Robert Muchamore’s popular CHERUB series looks set to be turned into a television series by the BBC. Good news for fans of the books, which are about a group of kids who are trained to be spies – no one ever suspects kids of espionage! Check out the CHERUB website to learn more about the books.
Month: February 2009
If you’re bored try this, courtesy of John Green’s blog (and here, Hank is his brother) via Marshall County Library’s Young Adult Blog:
Type your name into Google followed by a verb then hit ‘search’ to make all sorts of discoveries.
Example number 1:
Grimm says…
… he is ready for Steelers’ top coaching job.
I sure am, yes siree, let me at them! The Steelers, they play American football right?
Example number 2:
Grimm does…
… not need to hide behind some absurd mask
Actually yes I do – it’s much easier to write with mask firmly intact.
Other verbs to consider: eats, loves, needs, wants, wears, loves… basically anything you can think of.
This really is totally a great way of looking like you’re doing important work.
Congratulations to Zach and Hannah, winners of the fab poster* which you can view to the right here. We wish there were more to give away, but life’s like that I suppose**. We were interested to hear what you had to say about the movie – love it or hate it there will be Twilight movie hysteria at the end of this year with the arrival of New Moon.
Anyhow, the posters will be in the post as soon as we can find long enough containers to stick them in.
Thanks to Stu for the use of his feet.
Cheers.
* Fab, but with a couple of very small wrinkles on account of them being nicked (by us) out of the display posters box at the central library.
** Actually what I’d really like as a giveaway is a life-size cardboard cutout Edward. I think that’d make an interesting addition to any home. Maybe next year.
Amanda Ashby is a New Zealand author whose books are published to critical praise in the U.S. Her newest book, Zombie Queen of Newbury High – about what happens when a teenage girl accidentally turns her entire senior year into zombies and has to try and find a cure before she ends up at the top of their menu – will be available from the library soon. We have scored an exclusive interview with Amanda!
1. At what age did you begin writing? How old were you when you first had something published?
I wish I could say that I wrote my first book when I was five, but the truth is that while I loved English and creative writing when I was at school it never occured to me that normal, regular people could be writers and so I contented myself with reading as many books as I could get my hands on. But sometime in my mid-twenties I had a terrible thought on how sad my life would’ve been if my favorite writers hadn’t taken the time to sit down and tell their stories.
This thought continued to stick with me until I finally decided that perhaps I should sit down and try telling a few stories myself. Unfortunately, as many writers know, writing stories and getting stories published are two different things and it wasn’t until I was 38 that I got to see my first book come out. Yay!
2. Do you write professionally, or do you need to work a regular day-job? And does it interfere with your writing?
I’m sort of a full-time writer and mother all rolled into one and I also have a part time job working at the Napier library (which I love because there is nothing a writer likes more than to talk books with people!!). Right now I feel quite lucky because I have a nice balance in my life and I hope it can continue!
3. Where do you get your ideas for writing from?
The idea for my first book, You Had Me At Halo, actually came from my father’s funeral (which as a rule isn’t the best time to be getting book ideas), somehow the idea of writing a book that was inspired my dad’s death certainly helped with the grieving process. The idea for my zombie book actually started out as a bit of a joke because whenever I was stuck for ideas I used to say to my friends that I could always write a book called ‘I was a zombie killer bride’. Unfortunately, you know what happens when you say things too many times…
4. Who are your favourite authors?
So, so, so many that I couldn’t possibly list them all so here is a selection: Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, Raymond E Feist, PC Cast and Kristin Cast (if you haven’t read the House of Night books yet then you really must), Jill Mansell, Janet Evanovich, Eoin Colfer, Christopher Paolini, Jonathan Stroud.
5. We really like haiku – can you summarise Zombie Queen of Newbury High in haiku form?
Okay, so when I get arrested for crimes against haiku then I’m going to blame you entirely. Don’t think I won’t! Anyway, here is my butchered offering – no pun intended!
one simple mistake
entire school now living dead
feeding time is near
We’ve made a trailer teaser promo video for the Almost Amazing Race! Keep an eye on this blog for more details – we will ask for registration soon. The event will take place on Saturday, the 28th of March.
Credits:
Director – Jack
Editor – Jack
Camera – Jack
Sound – Jack
Starring – Adrienne
No Security Guards were harmed in the filming of this production.
Did you know that you can download audio books through this library? Well you can!
Explore our growing collection of digital audio books and use your library card to download titles to your computer, transfer them to a compatible MP3 player (including iPods), or burn selected books onto a CD for listening on the go. Available 24/7, now your library is always open!
There are loads of books there worth downloading. Even Twilight is there. For a tour of Overdrive (the name of the audiobook service) go here.
Another week, another pile of new music to issue. Here we go …
The Black Kids debut album Partie Traumatic is a CD to party (partie) to. Hopefully not traumatically. I’ve seen pictures and only two of them are black, how wackily misleading.
Craig David has a greatest hits album out, called Greatest Hits. Included are all the hits that he deems his greatest.
Remember Cher’s song Life After Love, where she had that crazy autotune effect on her voice in the chorus? T-Pain has done it for two whole albums now and the latest is called Thr33 Ringz. I expect this will be wildy popular, so listen to it here first.
Britney Spears has somehow found the time to make a new album called Circus and it seems like her return to form may be continuing. Includes all manner of dancey pop.
Kanye West tries the autotuned singing thing on his new one entitled 808s & Heartbreak. People seem to either love this or hate it with no middle ground. Personally I’m in the former camp, try it out and see where you stand.
Akon is back with Freedom. What’s up with all the funny voiced R&B this week? If you’re an Akon fan you’ll enjoy this a lot.
Panic At The Disco have a live album out called Live In Chicago. If you’ve enjoyed their studio albums, but have never managed to get to a concert you could close your eyes and pretend. All the hits are included.
Remember you can visit the Teen Blog imeem page to listen to all previous playlists. You could also sign up for your own profile and add us as a friend.
Kate de Goldi, author of The 10 pm Question (which we thought was one of the best books published last year) and Wellingtonian, kindly took some time out to answer a few questions about reading, writing, inspiration, characterisation… check out what she has to say, especially if you’re an aspiring writer; there is some good advice and useful insights in here. Many thanks to Kate for playing ball with us. We look forward to reading your next book!
1. What books did you enjoy reading in high school?
I read quite a variety of books…I was – and still am – the kind of eternally hungry (and often indiscriminate) reader who needs something, anything, as long as it’s print, so I read trash as often as I read good stuff. Literal boxes full of Mills and Boons, for example… predictable, reliable, junk food. Short term pleasure, zero long-term sustenance. I read a lot of historical romances – Anya Seton, Victoria Holt, Catherine Cookson, – these were a step up from M&B, (more developed, slightly less clichéd characters, often genuinely interesting historical contexts and interesting settings, but still formulaic (I suspect the less well-written vampire fiction today fills the same need for the erotic and the comfortably dangerous)). I read crime fiction – beginning (as girls often did then) with the Queens of Crime, Dorothy L Sayers, Christie, Ngaio Marsh)… and spy thrillers by men… whatever was in the school library or around the house… I read some science-fiction, loved John Wyndham and CS Lewis.
I read and re-read a lot of children’s books, though I was in my teens – the ones on my bookcase (all the standard – and excellent – children’s writers from the 50s, 60s and 70s, American, British, Australian and some European). I read every young adult book I could get my hands on – the 70s (when I was at high school) was when the YA genre really began hitting its stride… writers like Paul Zindel, ME Kerr, Robert Cormier, John Townsend, John Christopher, Robert Westall, Jan Mark, Margaret Mahy… were all producing great stuff.
In mid-high school I began reading adult literary fiction… I started by ‘doing’ my parents’ book case… they had handsome casebound collections of Dickens and Galsworthy and I read many of those… also, Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, Laurie Lee, EM Forster… There was a lot of history books on those shelves, too, and I read most of those – histories of the French Revolution, of the Second World War (I was obsessed with WWII), of Italy, of the Wars of the Roses, of the NZ gold rushes, biographies of Napoleon, of Louis 14th, of the English monarchs… We had the complete New Zealand Heritage (instalments of NZ history that made up several volumes… I loved those).
The Superbowl is the championship game for the NFL, which means it’s a bit like the U.S. version of the Rugby World Cup. But with American football, not rugby. It is screened on the telly and about two-thirds of all Americans watch it; it is incredibly popular. Which means that advertisement time is sold at a premium, and many new films show their movie trailers for the first time.
We’re not as interested in the Superbowl (sorry) as we are in the film trailers that premiered on Monday, during Superbowl XLIII. While we can’t embed any of them – they’re not officially on Youtube (I did try!) – they are all available from Quicktime, and include Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, G. I. Joe, Land of the Lost, Star Trek, and The Fast and the Furious 4, among others. Enjoy.
Can’t wait for G. I. Joe, as it has ninjas. <3
Other film trailers to look out for are Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Astroboy, and Dragonball Z: Evolution (in French, but it’s official!)
The American Library Association, together with its rather unattractive website*, has produced a list of 10 great graphic novels/ series that were published in 2008. We even have some, which I’ll list below.
Life Sucks, by Jessica Abel, Gabriel Soria and Warren Pleece
Japan Ai: A Tall Girl’s Adventures in Japan, by Aimee Major Steinberger
Skim, by Mariko Tamaki; drawings by Jillian Tamaki
The Umbrella Academy. Volume 1, Apocalypse suite, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba
(I feel almost exactly like one of those Academy Award presenters typing that, but without the frock and the fame and the botox.)
* sorry sorry, but it’s true!
