Kashatus

The story of the Philadelphia Phillies by Michael E. Goodman.

Movie about the Phillies

The Vet [DVD] : the complete history of Phillies baseball at Veterans Stadium / Philadelphia Phillies ; written and produced by Dan Stephenson.

Vampire Books

Do you have a thirst to read about the blood thirsty?
Check out some of these books with bite:


The Last Vampire by Christopher Pike

Bloodline by Kate Cary

Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan

Dark Disciple by Margaret Weis

Glass Houses by Rachel Caine

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld

The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause

Sweetblood by Pete Hautman

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Chibi Vampire by Yuna Kagesaki

Descendents of Darkness by Yoko Matsushita

30 Days of Night by Steve Niles

Magazines at your library

Did you know that your library has magazines you might enjoy. Here are some magazines that are popular with teens:

Cosmo Girl
Entertainment Weekly
Game Informer
Mad
J-14
Seventeen
Shojo Beat
Shonen Jump
Teen
Teen People
Teen Vogue
Teen Voices
Thrasher
Sports Illustrated
Guitar Player

Guys Read

Hey, guys out there. Are you looking for something to read? Check out http://www.guysread.com/

This is a great website developed by Jon Scieszka author of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales. The website features book suggestions for guys aged preschool through adult. One of the other nice features is with the Find a Book Link users can find book suggestions by typing in a book title author, or subject they like or are interested in finding out about.

Here are a few of the suggestions from the website for teen guys:


Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Celebrate Your Freedom to Read

This year’s Banned Books week takes place September 27-October 4th 2008. This annual celebration reminds people not to take their democratic freedom to read for granted. Take some time to celebrate your freedom to read.

Here are some books that have been challenged frequently:

Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes

His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman (including The Golden Compass)

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher

What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Awesome Sports Books Part 3

Westling
Wrestling Sturbridge. 2001. Rich Wallace.
Ben decides to challenge a friend for his spot on the first string team during his senior year wrestling season.

Basketball
Ball Don’t Lie. 2007. Matt De La Pena
Sticky loves nothing more than playing basketball at the rec center he goes to in Los Angeles. It seems like he might be headed for the pros but first he has to get past the obstacles in his path.

Counting Coup: A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn. 2001. Larry Colton
Check out this true story where the author follows the around the high school girl’s basketball team in Crow, Montana. The team’s star Sharon Laforge, who native American, is extremely talented but her hopes for a college scholarship are threatened by her homelife.

Dance
Rhysmyth. Illus. by Lincy Chan. 2007. Anthony Andora
Check out this graphic novel about the America’s newest sport Rhysmyth, one-on-one dance battles on top of a glass court. Elena gets her groove on after she joins to enhance her college applications.

Extreme Sports
Extreme Sports: In Search of the Ultimate Thrill. 2004. Joe Tomlinson and Ed Leigh
This books is a great place for information about extreme sports like base jumping, ice climbing and street luge.

Awesome Sports Books Part 2

Cheerleading
I Was a Non-Blonde Cheerleader. 2007. Kiernan Scott
Annisa tries to not lose her identity after she moves to Florida school where almost all of her classmates are blonde.

NASCAR
NASCAR Now! 2006. Timothy Miller
Find out more about NASCAR racing in this book.

Baseball
Heat. 2006. Mike Lupica
Pitcher Michael Arroyo is banned from Little League because the coaches do not believe he is only twelve. He does not have parents to prove it either.

The Boyfriend League. 2007. Rachel Hawthorn
Dani hopes to find romance when her family hosts summer league baseball players.

Hockey
Open Ice. 2007. Pat Hughes
After another concussion it looks like Nick Taglio will never play high school hockey again. Will this setback sideline him from living his life or will he rise to the challenges life offers?

Surfing
Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board. 2006. Bethany Hamilton
Check out this true story of a surfer girl who goes back to her sport after a shark attack.

Awesome Sports Books Part 1

Fall will be here on Sunday and with it the cooler weather. Fall is a great time to play sports or read books about sports. No matter your sport we have some great suggestions for you.

Soccer
Soccer Chick Rules. 2007. Dawn FitzGerald
Tess becomes involved in local politics while trying to save sports at her school.

Football
Dairy Queen. 2007. Catherine Murdock
D.J. spends the summer training the quarterback of the school’s football team then decides to try out herself.

No More Dead Dogs. 2000. Gordan Korman
Eighth grade football hero Wallace Wallace is taken off the football team when he complains about always being assigned books where the dog dies in the end. Unfortunately, he is assigned to an after school detention in the auditorium where they are producing a play about the same book that got him in trouble “Old Shep, My Pal.”

Tennis
Prince of Tennis Volume 1. 2004. Takeshi Konomi
Ryoma Echizen comes to his new school in Japan with awesome tennis skills, then challenges the rules of the school in this graphic novel.

Swimming
Head Above Water. 2003. S.L. Rottman
Sky deals with a lot in her life including competitive swimming, a brother who has Down’s Syndrome and having her first boyfriend.

Live Homework Help

Is everyone happy to be back in school? There are many fun things about the school year like seeing friends and hanging out but going to school in most cases also means that there is homework to do. Have you ever had a homework question but did not have someone right there you could ask for help? Well, that is why there is a service called Live Homework Help. Live homework help is available from 4-10pm seven days a week.

To use it go to the Chester County Library System webpage at http://www.ccls.org/ Click on the icon for Live Homework Help. You will be connected with a teacher who can help you. This service specializes in English, Math, Social Studies and Science as well as science and math instruction in Spanish. College and adult learners can also use this service.

Good luck!

New Books

These Just In:

Masquerade- Melissa De La Cruz

Chibi Vampire v. 1-4- Yuna Kagesaki

Whistle- 17,18, 19

Bone- Ghost Circles- vol. 7
Airman- Eoin Colfer

Diabolo 1,2,3
Before I Die- Jenny Downham
Chiggers- Hope Larson (Eisner Award Winner)

Get Well Soon- Julie Halpern

November Blues- Sharon Draper

Who Are You

I wanted to take some time to find out more about the people who read this blog. Today I have two questions for you. Feel free to post comments to answer the questions

1) Have you ever heard of Teen Second life? If so have you ever used it?

2) Would you use a video game to study for the SAT’s if it were designed to help you do better?

The reason I am asking question number two is because Kaplan is scheduled to release a game called FutureU for pc, Mac, and Nintendo DS platforms on October 23rd. The game would have over 1,200 questions spread out over 4 forms. I want to know if this is something you would play if it were available to borrow at the library.

Katie G, CCL

YALSA Best Books For Young Adults 2008

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

Before I Die by Jenny Downham

Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

Tamar: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal by Mal Peet

American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China by Matthew Polly

The Invention of Hugo Cabret: A Novel by Brian Selznick

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Book Review

Naomi And Ely's No Kiss List / by Rachel Cohn And David Levithan.

New York University college freshman Naomi and Ely have been best friends since they were little children. How could they not? They grew up across the hall from each other. So what happens when one day Ely kisses Naomi’s boyfriend, who happens to not be on their NO KISS LIST. Will Naomi and Ely be able to heal their friendship? If you enjoy books about friendship and romance this might be the book for you. When you are done check out Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist also by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.

-Katie G, CCL

What Kinds of Graphic Novels Do You Like?

The 2008 Eisner awards were awarded in on July 26th. If you are interested in the results check out the Comics Reporter. Which brings us to a question: Do you read graphic novels? What graphic novels do you read?

Here are some titles in our collection you might enjoy:

Robot dreams by Sara Varon

Maus : A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

To Dance : A Memoir by Siena Cherson Siegel ; With Artwork By Mark Siegel

Want to know more about graphic novels and comics? Read Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud.

Do you want to make your own comics? See Scott McCloud's Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels.

NextReads

Do you want to find out about books that might interest you but do not know who to ask? Well, you could always ask a librarian, but you might also want to try out NextReads. Nextreads is a completely free service offered by the Chester County Library that sends you suggestions of books you might like based on your interests. You could get lists like DIY (do it yourself), popular culture, or sports among many others. The lists you select, along with a synopsis of each book, are sent to your e-mail each week. Every week you receive a new list!

To find NextReads go to the Chester County Library website and click on the NextReads logo. If you are not in the library you may need to enter your library card number in order to use the service

I am interested in popular culture so I was delighted to find two interesting books on the popular culture list. The first is about the comedian Chris Farley, it is called The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts - by Tom Farley, Jr. and Tanner Colby. The second is American Nerd: The Story of My People - by Benjamin Nugent.

Katie G, CCL

Get Your Games at the Library

Today at 12:00 am the video game Madden NFL 2009 was released. Which begs the question, did you know that the Chester County Library carries video games? Chester County has Madden NFL 2008, last year’s edition, for the XBOX 360 and the Playstation 2.

The video game collection at the Chester County Library includes games for
Sony Playstation 2 & 3, PSP, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Nintendo
64, Game Cube, Xbox & Xbox 360.

Award Winning Books

Why not read some award winning books? On June 30th 2008 five authors were honored by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Every year one author is awarded the Michael L. Printz Award. This is an award given for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature.

The biggest honor of the evening went to Geraldine McCaughrean for her psychological thriller The White Darkness.

Four other books were presented Printz Honor Awards. They represent a variety of genres and formats. Here they are:

Dreamquake: Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet by Elizabeth Knox

One Whole and Perfect Day by Judith Clarke

Repossessed by A.M. Jenkins

Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill


You can find out more about any of these titles or hear the acceptance speeches given by the authors by visiting the YALSA website at http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/printzaward/Printz.cfm

Read the Book See the Movie

The movie adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s popular romance/ vampire novel Twilight is set to be released to movie theatres on December 12th 2008. The first book in the series, Twilight is followed by Meyer’s New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. Breaking Dawn Meyer’s final installment sold 1.3 million copies in the first 24 hours after its midnight, Aug. 2 release.

If you enjoyed the Twilight series you might also enjoy Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause. It is the story of a beautiful teenage werewolf named Vivian who falls in love with a human boy named Aiden much to the dismay of her werewolf pack.


Kristen Stewart who stars in the film adaptation of Twilight also appears in two other film adaptations of popular books. She can be seen in the film adaptation of Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak, which chronicles how one teenage girl suffers through her freshman year of high school after a traumatic incident at a party the summer before.

Kristen Stewart also appears in the film version of the popular non-fiction novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. In this creative non-fiction title Krakauer uses journalism to explore the last few years in the life of a troubled young man who is found dead in a wilderness area in Alaska in August 1992. This might be the book you are looking for if you enjoy true life adventure stories or wilderness settings.

In October 2008 viewers can see an adaptation of Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's Nick and Norah's Infinate Playlist in theatres.

Alan Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen will also be coming to theatres in March of 2009.


Here is a list of some other popular young adult novels that have been turned into movies:

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Chocolate War by Robert Cornier
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

Friday Night Lights: a town a team and a dream by H. G. Bissinger

October Sky by Homer Hickam Jr.
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks
The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

How to Deal by Sarah Dessen

Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Technology

Have you ever wanted to compare books with your friends or keep track of what books you have read? You might want to check out Goodreads. Users can invite friends to join or check to see if any of their friends already have accounts. Let your friends know what your reading or what you have read in the past and rate what you have read.

Welcome

Welcome to our new library blog for young adults. CC Young Adult Spot is a place to find out about books, technology, library activities, magazines, book awards, authors and more! Feel free to comment on any posts!