Weekend Book Give-Away: The Fox Inheritance

Love teen books and their authors? Right now there is an awesome tour happening that you will not want to miss. It is the Pen Fatale Tour and will be coming through our area next month:

Come meet Alyson Noël (author of the Riley Bloom series), Gabrielle Zevin (author of All These Things I've Done), Jessica Brody (author of My Life Undecided/The Karma Club), and Mary Pearson (author of the Adoration of Jenna Fox/The Fox Inheritance)!

Thursday, October 13 · 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Barnes and Noble
19401 Alderwood Mall Parkway
Lynnwood, WA

In celebration of this fun event, we will be giving away some of the titles to a lucky teen to bring to the even to be signed! This week it is The Fox Inheritance by Mary Pearson.

Two-hundred-sixty years after a terrible accident destroyed their bodies, sixteen-year-old Locke and seventeen-year-old Kara have been brought back to life in newly bioengineered bodies, with many questions about the world they find themselves in and more than two centuries of horrible memories of being trapped in a digital netherworld wondering what would become of them.

This week's question is if you woke 260 years in the future with a newly bioengineered body, what features would you want it to have?

Drawing will take place Tuesday October 4th. Check back here to see if you won! (No anonymous answers, please...though initials are ok).

Book Trailer Tuesday: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

The first time I watched this it freaked me out. It becomes less creepy with repeat viewings, but I still totally want to read this book.



Place a hold on Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (is that an awesome author's name, or what?)

Maureen Johnson's new book

has a trailer:



And it looks like she's going to join the tumblr craze, based on where this was found... The new book is called The Name of the Star and is about an American girl spending the summer in London as a rash of Jack the Ripper-style murders start to occur...

You can place it on hold here!

Adult books with teen appeal

I've read two adult books recently that have some major teen appeal and couldn't wait to share them!

Ready Player One by Ernest Clive: What would you get if you combined the 198o's with the Matrix? You'd wind up with this soon-to-be cult favorite. Ready Player One takes place in the not-so-distant future (the year 2044)--the world has turned into a very bleak place, but luckily there is OASIS, a virtual reality world that is a vast online utopia. People can plug into OASIS to play, go to school, earn money, and even meet other people (or at least they can meet their avatars), and for protagonist Wade Watts it certainly beats passing the time in his grim, poverty-stricken real life. Along with millions of other world-wide citizens, Wade dreams of finding three keys left behind by James Halliday, the now-deceased creator of OASIS and the richest man to have ever lived. The keys are rumored to be hidden inside OASIS, and whoever finds them will inherit Halliday’s fortune. But Halliday has not made it easy. And there are real dangers in this virtual world. This high-energy book has it all: action, puzzles, nerdy romance, and 80's nostalgia.

The Night Circus: The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco fall in love—a magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands. True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Check them out today!

Weekend Book Give-Away: Middle School, the Worst Years of My Life

This week's book is a perfect light back to school read. Written by adult author James Patterson, Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life is a fun read with wacky illustrations that is the perfect break from homework.

When Rafe Kane enters middle school, he teams up with his best friend, "Leo the Silent," to create a game to make school more fun by trying to break every rule in the school's code of conduct.

There are 32 people waiting for Sno-Isle's copies right now, but you can win a free ARC (advanced readers copy) this weekend by telling me what rule you are most likely to break and why.

Winner will be picked Tuesday September 27, 2011.

Don't forget to put your initials somewhere, and check back here for the winner!

Northwest Bookfest 2011

Are you ready for this year's Northwest Bookfest?!? All the action happens between 10a-6p on both Saturday October 1st and Sunday October 2nd at Peter Park (202 3rd Street) in Kirkland. The event will feature over 50 author panels, hundreds of authors, all kinds of writing and publishing workshops, various programs, and other surprises, and best of all the entire event is FREE!!!! (Donations will be taken at the event and do help to fund next year's Bookfest. They are gratefully accepted, but not required).

If you've never been to the Bookfest you should check it out! You could meet a cool local author like Deb Caletti or Cherie Priest. Or attend a writing workshop hosted by one of the awesome scheduled presenters. There are so many progams at several different locations throughout the park that you are sure to find something memorable and fun to attend!

Help - I'm stumped!

Let's face it - school is in full swing and you're probably feeling the pressure to keep up with your homework. What do you do if you run into difficulties? Maybe you have a math problem that just doesn't make sense, or your teacher wants you to write about the themes in Hamlet and you're not sure what where to get started.

Sno-Isle Libraries has just the thing to help make your life easier - HelpNow live tutoring service.

Real live people are available between 1-10 pm every day to assist you with your homework. As long as you have a Sno-Isle library card, you can log in, select your grade level and subject, then connect with a tutor for one-on-one help. They can help you with a specific problem, or if you want to brush up on a subject you can select from the Skills Building section.

The Writing Lab is another great service. Upload your paper and they'll send it back within 24 hours with suggestions for improvement. What a great reason not to put your papers off until the last minute!

The best thing - all of these services are FREE. So there's no excuse not to take advantage of them and relieve some of the stress of school.