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Teen Blog

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

Month: March 2011

Most. Comic Books. Ever.

siege-dark-avengerstwo-americasdeadpoolx-men-noirspiderman-noir

There are seventeen new YA graphic novels. Seventeen. Titles and brief descriptions to follow.

X-Men Noir: Mark of Cain, mutated heroes 1940s style.
Spiderman Noir: Eyes without a face, mutated hero 1940s style.
Fall of the Hulks: Prelude, the Hulks begin to fall.
Hulk vs X-Force, heroes square off in Marvel-ous battle. See what I did there?
Four Eyes: Volume One, it’s a dragon with four eyes, not a heroic kid with glasses. A shame.
Daredevil: The Devil’s hand, this is a radically different chapter in our hero’s book.
Siege: Dark Avengers, The Avengers are under siege. When are they not?
Clive Barker’s the thief of always, a haunted holiday house that sucks in children. Scary.
Captain America: Two Americas, imagine if there were two Americas? Six Jonas brothers!
The brave and the bold: Milestone, sounds like a daytime soap. But it’s not.
JSA: Strange adventures, the gang goes on unusual jaunts.
Black Panther: Power, Black Panther is a girl now and she kicks butt.
DC Universe: Origins, how the DC heroes came to be, basically.
Deadpool: Suicide Kings, punching, slicing, shooting, etc.
Superman/Batman: Big noise, when these two get together, cover your ears I guess.
Buffy the vampire slayer: Retreat, Buffy was ahead of it’s time with the vampires and werewolves.

As I was writing this post another twenty-three YA graphic novels arrived, making the title of this post almost immediately redundant. Keep your eyes on this blog and the nifty folder attached to the shelf in Central for all the new stuff.

Get your art out there

We have the guys from Poppy Dust and Oosh Multimedia with some ideas to help you get your music out of your bedroom and into peoples lives.

Come along to the last of our Urban Survival Series, tomorrow March 30th at the central library from 4-5pm.
PoppydustOosh MultimediaUrban Survival Series

Twelve Poems About Twelve Albums

 

 

Get ‘Em Girls – Jessica Mauboy
What is “’em”? And why
should girls “get” it? Answers are
on track number one.

glee 4

Glee: The Music, Volume Four
Three of these songs are
Britney Spears covers. Rejoice,
fake Britney lovers!

glee 5

Glee: The Music, Volume Five
Similar to the
above entry, but with Biebs
instead of the Brits.

sing-off

The Sing-Off: The Best Of Season Two
I think this is like
American Idol, but
acappella-y.

chiddy bang

The Preview – Chiddy Bang
Two dudes making rap
but with “alt” samples preview
upcoming album.

jessie j

Who You Are – Jessie. J
Spikily lipped Brit
does the Lady Gaga thing,
only with black hair

cee lo

The Lady Killer – Cee Lo Green
Despite swearing at
them, it is still possible
to make ladies swoon.

avril lavigne

Goodby Lullaby – Avril Lavigne
Still in and out of
love, but with sk8er men, no
longer sk8er bois.

justin bieber remixes

Never Say Never: The Remixes – Justin Bieber
Biebs re-imagined.
Biebs re-upped. Biebs re-loaded.
Biebs re-volutions.

Future Is Now – Cornerstone Roots
Future is never
actually now. Now is
always the present.

Pefect Flaws – Black River Drive
Flaws are defined as
imperfections. Another
title is debunked.

EPIC – Various Artists
Iggy Pop, Pixies,
Groove Armada, Basement Jaxx,
Nick Cave, Korn, Tricky.

Money and stuff

You know how it is, you spent all your hard earned money on a cellphone, and then after six months it stops working!  What can you do? Well the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and the Community Law Centre can help. Come and discover what your rights are at our next session.

We’ll also have the BNZ here to help show you what to do with that money from your part time job, so that you can afford those toys and gadgets!

Thursday 24th March 4-5pm Central Library

Get fit in the city

parkour

Urban Survival Series

Tuesday 22nd March Central Library  4-5pm

The flying guy in this photo is from NZ Parkour, come and discover how you can get in on the action at this taster session.

Recreation Wellington will be there with some fitness freebies, and as a bonus, you can tell them what you think they should be doing for young people in this city.

Popular New Books!

Delirium, Lauren Oliver (441 pages) – It’s another Lauren book! says Lauren. What’s more dystopian than a world without love? Lena lives in a world where love is a disease (delirium), and without love life is predictable, orderly and safe. On your eighteenth birthday you get treatment to ensure you don’t become deliriously in love. But in the lead up to Lena’s eighteenth something happens…

First sentence: It has been sixty-four years since the president and the Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists perfected a cure.

The Monstrumologist, Rick Yancey (454 pages) – “Monsters are real” says the back cover, and Will Henry is apprentice to a monstrumologist. When the body of a girl and a supposedly extinct headless monster show up, Will and the monstrumologist must race to get to the bottom of this mystery, and stop further deaths.

First sentence: The director of facilities was a small man with ruddy cheeks and dark, deep-set eyes, his prominent forehead framed by an explosion of cottony white hair, thinning as it marched toward the back of his head, cowlicks rising from the mass like waves moving toward the slightly pink island of his bald spot.

Prom and Prejudice, Elizabeth Eulberg (231 pages) – The inspiring Jane Austen! This one’s a reworking of Pride and Prejudice (as the title suggests), set in “the very prestigious Longbourn Academy”. Lizzie is a scholarship kid, her friend Jane is not. Jane is in love with Charles Bingley, which Lizzie is happy about. She’s less happy about Will Darcy, Charles’ snobbish friend… For Pride and Prejudice fans, but not purists who might get upset about revisionings.

First sentence: It s a truth universally acknowledged that a single girl of high standing at Longbourn Academy must be in want of a prom date.

Romeo & Juliet & Vampires, Claudia Gabel (via William Shakespeare, 231 pages) – includes an excerpt from the upcoming Little Vampire Women, another in the mashups genre. This time the Montagues want to suck the Capulets’ blurd. New meaning to “blood feud” and all that. Romeo and Juliet fall in love, worryingly, and you kind of know how it’s going to end. Differently from Twilight, that is.

First sentence of Chapter One (the prologue seemed to be all about Vlad the Impaler): Juliet sat on her bed and stared at her reflection in an ornate gilded mirror, which she held close to her face.

Far From You, Lisa Schroeder (355 pages) – another novel in verse form from the author of I Heart You, You Haunt Me. After the death of her mother, Ali reluctantly goes on a road trip with her new stepmother and her baby. Trapped by a snowstorm, Ali must confront her sense of loss, as well as look to the heavens for rescue.

First verse: We’re alone / with only / the cold / and dark / to keep up / company.

Blessed, Cynthia Leitich Smith (454 pages) – continuing from Tantalize and Eternal, with characters from both, Blessed follows Quincie as she comes to terms with her vampireness, and restaurateur-ness, and also tries to get Kieren (werewolf) off murder charges while stopping Bradley Sanguini (also a vampire) in his evil tracks. In order to help with this overload of work she hires Zachary (angel) as a waiter, which is probably a good move: can he help save Quincie’s soul?

First sentence: Have you damned me? I wondered, staring over my shoulder at the lanky devil in dark formal-wear.

Firelight, Sophie Jordan (323 pages) – Dragons! Jacinda is a draki, a dragon shapeshifter, Will is a hunter of  draki, star-crossed lovers of the most dangerous kind. “Mythical powers and breathtaking romance ignite in this story of a girl who defies all expectations and whose love crosses an ancient divide,” says the book cover, nicely put.

First sentence: Gazing out at the quiet lake, I know the risk is worth it.

Vesper, Jeff Sampson (288 pages) – Emily is discovering that she and her classmates are genetically engineered and have powers that come into effect at night. They’re also being hunted by a murderer.

First sentence: I was halfway out my bedroom window when my cell rang.

A Love Story: Starring My Dead Best Friend, Emily Horner (259 pages) – Cass goes on the road trip she planned with her best friend Julia just before Julia was killed in a car crash, with a bicycle, and Julia’s ashes in a tupperware container. The adjectives on the back are good: poignant, life-affirming, tender, vibrant, plus there’s a “kookiest”.

First sentence: I spent the summer with the smells of rain and grass and sky, and the horizon stretching out for ten miles in front of me.

Slow Loris. Sloth.

Slow Loris.

SLOW LORIS.

BABY SLOTHS.

Slow Loris (library book).

Events this month: Urban Survival Series

84767-Urban_Survival_Series_update_a3[1]-1


Tuesday 22nd March 4-5pm at the Central Library:
Get fit for free with Rec Welly and NZ Parkour. Find out about the free and five dollar deals in town and learn how to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

We have some fitness freebies to give away at this session – thanks Rec Welly!

Thursday 24th March 4-5pm at the Central Library:
Afford toys and gadgets
: BNZ, CAB and the Community Law Centre are here to show you how you can get the stuff you want, and what to do when that cell phone you just bought breaks down.

Monday 28th March 4-5m at the Central Library:
Plan your OE with STA travel and Volunteer Service Abroad. All the tips and tricks for having the most amazing experience ever.

STA will be giving away a Lonely Planet guide book to one lucky person at this session.

Wednesday 30th March 4-5pm at the Central Library:
Get your music and art out there: The singer from Poppy Dust and the guys from OOsh Multimedia on how collaboration, thinking outside the square,  and following your dreams can get you, your art, your music, and your life where you want them to be.

Top 10: Theatre

There’s a fair amount of fiction about drama, acting and theatres, which kind of makes sense, since drama is what fiction is about, in some form of another.

  1. Eyes Like Stars, Lisa Mantchev. Very weird and well written. Bertie has grown up in the Theatre Illuminata, a sort of magical place where some of the great characters of the theatre are actually real, including the fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Peaseblossom and friends, and also the mysterious Ariel), and Nate the pirate-type (from The Little Mermaid I think?). Bertie is a bit accident prone, and also adventure prone, to the point where things get really out of control and the theatre is shaken to its foundations. Perchance to Dream, the sequel, is even more of a trip.
  2. Wondrous Strange, Lesley Livingston. The sequel is Darklight. Again there’s a sort of Midsummer Night’s Dream going on here. Kelley Winslow is a theatre actor who is about to have the faerie world unleashed on her (and vice versa), which involves having a horse hang out in her bath for several days, and meeting people like the mysterious Sonny Flannery, who guards the Samhain Gate behind which (and through which) bad things happen.
  3. Illyria, Elizabeth Hand. Yet more Shakespeare! This time cousins Madeleine and Rogan discover their acting talents in a production of Twelfth Night, as well as a problematic romance (they’re cousins). Narrated by Maddy as a reflection on the past, this was a winner of the World Fantasy Award. For older teens.
  4. The Jumbee, Pamela Keyes. A revisioning of The Phantom of the Opera, except where in Phantom it’s about the singing, here it’s all about the (Shakespearean) acting. After her father (who was a famous thespian) dies, Esti and her mother move to a Caribbean island where she attends a theatre school which appears to be haunted by a jumbee (ghost) with a gift for bringing Shakespeare alive and getting the best out of Esti’s talents.
  5. Cuckoo in the Nest, Michelle Magorian. Set in post World War II Britain. During the war Ralph received an education he otherwise wouldn’t have in his working class community, and develops a love for the theatre. When he returns to his family Ralph is caught between two worlds. He wants to become an actor, but this doesn’t sit well with his father at all, and Ralph must try and reconcile his background and his passion.
  6. Shakespeare’s Apprentice, Veronica Bennett. A historical love story of star crossed lovers (as in, like Romeo and Juliet). Sam is an actor in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a theatre group who performs (among other things) pieces written by the playwright William Shakespeare. Lucie is the niece of Lord Essex, and the two (most unsuitably) fall in love. Things get hairy when Lord Essex is convicted of treason.
  7. My Invented Life, Lauren Bjorkman. A comedy of errors (which Shakespeare was rather good at). Roz’s fantasy life sometimes gets in the way of reality. So, when she decides her sister Eva must be gay, she encourages her to come out by staging a (fake) coming out of her own. This sounds problematic already, but to make it more so, Roz has a large crush on Eva’s boyfriend Bryan. Oh the trials! The drama club’s production of As You Like It is the background for this one.
  8. Saving Juliet, Suzanne Selfors. Mimi is somewhat reluctantly performing as Juliet in her family’s Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet. On the final night, however, things get interesting when she and her leading man are transported to Verona (Shakespeare’s Verona, that is) and Mimi decides to help Juliet out a bit. But will she get back again.
  9. Malvolio’s Revenge, Sophie Masson. But wait, there’s more Twelfth Night, this time set in turn of the 20th century New Orleans. A group of travelling performers comes to New Orleans in the hope of staging their play, Malvolio’s Revenge, and stay at a plantation mansion called Illyria, the home of mysterious 17 year old Isabelle. Toby, the group’s young jack of all trades, “unravels the mysteries of Isabelle’s origins, [and] he begins to suspect something terrible will engulf them all.” (from goodreads.com)
  10. Talk, Kathe Koja. Kit is secretly gay, Lindsay is one of the popular crowd, and together they’re the stars of the school’s controversial play Talk. Lindsay falls for Kit, dumps her boyfriend, and therefore tests Kit’s real-life performance. The truth will out.

Songs And Songs And Songs And Songs

baseballs

Strike – The Baseballs
Favourite modern
pop songs covered by three dudes
with big pompadours

black rebel motorcycle club

Beat The Devils Tattoo – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Dirty, dirty rock
and roll from garage rocking
traditionalists

jazmine sullivan

Fearless – Jazmine Sullivan
Fearlessly sequined,
purple tinged rhythm and blues,
slash hip hop, slash pop.

rocky horror

The Rocky Horror Glee Show
Exactly as it
says on the cover. No more
description needed.

tron

Tron Legacy – Daft Punk
Did you see Tron? This
is how it sounded. Minus
dialogue of course.

beach house

Teen Dream – Beach House
Everyone who went
to Laneways liked these guys quite
a lot. So they said.

Rocked 10 – Various Artists
The hottest new rock
songs of two thousand and ten
all on one CD.

Trailer Tuesday

It is Tuesday! Here is a trailer!

Plague is the fourth book in Michael Grant’s Gone series. The first books, Gone, Lies, and Hunger, tell the bleak yet thrilling! story of a world where everyone over the age of 14 disappear, and the kids remaining develop supernatural powers. This is one of the best trailers I have seen! Do watch!

Hey! Did you know there is a new version of ThunderCats coming out on telly? Did you even know there was an old version? Back in the 80s the original ThunderCats screened on What Now, but people complained about the violence and it was taken off air. How times change. Here’s the trailer.

That’s it for Trailer Tuesday. END