Zombies vs. Unicorns edited by Holly Black & Justine Larbalestier

Just in time for Halloween: Which Team are you on? Zombies or Unicorns?
I am most fervently on Team Zombie. Though I have to say, many of the stories I liked best in Zombies vs Unicorns are unicorn stories. The book is a fantastic collaboration amongst popular YA writers who had a ton of fun writing the stories. I like that Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier prefaced each story with a discussion (though I would have liked to see stories by those two as well) and I could easily see they were enjoying the task of editing these phenomenal stories.
Some of my favorite unicorn stories are Naomi Novik’s “Purity Test”, the tale of a unicorn out to find a human to help save unicorns, and neither the human nor the unicorn are what one would expect; “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn” by Diana Peterfreund, which asks what if unicorns were really dangerous, something which Peterfreund addresses in her novels Rampant and Ascendant (neither of which I’ve read); Kathleen Duey’s dark “The Third Virgin” tells the tale of a different kind of unicorn; and probably my favorite, Meg Cabot’s “Princess Prettypants”, in which a sixteen year old girl does not get the car she’s pining for.
On the zombie side of things, Alaya Dawn Johnson’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” is excellent, told from the point of view of the partially cured, lovelorn zombie; on the other side is Cassandra Clare’s “Cold Hands”, telling a love story from the point of view of the human in the human-zombie relationship; Scott Westerfeld’s “Inoculata”, about what the cure for zombies might be; Maureen Johnson’s humorous “The Children of the Revolution”, which you just have to read because trying to explain it, it sounds crazy; and the chilling “Prom Night” by Libba Bray, sharing what happens when it’s the adults that become zombies and how the kids take control (but still manage to have a prom).
All of the stories are excellent (to be expected from such wonderful writers) and I love that the book is set up with alternating zombie and unicorn stories. Also that there’s handy little zombie and unicorns pictures at the top of the page so you can skip the unicorn stories or the zombie stories, but I would suggest not skipping stories. Zombies vs. Unicorns is a entertaining, funny, chilling, amazing read. Also, I totally want a poster of the cover (showing the battle of zombies vs. unicorns). Although I love the unicorn stories as much as I love the zombie stories, when it comes down to it, it’s still zombies that will bring about the end of the world …. You can check out more at www.zombiesvs.unicorns.com, especially to find out where the debate began.

Free Downloadable Audiobooks

Are you the type of student who is always busy and enjoys listening to audiobooks to get some of your school reading done? A great site called LibriVox has volunteers record books in the public domain (which means books that copyright law no longer applies to–think old stuff) that you can download to your computer (mp3 or Ogg files) and even to iTunes.

Need to read some Charles Dickens? LibriVox has Dickens. Shakespeare? Yup. Mark Twain? All kinds. It’s a fabulous site that allows you to limit your search to just completed audiobooks (there’s nothing like getting close to the end to find out the volunteers haven’t finished recording the story), and you can search by author and title. Give it a shot for one of your reading assignments this school year.

I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President by Josh Lieb

At first I thought this book was brilliant.
Then I read a little more and was concerned I should not be finding this as funny as I was.
Then I reserved judgment until I was a little further and the pages flew by.
Final analysis: Brilliant.
Oliver Watson is a seventh grader in Omaha, Nebraska. He’s a genius and the third richest person in the world, but very few people know that because 1) children can’t run or own multi-national corporations because legally they are insignificant and 2) Oliver is playing stupid so no one suspects him of being a the third richest person in the world. Lionel Sheldrake (the man that everyone thinks is the third richest person in the world) is one of the few people that actually knows that Oliver is the evil genius behind Sheldrake Industries.
So Oliver gets by in school, barely working, pretending to fail, all in an attempt to keep himself above suspicion. He’s happy to work this way and then a wrench is thrown into his plan: Tatiana, one of his classmates, nominates him to be class president. Not wanting to show off what a genius he is, Oliver declines.
Only to find out it’s something his father would respect him for, having been class president himself in high school. Not that Oliver wants his father’s respect. Oliver and his father have a bit of a contentious relationship–his dad thinks he’s the idiot he pretends to be because Oliver knows it drives his father crazy. Oliver decides to make a mockery of school elections, something his father holds dear, by getting elected president. So he tries to get on the ballot by speaking to the Principal, but has to call in The Motivator, who then gets a toy from an African dictator that the Principal wants in order to be on the ballot. An uprising occurs in Africa and Oliver becomes the world’s fourth richest person.
Oliver is now on the ballot, huzzah! Now to get the two other people running off the ballot. Which The Motivator comes in handy for as well. But Oliver’s father doesn’t think winning unopposed is what school elections are about. So now Oliver has to get someone ELSE on the ballot, but someone who Oliver can easily win against.
And because he is an genius of unspeakable evil, it happens. And then there’s an actual campaign plan and Sheldrake wonders why Oliver is trying so hard to impress a man who doesn’t appear to care about Oliver (his dad) and then things go off course …. But it all works out. In a way.
I was totally into this book until I reached the point when Oliver descended into his hidden cave beneath his house to attend to business matters with Sheldrake. Oh, and the school toilet filled with Milk Duds. Then I was beginning to think that perhaps Oliver has a very vivid imagination and is not really an evil genius. But when I began to worry less about Oliver’s sanity and went along with the story for the sake of the story, I was into it and totally enjoyed it. Even at the end, I don’t know if all of this happened outside of Oliver’s head or if it’s all in his mind. Which makes it probably the most brilliant aspect of the book because his family and classmates all treat him the way he’s wants to be treated–like an idiot.
I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President is funny and fast paced and Oliver is endearing, even though he claims to be a genius of unspeakable evil. Good times.

Jane by April Lindner

With all the attention being given to Jane Austen’s novels, it is nice to see a modern retelling of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Being familiar with the story, there were not many surprises in April Lindner’s Jane, but I love the way Lindner updated the story.
Jane Moore is suddenly orphaned by the accidental death of her parents. She has just finished her first year at Sarah Lawrence and can’t afford to start the next year at the university so she gets a job as a nanny for Nico Rathburn, a famous (and infamous) rocker. It is Jane’s obliviousness to pop culture that earns her the job–she’s heard of Nico Rathburn but has only heard one of his albums that her older brother listened to when she was much younger. (After the sale of their parents’ house, Jane’s brother took off with the money, and Jane’s older sister doesn’t want to be involved at all with the family.)
Maddy is a charming five-year old charge, and nineteen-year old Jane enjoys taking care of the little girl–she has time to read, to continue painting and walking, and the housekeeper Lucia is good company. She’s at Thornfield Park, the enormous Connecticut home of Nico Rathburn, for a month before she meets him. I love that Lindner kept the first meeting between Jane and “Rochester” the same: Jane is walking along a road when a sports car comes tearing around a corner and nearly hits Jane–the car swerves to avoid her and the driver comes out to berate Jane for walking on the side of the road. Neither realizes who the other is until Jane returns home later in the afternoon.
Jane’s attraction to Nico is not immediate, but it grows on her and she tries to deny it to herself, for a famous photographer, Bianca Ingram, is spending a great deal of time with Nico and his band in preparation for his next tour. Jane is determined that Nico is going to marry Bianca and tries to slip away, but that leads, of course, to Nico’s confession of affection.
But anyone who has read Jane Eyre knows that Nico’s attempts to make Jane jealous are not the only obstacles to them being together and yes, a crazy wife shows up in this version of the story and Jane disappears, meeting up with the St. John family, who give her a place to stay and a job and also a chance to go to Haiti to make a difference in the world. But somehow Nico calls to her and will she be happy unless she finds him again?
Those who know Jane Eyre know the answer. It’s a fantastic retelling of a classic novel, good for young adult readers and I think I may have even convinced my grandmother to give it a try too. The book comes out in October, and I recommend it to those who love Jane Eyre and also those who like improbable love stories. The book is on order at the library, so place your hold today.

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

Let me begin by saying I love the Feegles and Tiffany Aching, so when an ARC of Pratchett’s I Shall Wear Midnight came my way, I had to read it.
Tiffany is the witch of the Chalk and being worn down a bit by it. When we first come upon her, she hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in days. And of course, matters are about to get worse.
Suspicion begins to spread about Tiffany and witches in general, that they are no good, but Tiffany is confused by this since everyone knows who she is and the entire village is pretty much family. Tiffany has awoken the Cunning Man, who desires to rid the world of witches. He appears every few hundred years or so and Tiff’s last encounter with the Wintersmith kind of brought him out. Tiffany, once she discovers what the Cunning Man is about, doesn’t want to ask the other witches for help. Advice, certainly, but as it’s been explained that Tiffany must find her own way to defeat the Cunning Man, she feels on her own. She doesn’t want to be the witch who couldn’t quite cut it, the one who all the other witches wonder if she’s really capable of being a witch. That’s something I love about this book: there’s the magical element of the Cunning Man and also Tiffany struggling with her own confidence and whether or not she’s grown up enough to be the Chalk’s witch. As Tiffany is only sixteen, she is struggling a great deal with how she fits into the Chalk as the witch and how people she’s known practically her entire life will take her seriously. By the end of the book, Tiffany has grown into her own and knows she has the support (and confidence!) of her fellow witches.
Being the last of the Tiffany Aching books (or so it is advertised on the back of the ARC) I Shall Wear Midnight ties up the relationships between Tiffany and other people we have met throughout the books very well. Roland plays heavily in the novel as does Letitia, his intended bride. Tiff’s father is around for a bit of advice, as are some of the witches we’ve met in the past. There are also the Feegles, who will always be rather entertaining wherever they may pop up. I was very pleased with how the book ended and know Tiffany will always be one of my favorite characters.

Start with The Wee Free Men, move on to A Hat Full of Sky, then the darker Wintersmith, and finish with I Shall Wear Midnight. The Tiffany Aching adventures are also a good gateway into other Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett.

Grace by Elizabeth Scott

I thoroughly (and darkly) enjoyed Elizabeth Scott’s novel Living Dead Girl and when I read the reviews and descriptions for Grace, I got giddy that she was writing another dark novel. Scott’s wonderfully slim but powerful novels are great for reluctant readers and those needing a change of pace (that was me this week).
Grace is a girl trying to escape her country (an unnamed country, and the book takes place some time in the future) after failing at her purpose: to be a suicide bomber and to kill the Minister of Culture as well as herself. She approached the stage where the Minister was, slid the bomb down her leg (as all good Angels are taught to do), but kicked it off her leg and did not detonate the bomb until she was a safe distance away. After her failure, she was no longer welcome with her People, the ones who live in the Hills and attack Keran Berj and his cities and villages through suicide bombers. So Grace went back to the City, went into hiding and found someone who would help her escape.
Grace finally boards the train that will take her to the Border, where hopefully she can cross into another country and start a new life, and with her is a young man Kerr. The two are supposed to pose as brother and sister, fetching a fictitious pregnant sister from the country they are fleeing to. Soldiers are constantly present on the train, checking papers and creating constant worry for Grace and Kerr.
The story unfolds as Grace thinks about what she did, what she was supposed to do, and how her life came to that point. It’s amazing to watch this character struggle with feeling sorry that she wants to live, that she didn’t want to give up everything, her life, to send a message to the dictator Keran Berj, that she just wants freedom. But freedom at what cost? Who defines freedom? And is the freedom Keran Berj’s people want different from that of the People of the Hills? Grace learns that the world is not such a cut and dry place, that what she has been taught is similar to what Kerr has been taught, even though their people fight each other. Kerr has a few secrets of his own that challenge Grace’s chances for escape.
Grace invites readers to think about how easily we all grow up believing what we’re taught, what we’re told, how questioning the way things are can be dangerous, and being true to yourself is dangerous as well. There’s one particularly eye-opening moment when Grace thinks about not herself and not her intended target, but everyone else around the day she set that bomb off, something she had never thought about before. Powerful.

Find Grace by Elizabeth Scott at the Barrington Library.

For the filmmaker

If you’re interested in filmmaking and documentary films, SnagFilms is an awesome website for you to check out. The site hosts more than one thousand documentary films on a wide variety of subjects. There’s a lot of advertising on the website but that’s why the films are free to view, so it’s a pretty good trade off. Some of these films have been in wide release while most of them have not. You can search by topic or title or channel (one of them is Virgil Films & Entertainment, which includes Morgan Spurlock’s film Super Size Me).

Note: When you click to a film and it says “Buy Now” that means the film is available to purchase on dvd, not that you have to pay to watch the film.

The DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend) by Kody Keplinger

High school senior Bianca has two gorgeous, wonderful best friends: Casey, tall cheerleader captain with a short pixie cut of blond hair, and Jessica, super bubbly brunette. Bianca is a bit cynical herself, and doesn’t fully enjoy going to the club that her friends always drag her to, but does it because she loves them (and to keep them from going home with someone like Wesley Rush–the school’s biggest womanizer).
One night at the Nest, the club Casey and Jessica drag Bianca to, Wesley Rush approaches Bianca. She tells him to get lost but he says he’s trying to get with one of her friends–it doesn’t matter which–and that by talking to their DUFF, he has a much better chance of doing so. Bianca has never heard that term before so Wesley obligingly explains: the DUFF is the Designated Ugly Fat Friend, the one girl in a group of girls who looks worse than the others. And by paying attention to the DUFF, Wesley reasons, he’ll look like a great guy to Casey and Jessica. Bianca, never one to hold back, throws her Cherry Coke in Wesley’s face and drags her friends out of the club.
She doesn’t tell her friends what has happens between them and it’s only one of many things she keeps from Casey and Jessica: her parents are divorcing (her mother has been largely absent anyway), her father slips back into his alcoholism (after being sober eighteen years), and Bianca is trying to find out how to relieve the stress, how to keep from going crazy. She discovers her escape is actually Wesley Rush–making out with Wesley keeps her mind from thinking about her parents. She spends more and more time with Wesley (and both keep is a secret) and Bianca’s friends begin to feel she’s avoiding them. She never likes to talk about herself or her problems much (Bianca’s standard answer is “I’m fine” and Casey knows she’s lying every time she says it). Bianca gets deeper and deeper into her struggle and her world continues to unravel when her mom shows up. She keeps running to Wesley and after one hook-up, she realizes that it’s more than just screwing around–for her. Wesley’s not interested in a DUFF so Bianca tries to forget him and hooks up with her crush, sweet, dorky Toby Tucker. Although things are approaching normal, Bianca still thinks about Wesley and being the DUFF.
I think all teenage girls have felt like the DUFF amongst their friends, and Keplinger does a great job of having the characters take control of the word and have confidence in themselves and each other. DUFF is a good read (definitely for older teens), and I love Bianca’s character. She’s balanced well by Casey and Jessica and it’s nice to see confident but still vulnerable teens. The DUFF is on order, place a hold on it.

What Should I Read Next?

Are you a reader that devours books? Or are you the type who likes only one type of book, one certain author? If you read too fast for anyone else to keep up, or once you’ve read all the books a certain author has to offer, What Should I Read Next is a website that has recommendations for you.

It runs a little slow when waiting for the recommendations to load, but it has a pile of suggestions (even if some are a little off base: Fox in Socks for a suggestion for Twilight?).

But even with a few bugs and quirks in the system, it’s a quick way to get an idea for something new to read. I did a few searches (Stephenie Meyer, Incarceron by Catherine Fisher, Sarah Dessen, and Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta), and only one didn’t come up with any results (Finnikin of the Rock). So it’s not a perfect website, but if you don’t have a librarian handy, this site will work pretty well.

Let me know what you’ve found and loved (or hated) using What Should I Read Next!

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

When we last left Alek and Deryn in Leviathan, they were aboard the Leviathan (the giant living flying whale) and on the way to Istanbul on top secret business to deliver some mysterious eggs to the sultan.
As Behemoth begins, Alek and his fellow Austrians are maintaining their Clanker engines that they’ve attached to the Leviathan to get out of the Alps. It’s a tenuous sort of peace between the British and the Austrians, if only because each knows they could not have escaped without the other, but Count Volger knows that once they arrive in Istanbul, they’ll have to escape from the Leviathan, to find safety and wait out the war.
Deryn has successfully kept her secret (that she’s a girl disguised as a boy to serve on Leviathan) and finds herself growing closer to Alek. And, heaven forbid, feeling like a girl towards him. She’s still terrified that someone will find out (and someone DOES, but I won’t say who) and she’ll be kicked off the ship. She gets sent on her first command mission (which is a success and yet goes miserably).
The Austrians escape the Leviathan (something else that is a success yet goes miserably) and Alek becomes involved with anarchists, who desire to overthrow the sultan. He also meets Lilit, one of the anarchists, and a very intelligent and well trained young woman (she can pilot a walker). And an American reporter, who’s too clever by half with recording bullfrog.
Deryn of course manages to be a part of this group and also comes up with a brilliant idea to help save the day. But all operations are not without loss. The Leviathan comes to the rescue once more; could this be the parting of Deryn & Alek?
Behemoth is full of action and adventure, lively moments as well as thoughtful ones, and great imagination. Perhaps one of MY favorite things about Scott Westerfeld is his portrayal of strong, independent, intelligent young women. There’s a great deal of young adult literature out there starring female characters who are not so fantastic. Yes, Deryn is disguising who she is, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s just as capable as the rest of the middies, and Alek. Westerfeld’s character development and imagination for stories is amazing, and I eagerly look forward to the final book in the trilogy!

Behemoth will be available in October, but you can place your hold now.