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Teen Blog

Reading, Wellington, and whatever else – teenblog@wcl.govt.nz

Month: March 2010

Michael & Anna’s Supercool Movie

Michael Cera, so uncool he’s supercool (Superbad, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Year One, Juno…) is going to be on a big screen near you quite soon (Augusty), in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, where he finds himself – in order to win the heart of Ramona Flowers – having to defeat seven (count ’em, seven) evil ex-boyfriends.

The movie also stars Anna Kendrick, who you’ve seen in the Twilight movies (Jessica), but there’s no Taylor Lautner.

Here’s the trailer:

New Books

Crocodile Tears, Anthony Horowitz (385 pages) – Alex is recruited for a seemingly simple mission – download some data from a computer in a plant engineering lab while on a school mission – but of course in the world of espionage things are never simple. We’re thinking that a normal school life just isn’t going to happen for poor old Alex.

First sentence: Ravi Chandra was going to be a rich man.

Claim to Fame, Margaret Peterson Haddix (256 pages) – Lindsay is a former child star who suffered a breakdown at age 11, partly because she can hear everything anyone says about her around the world. That’d be tough. Now she is 16, and trying to learn how to cope with her talent in a new, isolated place, when a group of teenagers “rescue” (kidnap) her and force her to confront her situation.

First sentence: I was supposed to be doing my algebra homework that night.

Chasing Brooklyn, Lisa Schroeder (412 pages) – a novel in verse. Nico and Brooklyn are haunted by the ghosts of their dead brother/boyfriend and Brooklyn’s best friend Gabe, but neither can admit it to the other.

First sentence: I lost my boyfriend, Lucca.

Same Difference, Siobhan Vivian (287 pages) – “Emily’s life reeks of the ordinary: she lives in suburban New Jersey in a posh gated community and hangs out at Starbucks with her friends in a town where most of the buildings are old, and if they’re not, they’re eventually made to look that way. When Emily heads to Philadelphia for a summer art institute—complete with an eclectic cast of funky classmates and one dreamy teaching assistant—she faces the classic teen dilemma of whether to choose the familiar over the new and exciting, while figuring out who she really is: Emily from Cherry Grove or Emily the aspiring artist?” (Amazon.com)

First sentence: When I was a kid, I drew clouds that looked like bodies of cartoon sheep.

By the Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead, Julie Anne Peters (200 pages) – A story about “how bullying can push young people to the very edge.” (Book Cover)

First sentence: The white boy, the skinny, tall boy with shocking white hair, sneaks behind the stone bench and leans against the tree trunk.

Eyes Like Stars, Lisa Mantchev (Theatre Illuminata, Act I: 356 pages) – This looks interesting and mighty hard to explain! So I shall quote Suzanne Collins (out from underneath the barcode): “All the world’s truly a stage in Lisa Mantchev’s innovative tale, Eyes Like Stars. Magical stagecraft, unmanageable fairies, and a humourous cast of classical characters form the backdrop for this imaginative coming-of-age.”

First sentence: The fairies flew suspended on wires despite their tendency to get tangled together.

Jonas, Eden Maguire (Beautiful Dead Book 1, 271 pages) – Jonas, Arizona, Summer and Phoenix have all mysteriously died at Ellerton High in one year. This is the story of Jonas’ death, the unanswered questions, and Darina, who has visions of Phoenix, her dead boyfriend, and the others. What are the visions, and who are the beautiful dead?

First sentence: The first thing I heard was a door banging in the wind.

Freefall, Ariela Anhalt (247 pages) – Something bad happened on the cliff one night and the police want to know. Hayden may be up for murder, and his friend Luke is the only witness. Luke must come to terms with what happened and what that means for his friendship.

First sentence: Luke Prescott stood at the top of the cliff, his toes curled over the edge and pointing downward.

The Miles Between, Mary E Pearson (265 pages) – Destiny and three of her friends hit the road in a story that “explores the absurdities of life, friendship, and fate – and also the moments of grace and wonder.” (Book cover)

First sentence: I was seven the first time I was sent away.

Bleeding Violet, Dia Reeves (454 pages) – Hanna, who suffers from bipolar disorder, moves to the town of Portero in Texas, where she meets up with Wyatt, a member of a demon-hunting organisation. Meanwhile, an ancient evil threatens the town…

First sentence: The truck driver let me off on Lamartine, on the odd side of the street.

Stuff (for the teen age)

Stuff for the Teen Age is the New York Public Library’s list of the best stuff for teens from that year. You should take a look! We have some – if not most  – of it. True, the list includes Xbox games, Justin Bieber, and a whole load of manga*, but we have the books and many CDs covered.

They also have a blog you should add to your RSS feed (along with this blog).

* We’re getting in a lot more manga and anime soonish though

Songs On Discs

WHITE DENIMAustin, Texas’ White Denim have released two albums to date, we have both at once. Good deal. Fits : Exposion is a double disc of the finest and funnest indie-rock in the entire collection. White Denim seem like they started a band only so they could party more frequently and just by luck happen to be really good. HGHLY RCCD.

massive attackTrailblazing trip-hoppers Massive Attack keep plugging along almost 20 years after their debut with Heligoland, surprisingly just their fifth effort given the career length. They keep things current on this one with appearances from the likes of Damon Albarn, Hope Sandoval and TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe.

Local joke metallers Deja Voodoo continue the schtick on The shape of grunge to come. For those who haven’t heard, think The Darkness, but strip away anything vaguely grandiose and replace with songs about beer. The thinking man need not apply.

Meticulously dishevelled Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro release a fifth, Only Revolutions, despite having a name like they’re a joke pop starlet. Aggressive pop tunes in the vein of Green Day and Blink-182. Reviews seem to indicate that this is their best work yet, perhaps it could be a breakthrough for them and teen bloggers will no longer be confused by their name.

Two more things. What kind of week would it be if there weren’t a three disc dance compilation? Last week apparently, back to form then with Classic big tunes 2009, the name says it all. And in musical DVD news, Metallica’s Seek & Destroy is a collection of live footage from whence or where I know not, the box is in German. I can say though, that there is a nearly 15 minute long version of Seek & Destroy that should test neighbour’s patience.

I’ve put some preview songs on our bebo page for you to listen to.

Your Perspective on Youthspective

Voting is now open for the Youthspective Competition – People’s Choice Award. This is your chance to choose the photograph that you think best represents your city.

Have a look at the gallery of photos and vote for your favourite Wellington perspective.

What does the winner win? Well, a Lomography SuperSampler Camera and a $50 voucher (thanks to Wellington Photographic Supplies).

More information on Youthspective here.

Almost Amazing Race 2.0: Register Now!

At the end of last week I subtly announced that registrations for this year’s Almost Amazing Race 2.0 are now open. This is the less subtle version:

The Almost Amazing Race 2.0
Friday 16 April 2010
Register your team now!

What is The Almost Amazing Race 2.0?

Teams of max four will race (observing road rules and other laws of the land) around the city, completing challenges that will test them mentally and physically, in order to be the first team to solve the puzzle and be named the winners of The Almost Amazing Race.

So, organise your friends and your wits, make sure you’re free on Friday 16 April, and you could be the almost amazing winners (or failing that, you could have a jolly good time).

You can have a look at last year’s Almost Amazing Race here.

Eclipse continues teasing

This time for one minute and thirty three seconds. Which is a whole lot longer than ten seconds. More of Taylor.

Eclipse you tease you

A 10-second teaser for a trailer (I know) for the next Twilight film, Eclipse. The 90-second trailer will become available on the 11th at 6am PST (that’s Pacific Standard Time, a US timezone), which is, uh, 3am tomorrow morning? Maths is hard.

Anyway, here’s the 10-second trailer, which has a shirtless Taylor Lauuuuuutner

Today in History

There is to be a big display about the architecture of the Parthenon and Acropolis* called “Masks of Time” on the first floor of the Central Library. It will run from Monday, the 15th of March to the 25th of March, and will have large models of the buildings, models of reliefs from the temples, and information panels. And and heaps more. AND it will coincide with Greek National Day on the 25th, which celebrates Greece’s independence.

*The Acropolis is the name given to the small ‘city’ in Athens built in during the height of the Classical period in Greece, about 2,500 years ago. The Parthenon is the famous temple that sits atop the Acropolis.

New Books Again

Cashing In, Susan Colebank (314 pages) – Reggie Shaw’s family has won the lottery. Sounds ideal, but Reggie’s life has been turned upside down. Suddenly she has new would-be friends, and the money thing is causing problems in her love life. Is becoming an overnight sensation a dream come true, or a bit of a nightmare?

First sentence: I remember that the day was hot – no surprise there, since almost every day in Arizona is hot – and I had to put on deodorant twice.

The Secret Year, Jennifer R Hubbard (192 pages) – Colt and Julia were in love, but secretly, so when Julia dies suddenly Colt is left to deal with the loss on his own. When he finds her journal he is consumed with questions about their relationship. [sad]

First sentence: Julia was killed on Labor Day on her way home from a party.

Very LeFreak, Rachel Cohn (303 pages) – Very is short for Veronica, a girl in her first year at Columbia University who has a rather large electronics habit which is causing her life to go off the rails. Her friends stage an intervention and Very is shipped off to a rehab centre. How will she cope without a virtual world?

First sentence: It wasn’t the fact that Starbucks did not – would not – serve Guinness with a raw egg followed by an espresso chaser that was ruining Very’s hangover.

Finding Freia Lockhart, Aimee Said (286 pages) – subtitled “How Not to be a Successful Teen”. Freia is under pressure to fit in with the popular group at school after her best friend starts hanging out with them, but is she really up to talking about popular girl type stuff, especially when she’s having to do the school musical? (Note: Glee-type references maybe?)

First sentence: The moment I set foot on stage I know this is a big mistake.

Some Girls Are, Courtney Summers (245 pages) – from the catalogue: “Regina, a high school senior in the popular–and feared–crowd, suddenly falls out of favor and becomes the object of the same sort of vicious bullying that she used to inflict on others, until she finds solace with one of her former victims.”

First sentence: You’re either someone or you’re not.

Panama, Shelby Hiatt (250 pages) – A fifteen year old girl moves to Panama at the time when the canal is being built. Looking for adventure, she meets Frederico. Perhaps he’ll do.

First sentence: Mrs Ewing’s Friday reminder: “Put your books away. Don’t leave anything on top of your desk.”

8th Grade Superzero, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich (324 pages) – This was one of the Amazon Best Books of the Month (January 2010). After embarrassing himself at the start of the school year, Reggie McKnight is trying to fly under the radar, but winds up involved in everything, from a school election to volunteering at a homeless shelter. This book has excellent reviews.

First sentence: Everyone knows what’s up, because it’s the first day of school and I set the tone.

Sistrsic92 (Meg), Cheryl Dellasega (226 pages) – “As she tries to attract a boyfriend and deal with her beautiful but troubled half-sister, artistically talented high school sophomore Meg records her thoughts and feelings in a blog–accessible only to her three closest friends.” (catalogue)

First sentence: After five years of creating dozens of cute little pink diaries (okay, one was purple), I’ve decided to go online and create a blog – and a safe one where my private thoughts won’t be spread all over the Internet.

Don’t Ask, Hilary Freeman (213 pages) – Lily’s boyfriend seems perfect, but he has a mysterious past that he won’t divulge, so Lily decides to find out about him. Seems like a good idea, but things get complicated.

First sentence: Jack was perfect.

Soul Enchilada, David MacInnis Gill (356 pages) – Amazon reports this novel has “weirdness to spare”. There’s Bug Smoot, who’s a high school graduate with a dodgy car. It turns out that her grandfather sold his soul to pay for it, literally. Her crush, who is a car-wash person but also an agent for the International Supernatural Immigration Service, might come to her rescue.

First sentence: Most folks don’t know the exact time that life’s going to be over.

The Returners, Gemma Malley (257 pages) – Will Hodge has nightmares, both sleeping and waking. He dreams of concentration camps, and notices he’s being followed by a group of people called The Returners, who say they know him from another time in history. Set in a dystopian future.

First sentence: There was this day, a few weeks ago.

Hearts at Stake, Alyxandra Harvey (248 pages) – the cover says “being a vampire princess really bites.” Solange Drake, vampire queen in waiting, is kidnapped and must be rescued by her brother Nicholas and her best friend Lucy, who is human. Lucy, it seems, has the hardest task, trying to rescue Solange and not be tempted by Nicholas.

First sentence: Normally, I wouldn’t be caught dead at a field party.

Coming Soon: TAAR 2.0

taarlogo

Almost Amazing Racers: the Almost Amazing Race version 2.0 will be wending its almost amazing way to you on Friday April 16th 2010 (last day of school holidays).

Registrations open soon. In the mean time, make a note of the date and start getting your team ready (max. 4 people).

Should be almost amazing!

Some new books

The Pillow Book of Lotus Lowenstein, Libby Schmais (275 pages) – Lotus says on the back cover, “This year, I will become an existentialist, go to France and fall in love (hopefully in Paris) with a dashing Frenchman named Jean something. We will both be existentialists, believe in nothingness, and wander around Paris in trench coats and berets.” Needless to say, Lotus loves all things French and sets up a French culture club at her school, which consists of her, her friend Joni and the handsome Sean. Things possibly go a bit awry on a trip to Montreal. Told in diary form and possibly (I say possibly) will be liked by Georgia Nicholson fans.

First sentence: As you may have guessed, my name is Lotus Lowenstein and this is my diary.

Secret Army, Robert Muchamore (Henderson’s Boys, 363 pages) – This also has what appears to be a large extract from the last CHERUB book Shadow Wave (yet to be published). In Secret Army, it is January 1941 and Charles Henderson is back in Britain, “but will the military establishment allow him to enact a plan to train teenagers as spies?” (says the website) This looks to be the beginning of the CHERUB campus – you can see how it all began!

First sentence (of chapter one): “Stand by yer beds!” Evan Williams shouted.

Beautiful Creatures, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl (563 pages) – a veritable doorstop of a book at nearly 600 pages, Beautiful Creatures already features in our monthly Most Wanted list. We are currently reading it to see if it is Twilight-y. Ethan Wate has been having strange recurring dreams about an unknown beautiful girl. On the first day back at school there are rumblings about a new girl in town (nobody is ever new in the town of Gatlin), and Ethan’s life takes an unexpected and unsettling turn when dream and reality mingle. That’s the start, at any rate. A gothic southern supernatural romance.

First sentence: There were only two kinds of people in our town.

Loot, Grace Cavendish (The Lady Grace Mysteries, 201 pages) – a favourite YA series. When the crown of St Edward goes missing, Lady Grace must find out what has happened to it without anyone knowing that a) it’s gone missing and b) she’s trying to find it. Elizabeth I will not be amused if she is “publicly humiliated” (as the back cover puts it).

First sentence: Here I am, squashed into a corner of my bedchamber, far from the fire, while Mary Shelton and Lady Sarah Bartelmy fuss about new gowns that the Maids have been gifted.

Gone, Lisa McMann (214 pages) – the cover says that this the final book in the Wake trilogy, but trilogies have a habit of being tricksy and growing a fourth leg. Still, we must take it at its word: those of you who have read and enjoyed Wake and Fade must read this (let us know if it is indeed the end)! Janie must (she thinks) disappear in order to give Cabel a fighting chance at a normal life, but then a mysterious stranger arrives on the scene and Janie’s future is not what it once seemed, in fact it appears to be a whole lot worse. Tense.

First sentence: It’s like she can’t breathe anymore, no matter what she does.

Geek Magnet, Kieran Scott (308 pages) – KJ is a geek magnet, but would like to be a superstud-basketball-star-Cameron magnet (and isn’t). Tama Gold, most popular of the popular girls, kindly thinks she has the solution to KJ’s problem, but is KJ ready for such a radical turn of events? A theatrical story: “a novel in five acts”.

First sentence: Okay, so I was dizzy with power.

The Walls Have Eyes, Clare B Dunkle (225 pages) – the sequel to The Sky Inside. Martin’s family are the targets of a totalitarian government, and Martin must rescue his parents (having saved his sister Cassie), but things are treacherous, agents are following him, and Cassie looks like she’s in danger again…

First sentence(s): “She melted down? Completely?”

Viola in Reel Life, Adriana Trigiani (282 pages) – Viola is a New Yorker at boarding school in the middle of nowhere in Indiana. Needless to say she very much doesn’t like it to begin with, but just maybe it grows on her a little bit.

First sentence: You would not want to be me.

Waiting for You, Susane Colasanti (322 pages) – a love triangle story that’s very happy being a love triangle story. Marisa likes Derek (I think), but he has a girlfriend. She doesn’t particularly like Nash, but Nash likes Marisa. Plus there are other complicating factors in Marisa’s life, from family to friends, to school… Might be a good one for fans of Elizabeth Scott, Sarah Dessen and Deb Caletti.

First sentence: The best thing about summer camp is the last day.

The Girl with the Mermaid Hair, Delia Ephron (312 pages) – Sukie is obsessed with the way she looks, so when her mother gives her a beautiful antique full length mirror this seems like the perfect gift, but the mirror possibly reveals more about Sukie than just her appearance.

First sentence: Sukie kept track of herself in all reflective surfaces: shiny pots, the windowed doors to classrooms, shop windows, car chrome, knives, spoons.

Funny How Things Change, Melissa Wyatt (196 pages) – “Remy, a talented, seventeen-year-old auto mechanic, questions his decision to join his girlfriend when she starts college in Pennsylvania after a visiting artist helps him to realize what his family’s home in a dying West Virginia mountain town means to him.” (catalogue summing it up well) This story has good reviews: “Good writing drives stellar characterization of this strong but introspective protagonist struggling with his own version of the universal questions of who he is and what matters most” (School Library Journal via amazon.com). I’d like a review like that one day.

First sentence: On his arm – just above his left hand – were three black letters.

Dreams of the Dead, Thomas Randall (The Waking, 276 pages) – Kara moves to Japan and to a new school where she makes friends with Sakura, whose sister was murdered on school grounds… and the killer was never found. Things get pretty bad: Kara has strange nightmares, then more bodies appear… is this Sakura’s murdered sister exacting revenge? Or Sakura? Or some other sinister thing? The book also has a “sneak peak” at the sequel.

First sentence: Akane Murakami died for a boy she did not love.

There are more books (yet more), so back soon.

Yes, Youth Minister

youth-parliament-logoYouth Parliament 2010 is beginning in July. To become a youth parliamentarian you must be selected by your local MP, or you could enter this competition being run by MP Phil Twyford. Youth Parliament can influence NZ policy and members learn allllll about government procedure and democracy.

Also, you can join the Youth Press Gallery to report on the Youth Parliamentarians. You must be a youth!