Poster in the Teen area @ Newton Free Library

Answers: 1. c (kind of a trick one, b/c he also worked on Batman, just not this volume); 2. d; 3. e; 4. a; 5. b

Never Eighteen by Megan Bostic

Seventeen-year-old Austin, aware that life is short, asks his best friend and secret love, Kaylee, to take him to visit people and places in and around Tacoma, Washington, so that he can try to make a difference in the time he has left.

The Pledge by Kimberly Derting

In a dystopian kingdom where the classes are separated by the languages they speak, Charlaina “Charlie” Hart has a secret gift that is revealed when she meets a mysterious young man named Max.

Also Known as Rowan Pohi by Ralph Fletcher

After impulsively lying his way into an elite preparatory school, sophomore Bobby Steele hopes to escape the shame of his father’s well-publicized incarceration but keeps waiting for his secret to be revealed.

Fix Me by Rune Michaels

A sixteen-year-old girl endures a miserable life with her aunt and violent twin brother, but when memories of an even worse past resurface she runs away to a zoo, where she finds an unlikely sanctuary and allies.

Fracture by Megan Miranda

After falling through the ice of a frozen lake and being resuscitated by her best friend Decker, seventeen-year-old Delaney begins experiencing a strange affinity for the dead and wonders whether she is predicting death or causing it.

Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow: Four Novellas by Daniel Nayeri 

Written entirely on an iPhone, this collection of four novellas features four different genres: Western, Sci-Fi, Detective, and Romantic Comedy.

Prized by Caragh O’Brien

Book 2 of the Birthmarked trilogy, sixteen-year-old midwife Gaia Stone is in the wasteland with nothing but her baby sister, a handful of supplies, and a rumor to guide her when she is captured by the people of Sylum, a dystopian society where she must follow a strict social code or never see her sister again.

The Sharp Time by Mary O’Connell

In the week following her mother’s death in a freak accident, eighteen-year-old Sandanista Jones finds small measures of happiness even as she fantasizes about an act of revenge against an abusive teacher at her high school.

love & leftovers by Sarah Tregay

When her father starts dating a man, fifteen-year-old Marcie’s depressed mother takes her to New Hampshire but just as Marcie starts falling for a great guy her father brings her back to Iowa, where all of her relationships have become strained.

The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder

Having spent several years in and out of hospitals for a life-threatening illness, pragmatic sixteen-year-old Cam is relocated by her miracle-seeking mother to a town in Maine known for its mystical healing qualities.

2012 Honor Books

Why We Broke Up  Daniel Handler; art by Maira Kalman

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Min Green writes a letter to Ed Slaterton in which she breaks up with him, documenting their relationship and how items in the accompanying box, from bottle caps to a cookbook, foretell the end.

Jasper Jones  Craig Silvey

Summary: In small-town Australia, teens Jasper and Charlie form an unlikely friendship when one asks the other to help him cover up a murder until they can prove who is responsible.

The Scorpio Races  Maggie Stiefvater

Summary: Nineteen-year-old returning champion Sean Kendrick competes against Puck Connolly, the first girl ever to ride in the annual Scorpio Races, both trying to keep hold of their dangerous water horses long enough to make it to the finish line.

Tickets go on sale February 22!

The College Planning Process:

Thursday, December 15, 7:00 pm
Druker Auditorium, Newton Free Library

Save time, writing pain and avoid common mistakes that get the thin envelope when applying to college! Learn about what college admissions offi cers are looking for, how to pick an essay topic, what topics to avoid, prewriting technique and other essentials that will make your essay stand out from the crowd. Deborah Berger will cover it all when she speaks at the Newton Free Library.
Worried about standardized tests? Keith Kosierowski and Steve Elefson will help quell your fears when they talk about college admission testing with a focus on the SAT and ACT. You’ll leave with a better understanding of the role, value and impact of standardized testing. Topics will include:
• Test format and content
• Myths, realities and high-impact test-taking strategies
• The SAT vs. ACT
• Practical advice for determining which test to take
• SAT subject tests and score choice
A nationally known education writer, Debra Berger has a master’s degree
in education from Boston College and has been supporting students
on college application essays for the past eight years. An international
speaker, Keith Kosierowski M. ED, has 11 years of experience in schools
and is an ADHD and college admissions expert. Steve Elefson manages
operations and business development for Summit’s One-on-One, In-
Home Tutoring division.

It all began with the “Twilight’’ series, which has the first of its two final movie installments, “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1,’’ hitting movie theaters this weekend. The book ignited a publishing industry trend that continues to see adults purchasing books written for teens.

The market shift is considerable. An example: Jonathan Franzen’s much-anticipated novel “Freedom’’ has sold more than 600,000 hardcover copies since it was released in August 2010, according to Nielsen BookScan, while Suzanne Collins’s “Mockingjay,’’ the third book in her “Hunger Games’’ trilogy – released that same month and geared to young adults – has sold more than 1.3 million single, hardcover copies to date.

Hardcover copies of books for young adults (known as YA books) are a few dollars less than adult releases, but the huge sales numbers still have the books earning more money at the register. As of last week, all three books in Collins’s “Hunger Games’’ trilogy were on the Amazon Kindle bestseller list. They beat out “The Help’’ and Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.’’

This reader-driven trend has changed the scope and priorities of the publishing industry. Six years after the release of the first “Twilight’’ book, literary agencies have restructured themselves to account for strong young adult sales. Publishers continue to increase the number of YA acquisitions.

Druker Auditorium, Newton Free Library

Join us at the Newton Free Library for a special Teen Program (ages 12 and up) in celebration of National Gaming Day @ your library.

Bring your friends to play classic (and not-so-classic) board, card and strategy games. From Fluxx, Tsuro, Blokus and Bananagrams to Pictionary and more, enjoy some friendly competition and power up with some tasty treats. Bring your own favorite game to share if you want. Don’t miss out on a chance for some awesome off-the-grid fun at the library, batteries not included!

For more information please email Laurie Woo, Young Adult librarian at NewtonYA@minlib.net.

Eternal Flame

Photo by Samantha Decker. Licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

It’s that time of year for seniors, and if the summer was not spent writing and polishing essays for college applications, panic might be setting in right about now…. Below, I re-post a blog entry by Robert S. Schwartz called “The Last and Definitive Word on Writing the Common Application Essay”; in it, he suggests some things you’ve probably heard before about how to plan and draft a college essay… but on the off-chance it might help, it can’t hurt to take a look:

As you read this, your browser is exploding with the search results of Googling, “help with my college essay,” or “college application essay help.” or, “OMG! Help me with my college essay!” And after reading what everyone and their college application consultant brother have to say on the subject — you’re more confused than ever.

This time of year, my phone rings off the hook with distressed, frantic parents trying to figure out how to help their kid write these things. And the first thing I tell them to do is what I am telling you to do — sit back, take a deep breath, don’t over-think it, and always, always, always remember — a simple story, well told, will get an applicant further than a complicated one that a college or university admissions person has read a million times before.

So here are a few, no-nonsense, guaranteed steps to make the writing process easier for both overwhelmed applicant and anxious parent alike.

1) Let’s set aside the supplemental essay’s (“Why Harvard… ” or, “What do you bring to Stanford… “) and focus only on the Common Application essay, which offers 6 essay choices. The first 5 are fairly middle-of-the road queries, a one-size-fits-all, if you will. If they truly speak to you and your experiences, these topics — “Significant relationships,” “An issue of personal or social significance,” “Describe how you would bring diversity to your college or university” — will serve you well. The only problem is that an admissions officer has read all of these stories before a million and one times. It’s difficult to convince them your “bullying brother story” is any more interesting or unique than “the bullying brother story” they read before yours — or even the next “bullying brother story” they will read after yours.

So if one of those first 5 choices doesn’t get you excited, I often suggest to my students that they go with choice #6 — “topic of your choice.” Sure, it might be a scary proposition to fly without a net, but your odds of telling them a unique story is significantly greater. This is where you can shine.

2) If you don’t have access to a college application essay consultant, choose one smart, trusted friend (and not your parent) to be your editor. This is vital, because an interested and inquisitive outsider can get to the heart of you, the subject, faster and easier than someone who sees you simply as their child. Objectivity is tantamount! Once you have chosen someone — outline your story. Even though the common application essay may be as short as 250 words, I highly recommend using all 500. Break up your story into four paragraphs of 125 words (or 5 paragraphs of 100 words) using bullet points.

Write down what you wish to accomplish in each paragraph. It’s so much easier to build a house with blueprints than to start pouring a foundation, building walls, and putting up a roof without one. Once that’s done, go ahead and start writing a draft. Don’t worry about going over the word count, because you will have plenty of opportunities to edit with later drafts.

3) Once a first draft is complete, give it to that trusted friend and be open to their suggestions and comments. Take the comments you agree with, ignore the ones you do not. This is where your convictions take over. Before you start another draft, set your essay aside for a day or so and let it breathe. Better to come back to it with a clear head and a fresh set of eyes than to rush through a rewrite you might not be ready to tackle.

4) Once a second draft is complete, give it back to that trusted friend, then sit back and wait for the inevitable good news/bad news. As with the first draft, he or she will like some of what you wrote but might also have more notes or comments. Again, you might not agree with what they think, but you are now knee deep into the process and keeping an objective eye will get increasingly difficult.

5) Finally, take that last pass. This is perhaps your final chance to elevate it from very good to really incredible. When you think you have done the best job you can, hand it off to your friend and let them tell you how great it is, or where they think the problems still exist. Again, put the essay down for a day or so and give yourself some more distance from it. Once you’re ready to come back to it, now it’s time to do a line edit, correcting for punctuation, grammar and spelling.

The college application essay is really your last and best chance to show a college admissions officer who you really are. Some think of the essay as a “tie breaker,” something they use when they want to see beyond grades or test scores, which will push an applicant “over the top.” Tell a great story. Tell it very, very well. Enjoy the process of edifying the reader. Be smart, be interesting, be yourself. And in the words of Steve Martin –”be so good they can’t ignore you.”

The Boston Book Festival, now in its third year, is the largest literary event in New England. On October 15, Copley Square will be alive with more than 100 world-renowned authors and thought leaders, workshops and participatory events like Writer Idol and Flash Fiction, exhibitors, live music, booksellers and book signings, activities and presentations for children, and delicious food. Whatever your interests, they’ve got it: fiction, history, memoir, science, food writing, sports writing, crime fiction, the environment, graphic novels, super kids’ events, and more! Got the picture? Read on!

[FYI: The Boston Book Festival is held in Copley Square, rain or shine. All author events take place indoors in either the Boston Public Library, Old South Church, Trinity Church, or Back Bay Events Center. The street festival takes place in Copley Square and also occurs rain or shine. ]