Tiny Treasury

Celebrate Teen Read Week along with YALSA. This year’s theme is “LOL@ your Library,” encouraging teens to laugh out loud. Here are some quotes from some favorite teen authors from the Teen Read Week wiki about what makes them LOL.

What makes me laugh most is Congress. Dogs can also be very funny, but I have to give the edge to Congress. –Dave Barry author of Peter and the Starcatchers

A woman strutting out of the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to her heel gets me every time. –Lisi Harrison author of The Clique

Freudian Slips: One night I was reading to my four-year-old daughter a rather boring picture book about Paul Revere. When I came upon the word ‘timber’ I accidentally said ‘tampon’ instead. I became immediately hysterical, laughing so hard tears were running down my cheeks. Of course my daughter thought I was insane and insisted that I continue reading, even though I had the giggles. Soon she had the giggles too and our giggles morphed into uncontrollable howls of laughter. It reminded me of my seventh grade biology class when I raised my hand to answer a question and I said ‘orgasm’ instead of organism. I turned purple and had to hide under my desk because my teacher was a man with a mustache and I could not look at him without bursting into hysterical laughter. By the end of class we were all under our desks. — Cecily von Ziegesar author of Gossip Girl

Reading (and writing about) characters’ excruciating embarrassing social gaffes always make me laugh! Which is awful, since goodness knows I’ve committed enough of them! — Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries

The Readergirlz are also celebrating Teen Read with chats this week.

October 14th: Tanya Lee Stone
October 15th: John Green
October 16th: Sara Zarr
October 17th: Deb Caletti
October 18th: Rachel Cohn
October 19th: Kirsten Miller
October 20th: Mitali Perkins

As previously reported, the Gossip Girls series will be make its debut on television this fall (September 19) on the CW. Lucky for us because many booksellers are promoting the book series with deep discounts in preparation for the show. This week, while on vacation, I picked up Only in Your Dreams (9th in the series) for less than $5 at Barnes and Noble. If you’re in the mood for some light summer reading - or know a teen that is (wink, wink) - check it out.

** I found the dialogue and talk about sex and drugs to be fairly mature, so I’d recommend this for older teens - not tweens. I don’t know that I’d want my junior high girls to be romanticizing pot and sex at this age…

Gossip Girl, CW, Only in Your Dreams

You knew it had to happen… The Gossip Girls book series about growing up in a private school in Manhattan is going even more glam as a TV series. The series, penned by author Cecily von Ziegesar, will be debut on the fall schedule for the CW.

The show stars Penn Badgley, Ed Westwick, Taylor Momsen, Leighton Meester, Chace Crawford and Blake Lively (of Traveling Pants fame) as the heroine, Serena. For a sneak peek, click here.

Gossip Girls, CW, Cecily von Ziegesar, Penn Badgley, Ed Westwick, Taylor Momsen, Leighton Meester, Chace Crawford, Blake Lively

Meg Cabot’s new book, Pants on Fire, is helping HarperTeen blaze its way to summer. To celebrate, you can enter on HarperTeen to win a signed copy of Meg Cabot’s Pants on Fire and a $100 gift certificate to Sephora for you and a friend.

Meg Cabot, Pants on Fire, HarperTeen

The Meg Cabot series The Princess Diaries was a huge hit. Since the debut of the series, there have been fourteen more Princess Diaries books. So, which is the better sequel:

Princess in the Spotlight (Vol II) or Princess in Love (Vol III)?

Meg Cabot, The Princess Diaries

Following the release of Lemony Snicket’s last book of his Unfortunate Events series, The End, HarperCollins has announced that they will release the entire series in paperback.

The first paperbacks to be released next month will be The Bad Beginning and The Reptile Room. Additional titles will follow once every few months.

HarperCollins is looking to up the appeal of the paperback releases by including additional information and new illustrations by illustrator Brett Helquist with each book. The additions should help boost sales, although it’s hard to imagine topping the more than 25 million copies of the hardback books already in print.

HarperCollins, Lemony Snicket, paperback, The End, The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, Brett Helquist

Last year, Katherine Paterson, author of Bridge to Terabithia (and also The Great Gilly Hopkins, one of my favorite books ever), won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature. Terabithia was also awarded the Newberry Book award. So, it was only a matter of time that the book would be made into a movie. The movie opened last month to mixed reviews and is still in theatres today. It has grossed nearly $75 million to date.

You can watch the trailer here:

A lot of the criticism of the movie stems from the argument that it is not true to the book. Quite frankly, I can’t say as I haven’t (1) read the book (though it’s on my list) nor (2) seen the movie. But it has got me to thinking… Watch for a post later in the week about books that made the leap to the movies…

Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson, The Great Gilly Hopkins, Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, Newberry Award

Oh yeah, the bargains keep coming. First, the skinny on paperbackswap.com and now this…

Simon & Schuster has announced that you can download the ebook Swashbuckling Fantasy: 10 Thrilling Tales of Magical Adventure by Margaret Peterson Haddix and Obert Skye and Alan Snow and Anne Ursu and Jane Johnson and Kai Meyer and Linda Buckley-Archer and D. J. MacHale and Scott Westerfeld and Holly Black - for free. You can download it in one of four formats, for Adobe Reader, Microsoft Reader, Palm Reader and Mobipocket. Enjoy!

(And psst, for more hot tips like this, subscribe to this blog’s feed!)

Which is the better classic teen angst novel:

Catcher in the Rye or Lord of the Flies?

teen angst, novel

Guess who has joined the list of celebs like Madonna and Billy Crystal and decided to become a children’s book author? That’s right, she of forthright moral character, Jenna Bush.

Just today, HarperCollins Publishers announced that it has acquired world rights to Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope allegedly penned by Jenna. The story is classified as “young adult” and non-fiction and will be based on her experiences working as an intern for UNICEF in Central America (who knew?). The book will have color photographs throughout by photographer Mia Baxter (and fellow UT grad), who accompanied Bush on her trip. The book is scheduled for publication in Fall 2007 and a portion of the proceeds will go to UNICEF.

“I have been inspired by my work with adolescents in Central and South America,” said Jenna Bush. “These young people have faced extreme hardships and exclusion but are strong in spirit and have an incredible will to succeed. Through their stories, it is my hope to motivate young Americans to increase their awareness of other young people around the world: to learn about the challenges they face, how they triumph over adversity, and to become involved in helping them.”

Jenna Bush, HarperCollins, UNICEF, publishing

This is both the crazy and good thing about Harry Potter: hype regarding the last installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is already running high and it’s not officially being released until July (you can pre-order it from Amazon.com here for a pre-order guarantee price of less than $20 - the sale price in July will be close to $35).

I have (gasp) never read a Harry Potter book before. David, however, has, and if you’re interested in actual Harry Potter news, please pay him a visit. I swear, by the time that Deathly Hallows is released, to be able to craft an intelligent post about it…

But the story behind the Harry Potter mania is important to me, both as a mom and a blogger. Whether you enjoy Harry Potter or not, you have to admit that the overwhelming success of the series has inspired an entire generation of children to pick up a book and read again. I first realized this when my good friend waited in line to buy a Harry Potter book for her eight-year old nephew. She was waiting in line. For a book. For an eight-year old.

And a phenomenon was introduced.

Harry Potter