The Countdown is On!

I'm really excited about a new book, The Faerie Ring by Kiki Hamilton that is set to be released September 27, 2011. I love anything that takes place in England and to have a faerie element as well is just icing on the cake! Here's a sneak peak to get your interest piqued!



The cover art is amazing, too. I really think this is going to catch the attention of quite a few teens. What books are you waiting for, with baited breath, to be released?

Encourage Teens to Vote for Top Ten

Every year YALSA invites teen book groups across the country to read galleys and provide feedback to produce a list of the 25 best books published that year. The list it out and now your teens can vote for their Top Ten favorites. The Teens' Top Ten poll will be open until Sept. 15 and the list will be announced during Teen Read Week October 16-22, 2011.

This is a great way to get your teens involved and see what they're reading. It's also a very effective collection development tool. If you run a book club and would like more information about getting involved, contact Nichole Gilbert at ngilbert@ala.org.

Kirby and Anna are going on tour!

Sadly, we don't have a mega tour bus...but we are coming to a computer/city near you! Anna and Kirby will be all over library land giving presentations about our Cuddle Up & Read Program. First up is an InfoPeople webinar for all our faraway friends. Then we hit the ground running and will be in Pasadena and Philly. Join us if you can, or let other folks who might be interested know.

Tour dates:
1. Tuesday, August 9, 2011 12 PM PACIFIC InfoPeople webinar
"Cuddle Up & Read: Storytimes for Pregnant and Parenting Teens" (presenters)
Webinar attendees will learn:

• About the Cuddle up & Read programs in San Diego
• How to establish successful community partnerships in order to create a literacy based program for teen parents and their children
• How to improve their existing literacy based programs for pregnant and parenting teens.

2. November 11-13, 2011  2011 California Library Association and California School Library Association Annual Conference & Exposition
"At-Risk Populations at the Library" (panelists)

• presenting during a 2-hour block with two other groups that work with "at-risk" youth

3. March 13-17, 2012 PLA
"Cuddle Up & Read: Storytimes for Pregnant and Parenting Teens" (presenters) **
Program attendees will learn:

• About the Cuddle up & Read programs in San Diego
•  This presentation will provide a hands-on overview of the early literacy storytimes conducted with teen parents
• Statistics will be included to show the impact the program had on the teen parents.
• Learn how to incorporate early literacy tools into your storytimes and how to start a storytime for teen parents in your community.

**If you want to see Anna and I do storytime (with our dolls, props, music, and books) this is the one to check out

The Stand Alone Debate

How important is it for a book in a series to stand alone? I think this question has different answers depending upon the context. For example, as a member of the YALSA's Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults committee, we hotly debated this topic as a judging criteria. We determined that it is not our place to critique the story of a particular audiobook. We are merely concerned with the production value. Therefore, even if we are lost in terms of storyline, if the production is off the charts outstanding it could still make our list. Since our list is used widely by librarians as a collection development tool, we've decided to make notes in the annotations whenever a title is part of a series.

But this got me thinking about doing in-person reader's advisory. I like to recommend series because I feel like the tween/teen gets more bang for their buck assuming that if they like one book in a series they will have many more to keep them busy and hopefully encourage them to explore other books written by that author. I can't tell you, though, how frustrating it is when I'm recommending a series and the first copy is checked out! As you know, there are some series that you just have to read in order.

If all authors did as excellent a job at recaping previous books as Alexander Gordon Smith does with his Furnace series this wouldn't be an issue. The first chapter of each book is always a thorough, yet surprisingly non-redundant, recap of the previous books. I'm reading this series marathon style - one right after the other - so the previous events are fresh in my mind, but I still value that synopsis. Even though my preference is that teens read these books in order, I would (and do) tell them it's ok to start with book two since book one is always checked out. I know they will go back and read it later...they're that good!