Teens in grades 7 to 12 are invited to celebrate by decorating cupcakes and making cake pops for their Valentines. Decorate a cupcake to let someone know how you feel, show your favorite story, or disguise your cupcake as something else entirely.

Date: Friday, February 12, 2010
Time: 2:30pm - 4:00pm
Location: Main Library, Hunneman Hall

Please join us on February 10th for our discussion of Graceling. If you attend, you could win a signed copy of the companion title, Fire.

This month’s discussion: Graceling by Kristin Cashore.  If you need a copy of the book, you can pick one up at the Main Library at the Circulation Desk—just ask for a copy…

The William C. Morris YA Debut Award, first awarded in 2009, honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens and celebrating impressive new voices in young adult literature.

The award’s namesake is William C. Morris, an influential innovator in the publishing world and an advocate for marketing books for children and young adults. Bill Morris left…

Flash Burnout, L. K. Madigan; Houghton Mifflin

William C. Morris Award Winner, 2010

“Fifteen-year-old Blake has a girlfriend and a friend who’s a girl. One of them loves him; the other one needs him. nbsp; When he snapped a picture of a street person for his photography homework, Blake never dreamed that the woman in the photo was his friend Marissa’s long-lost meth addicted mom. Blake’s participation…

Ash, Malinda Lo; Little, Brown And Co.

William C. Morris Award Finalist, 2010

“In this variation on the Cinderella story, Ash grows up believing in the fairy realm that the king and his philosophers have sought to suppress, until one day she must choose between a handsome fairy cursed to love her and the King’s Huntress whom she loves.”

Beautiful Creatures, Kami Garcia; Little, Brown And Co.

William C. Morris Award Finalist, 2010

“There were no surprises in Gatlin County. We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere. At least, that’s what I thought. Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. There was a curse. There was a girl. And in the end, there was a grave. Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the…

The Everafter, Amy Huntley; Balzer & Bray

William C. Morris Award Finalist, 2010

“A haunting debut teen novel about a girl who revisits random moments in her life through the objects she has lost—and learns surprising things about her life “and” death.”

Hold Still, Nina LaCour; Dutton Books

William C. Morris Award Finalist, 2010

“An arresting story about starting over after a friend’s suicide, from a breakthrough new voice in YA fiction. ‘dear caitlin, there are so many things that i want so badly to tell you but i just can’t.’ Devastating, hopeful, hopeless, playful . . . in words and illustrations, Ingrid left behind a painful farewell…

The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. It is named for a Topeka, Kansas school librarian who was a long-time active member of the Young Adult Library Services Association.  The award is sponsored by Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association.

You can find out…

The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults (ages 12-18) during a November 1 – October 31 publishing year. The award winner will be announced annually at the ALA Midwinter Meeting Youth Media Awards, with a shortlist of up to five titles named the first week of December. The award will be…

Going Bovine, Libba Bray; Delacorte Press

Printz Award Winner, 2010

“Can Cameron find what he’s looking for? All 16-year-old Cameron wants is to get through high school—and life in general—with a minimum of effort. It’s not a lot to ask. But that’s before he’s given some bad news: he’s sick and he’s going to die. Which totally sucks. Hope arrives in the winged form of Dulcie,…

Charles And Emma: The Darwins' Leap Of Faith, Deborah Heiligman; Henry Holt And Company

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Winner, 2010
Printz Honor Book, 2010

“Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, his revolutionary tract on evolution and the fundamental ideas involved, in 1859. 150 years later, the theory of evolution continues to create tension between the scientific and religious communities. This same debate raged within Darwin himself, and played an important…

The Monstrumologist, Richard Yancey; Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers

Printz Honor Book, 2010

“These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed. But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets. The one who saved me…and the one who cursed me.So begins the journal of…

Punkzilla, Adam Rapp; Candlewick Press

Printz Honor Book, 2010

“An award-winning writer and playwright (“33 Snowfish”) hits the open road for a searing novel-in-letters about a street kid on a high-stakes trek across America.”

Tales Of The Madman Underground: An Historical Romance 1973, Barnes, John; Viking

Printz Honor Book, 2010

“For years, Karl has been part of the Madman Underground—kids forced to attend group therapy during school hours. Karl decides that for his senior year, he is going to get out of the group for good. He is going to act—and be—Normal. But Normal, of course, is relative.”

Almost Astronauts: The True Story Of The "Mercury 13" Women, Tanya Lee Stone; Candlewick Press

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist 2010

“When NASA was launched in 1958, 13 women proved they had as much of the right stuff as men to be astronauts, but their way to space was blocked by prejudice, insecurity, and a scrawled note written by one of Washington’s most powerful men. This is the true story of the Mercury…

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, Phillip M. Hoose; Melanie Kroupa Books

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist 2010

“‘When it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. You can’t sugarcoat it. You have to take a stand and say, “This is not right.”’ – Claudette ColvinOn March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her…

The Great And Only Barnum: The Tremendous, Stupendous Life Of Showman P.T. Barnum, Candace Fleming; Schwartz & Wade Books

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist, 2010

“Step right up! Meet the astounding . . . the amazing . . . P. T. Barnum! The award-winning author ofThe Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary,Our Eleanor, andBen Franklin’s Almanacbrings us the larger-than-life biography of showman P. T. Barnum. Known far and wide for his jumbo elephants, midgets, and…

Written In Bone, Sally M. Walker; Carolrhoda Books

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist, 2010

“Join author Sally M. Walker as she works alongside scientists investigating colonial-era graves near Jamestown, Virginia: a teenage boy, a ship’s captain, an indentured servant, a colonial official and his family, and an enslaved African girl. All are reaching beyond the grave to tell us their stories, which are written in bone.”…

The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year’s publishing. The Alex Awards were first given annually beginning in 1998 and became an official ALA award in 2002.

See more about the Alex Awards here.

Boy Who Harnessed The Wind: Creating Currents Of Electricity And Hope, William Kamkwamba And Bryan Mealer; William Morrow

Alex Award 2010

“William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery. It was also a land withered by drought and hunger, and a place where hope and opportunity were hard to find. But William had read about windmills in a book called Using Energy, and he dreamed of building one that would…

The Bride's Farewell, Meg Rosoff; Viking

Alex Award 2010

“A young woman runs away from home and finds love in the most unexpected place In Meg Rosoff’s fourth novel, a young woman in 1850s rural England runs away from home on horseback the day she’s to marry her childhood sweetheart. Pell is from a poor preacher’s family and she’s watched her mother suffer for years under…

Everything Matters!, Ron Currie; Viking

Alex Award 2010

“In infancy, Junior Thibodeaux is encoded with a prophesy: a comet will obliterate life on Earth in thirty-six years. Alone in this knowledge, he comes of age in rural Maine grappling with the question: Does anything I do matter?While the voice that has accompanied him since conception appraises his choices, Junior’s loved ones emerge with parallel stories-his…

The Good Soldiers, David Finkel; Farrar, Straus And Giroux

Alex Award 2010

“It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. “Well, here are the differences,” he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening…

The Kids Are All Right: A Memoir, Diana Welch; Harmony

Alex Award 2010

“An exceptional and eloquent story of courage, survival, and unconditional love, “The Kids Are All Right” celebrates with openness, candor, and humor the fierce power of sibling love.”

The Magicians: A Novel, Lev Grossman; Viking

Alex Award 2010

“A thrilling and original comingof- age novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself…

My Abandonment, Peter Rock; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Alex Award 2010

“In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s ‘Into the Wild,’ Rock’s ‘My Abandonment,’ inspired by a true story and told through the startlingly sincere voice of his young protagonist, offers a riveting and unsettling account of a girl and her father who live off the grid.”

Soulless, Gail Carriger; Orbit

Alex Award 2010

“‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ meets Jane Austen in this wickedly funny debut novel, which kicks off Carriger’s new series set in an alternate 19th-century London that not only knows about vampires and werewolves, but accepts them into the upper tiers of society.”

Stitches: A Memoir, Small, David; W.W. Norton & Co.

Alex Award 2010

“One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had cancer and was expected to die. In Stitches , Small, the award-winning…

Tunneling To The Center Of The Earth: Stories, Kevin Wilson; Harper Perennial

Alex Award 2010

“Kevin Wilson’s characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. “Grand Stand-In” is narrated by an employee of a Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider-a company that supplies “stand-ins” for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents. And in “Blowing Up On the Spot,” a young woman…

To all those who commented for the pass—I apologize, but the date for the free preview has passed.  I’m sorry you weren’t able to get them in time (and for not being cleared about the date of the preview, which was the Monday after I posted the blog entry.)  We do have free posters in the Teen Room for anyone…