Looking for a Fierce & Fantastic Read?

Here in the NCS Library, we're very excited and honored to be welcoming famed fantasy novelist Tamora Pierce, author of a plethora of fabulous books, as one of our writers at Writer's Day 2012 tomorrow!  Some of her most popular series include The Circle of Magic novels, The Song of the Lioness quartet, The Immortals series, and the Beka Cooper trilogy.  In celebration, I put together a list of fantasy novels featuring fierce heroines and thrilling adventures.  This list includes Tamora Pierce's novels as well as a range of books with similar themes, characters, and settings!

Click on the link below to check it out!

WARRIORS: Fantastic Tales Featuring Fierce Heroines  

Calling All Hunger Games Fans: Let Your Library Help You Survive Until March 23!

Attention All Hunger Games Fans!

Can't Wait Until March 23?

Trying To Survive Until You Can See Panem On The Big Screen?

Come to the NCS Library & Enter Our DYSTOPIA Trivia Contest!

-Form a team of no more than 5 members.

-Swing by the library and pick up a yellow DYSTOPIA entry packet.

-Answer the 20 trivia questions inside and return the packet to a librarian by FRIDAY MARCH 16 @ 5pm!

There will be winning teams in both Upper School and Middle School and the each winning team will receive a goodie basket (including gifts cards for local theatres) for their inevitable trip to the see the movie over spring break!

Don't Forget! Drop your answers to our bonus Hunger Games geography trivia in the red box in the library by TUESDAY MARCH 13 and you have a chance to be one of the lucky recipients of a special Girl On Fire cupcake before break!

And May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor!

With Love From Your NCS Library!

Love stories and stories about love of all kinds frequently make some of the most interesting, thrilling, heartwarming, and heartbreaking narratives.  So if you're looking for a book or film to help pass away the time over the long weekend, check out our 2012 Valentine's Day resource list--a mixed bag of diverse romances and love stories!   

All You Need Is Love--2012 Valentine's Day Love Stories List

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ms.Dickinson's Purple and Gold Pick of the Week: all these things i've done by Gabrielle Zevin

Chocolate, coffee, forbidden love, and organized crime--the perfect elements for Valentine's Day read!  all these things i've done, Gabrielle Zevin's third young adult novel (following her 2007 release, Memoirs of a Teenage Amniesiac), is a dystopian novel  set a world very close to our own featuring a highly pragmatic narrator and a story dealing with love of many kinds.

Several decades into the future, caffeine is outlawed and water & paper supplies are limited.  New York City is town rife with crime and poverty where museums have been turned into nightclubs and coffee is sold in seedy speakeasies.  As the daughter of the city's most notorious crime boss, Anya Balanchine is no stranger to the town's underworld.  But with both parents dead from mafiya hits, Anya is more worried about her siblings' safety than her family's weakening monopoly on illegal chocolate imports.  Then her loser ex-boyfriend gets poisoned by a couple bars of Balanchine Special Dark chocolate he begged from her and suddenly Anya's plans for staying out of the spotlight are ruined completely.  Meanwhile Anya's shifting relationship with the son of the new and ambitious District Attorney definitely isn't making her life any easier. 

As I stated, the future portrayed in Zevin's newest novel is much more familiar to readers of 2012 than the more distant worlds portrayed in dystopian novels such as The Hunger Games or Marie Lu's recently released thriller Legend.  The lessening of key resources and the outlawing of caffeine are the most obvious differences.  However, Anya's life is set apart in ways unrelated to the novel's futuristic setting.  Anya has grown up in a world of paranoia, violence, and distrust;  her general distrust of others' motives and her tendancy towards self-denial on behalf of the few people she really loves separate her from her peers.  Her great pragmatism and moral concern make her a fascinating (if slightly disconcerting);  these qualities also make the developing forbidden love story between Anya and the D.A.'s charming and sweet son Win even more sympathetic. 

I also greatly enjoyed Anya' s complicated relationships with her immediate family, including her siblings, her dying grandmother, and even her late father and mother.  Anya's struggles to distance herself from her family's criminal past and present while also relying on the skills and strength she's gained from such a life are as compelling as the larger mysteries and action.  The plot is not obviously action-packed but the novel is full of twists and turns; mystery fans will find a great deal to enjoy in the complexities of the Balanchine crime family and their illicit business.

The combination of a setting both familiar and unfamiliar, starcrossed romance, complex family relationships, and compelling mystery make Gabrielle Zevin's all these things i've done a unique and appealing coming of age story.  Grab a mug of coffee or a chocolate bar and check out this intriguing new novel!
 

Update on Hunger Games Movie Goodies!

For all our Hunger Games fans eagering awaiting the film's release on March 23, the media machine behind the likely blockbuster has produced two new exciting digital goodies to hold you over.  Yesterday, a second theatrical trailer burst onto the Internet to add to the hype.  Check it out here at the Entertainment Weekly website!
Are you more excited to see the movie? Or are you worried that some of your favorite pieces of the book are going to be lost on the cutting room floor?

Lionsgate also recently kicked off another fun online bonus feature: the Capitol Couture Tumblr.  It's a cool peek at the world the film creators are working to develop based on Suzanne Collins' descriptions. 

Also--the library will soon be announcing our very own competition to help pass the last few weeks before the film's premiere at the end of March! Keep your eyes and ears open for updates!   

Ms. Dickinson's Purple and Gold Pick of the Week: Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

In some ways it's a little bit strange to read a sundrenched summer road trip story in the middle of a very chilly January.  But in other ways, reading Morgan Matson's delightful debut Amy & Roger's Epic Detour was the breath of fresh air I needed over the cold, damp weekend.  The best part, of course, is that in Amy & Roger Matson takes the elements of a classic road trip novel and uses them to create a complex and enjoyable story about grief, loss, healing, friendship, family, and romance.

Amy does not want to go on a cross-country road trip this summer.  But her mother has decided that they're moving to Connecticut to California.  Her twin brother is in North Carolina at camp (AKA rehab) and her mother has already begun her transition to a new life on the East Coast.  But Amy and their car are still on the West Coast and now Mom demands that both of them make their way across the country to start the summer in their new home.

 What's the problem with this situation?  Since her father's sudden death a few months ago, Amy hasn't been able to get behind the wheel of a car without panicking.  The solution, it turns out, is nineteen-year-old Roger, the son of an old family friend whom Amy supposedly played with as a kid (although she definitely doesn't remember him being this attractive as a seven year old).  Roger also needs to switch coasts for the summer and has agreed to drive the car--and Amy--across the country.  It turns out that Roger has plenty of his own emotional baggage and both of them need a chance to take a detour from their lives.  Soon a simple drive becomes an unforgettable adventure as Amy discovers that getting lost in between California and Connecticut might be exactly what she needs to find her way back home. 

This novel combines several types of stories (including the roadtrip, life after the loss of a loved one, friendship evolving into love, etc) into a lovely debut novel exploring both physical geography of modern middle America and the complicated emotional geography of loss and recovery.  Amy, as our narrator, is intelligent, sarcastic, bitter, and a little bit broken and her narration is both sharply observant and emotionally conflicted.  Roger remains somewhat mysterious at first but slowly develops into a very sympathetic three-dimensional character;  the reader's understanding of Roger shifts as Amy's does, with more and more information revealed through their increasingly close friendship.  The diverse quirky cast of supporting characters add another wonderful layer to the narrative and the descriptions of the places Amy and Roger pass through on their trip are full of unique details that bring their beauty and weirdness to life.  The relationship between Amy and Roger evolves slowly and realistically and their increasingly strong bond becomes as satisfying for the reader to observe as it is for the characters to experience.  The novel also incorporates images from Amy's travel scrapbook and both characters' playlists into the regular textual narrative. 

This refreshing roadtrip of a debut novel would be a great fit for fans of quirky musical romances like David Levithan and Rachel Cohn's Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist or stories about finding love after loss, such as Jandy Nelson's The Sky is Everywhere or Sarah Dessen's The Truth About Forever. 

Ms. Dickinson's Purple and Gold Pick of the Week: Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant

From dirigibles to clockwork automatons, the possibilities contained within steampunk fiction are diverse and increasingly exciting. Steampunk, a subcategory blending science fiction, fantasy, and alternative history, has steadily grown in popularity over that last few decades.  Usually steampunk fiction presents a world in which steam power (rather than electricity) and technology such as clockwork machinery and airship dominate an alternative version of a 19th century American or European society.  Well known fantasy/sci-fi series that use elements from steampunk fiction include Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and the more clearly steampunk Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld and the Airborn trilogy by Kenneth Oppel.

The writers included in this thrilling collection of short stories take the ideas behind this emerging subgenre and bend, stretch, and experiment with them to create a wide range of fascinating new interpretations of steampunk fiction.  While several of the stories involve the standard steampunk trappings of foggy Victorian London and lighter-than-air ships transporting passengers attired in corsets, full skirts, and top hats through the sky, many others transport the steampunk aesthetic to less familiar settings such as alien planets, post-apocalyptic America, colonial Australia, ancient Rome, and modern Appalachia.   The tone and styles are equally diverse and the collection is a delightful mix of tragic, romantic, humourous, and eerie tales that transport the reader to varied and brilliant imagined worlds.  The collection includes two stories told in graphic novel format as well, adding another welcome layer of variety. 

Including pieces by favorite current authors such as Libba Bray, Cory Doctrow, Garth Nix, Holly Black, and M.T. Anderson, Steampunk: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories is a perfect pick for any sci-fi, fantasy, and/or steampunk fan during the busy school year!