Cover Story

In my hostile takeover of the children's room, I started a massive fiction section overhaul. With the help of a shelflist (and mostly due to one of the pages) we are marking missing books and pulling titles that aren't circulating. I'm going through the titles that haven't circulated much in the last four years, and discarding a good bit. In my discard travels, I've come across a number of phenomenal books & covers. Disclaimer: my excitement about these books has almost nothing to do with the content, and nearly everything to do with the title and/or cover art.

The book that started it all. Hey There, Owlface is possibly made more hilarious by my library school buddy's deep-seeded fear of owls. But who can deny the ridiculousness of that title?

A gem pulled out of the stack by Kristi(e), my blog-dealer/coworker. This begs important questions such as why are they giving babies away? And why is this child holding a large toddler? Also, please note the difficult to read gold text at the top "The classic Christmas story". What? I know Christmas involves a baby and presents, but I never realized it was about giving away babies. I think I've been celebrating this one all wrong.
I have no idea what this book is about. But please note everything about this cat. Including that one eye features a slightly less frightening cat and a child. I think this is supposed to be a horror book, but I wouldn't even need to read this book to be horrified. Imagine meeting this cat in a dark house, the faces of the cat and baby reflecting at you in the dark. No thank you, creepy cat. Why would you ever create this cover art?



Super fun bonus offensive book!!
I discovered this in the super out of date "Disney" section of the picture book collection.
I have personally never seen "Song of the South", but I looked into it's existence back in my lifetime as a college English major. Suffice to say i was pretty amazed to find this as part of my picture book collection, and even more amazed to note it was added as a gift in 2004. Collection development note: you do not have to add every donation to your collection. I encourage you to do this with great discretion. Or at least glance at the donations before adding them.

Well, I hope this foray into weird old books has been entertaining and informative. Remember kids, take pictures of weird things, and always judge a book by it's cover. It may serve you well.

100 Teen Books

A book meme shamelessly stolen from my dear Kristi(e) over at Purple Polka.

100 Teen Books Meme

From Karen Brooks-Reese

The following list of books teens love, books teens should read, and books adults who serve teens should know about was compiled IN ABSOLUTELY NO SCIENTIFIC MANNER and should be taken with a very large grain of salt.

Instructions:
Put an "X" next to the books you've read
Put a "+" next to the books you LOVE
Put a "*" next to the books you plan on reading
Tally your "X"s at the bottom
Share with your friends!

1. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy / Douglas Adams +
2. Kit's Wilderness / David Almond
3. Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian / Sherman Alexie +
4. Speak / Laurie Halse Anderson +
5. Feed / M.T. Anderson
6. Flowers in the Attic / V.C. Andrews
7. Thirteen Reasons Why / Jay Asher +
8. Am I Blue? / Marion Dane Bauer (editor)
9. Audrey Wait! / Robin Benway
10. Weetzie Bat / Francesca Lia Block+
11. Tangerine / Edward Bloor X
12. Forever / Judy Blume
13. What I Saw and How I Lied / Judy Blundell
14. Tyrell / Coe Booth
15. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants / Ann Brashares X
16. A Great and Terrible Beauty / Libba Bray
17. The Princess Diaries / Meg Cabot
18. The Stranger / Albert Camus X
19. Ender's Game / Orson Scott Card +
20. Postcards from No Man's Land / Aidan Chambers
21. Perks of Being a Wallflower / Stephen Chbosky +
22. And Then There Were None / Agatha Christie
23. Gingerbread / Rachel Cohn
24. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist / Rachel Cohn and David Levithan +
25. Artemis Fowl (series) / Eoin Colfer
26. The Hunger Games / Suzanne Collins +
27. The Midwife's Apprentice / Karen Cushman
28. The Truth About Forever / Sarah Dessen
29. Little Brother / Cory Doctorow +
30. A Northern Light / Jennifer Donnelly
31. Tears of a Tiger / Sharon Draper
32. The House of the Scorpion / Nancy Farmer
33. Breathing Underwater / Alex Flinn
34. Stardust / Neil Gaiman +
35. Annie on My Mind / Nancy Garden X
36. What Happened to Cass McBride / Gail Giles
37. Fat Kid Rules the World / K.L. Going
38. Lord of the Flies / William Golding
39. Looking for Alaska / John Green X
40. Bronx Masquerade / Nikki Grimes
41. Out of the Dust / Karen Hesse X
42. Hoot / Carl Hiaasen
43. The Outsiders / S.E. Hinton +
44. Crank / Ellen Hopkins X
45 The First Part Last / Angela Johnson
46. Blood and Chocolate / Annette Curtis Klause
47. Arrow's Flight / Mercedes Lackey
48. Hattie Big Sky / Kirby Larson
49. To Kill a Mockingbird / Harper Lee
50. Boy Meets Boy / David Levithan X
51. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks / E. Lockhart
52. The Giver / Lois Lowry +
53. Number the Stars / Lois Lowry X
54. Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie / David Lubar
55. Inexcusable / Chris Lynch
56. The Earth, My Butt and Other Big, Round Things / Carolyn Mackler +
57. Dragonsong / Anne McCaffrey
58. White Darkness / Geraldine McCaughrean
59. Sold / Patricia McCormick
60. Jellicoe Road / Melina Marchetta
61. Wicked Lovely / Melissa Marr
62. Twilight / Stephenie Meyer X
63. Dairy Queen / Catherine Murdock
64. Fallen Angels / Walter Dean Myers
65. Monster / Walter Dean Myers X
66. Step From Heaven / An Na
67. Mama Day / Gloria Naylor
68. The Keys to the Kingdom (series) / Garth Nix
69. Sabriel / Garth Nix
70. Airborn / Kenneth Oppel
71. Eragon / Christopher Paolini
72. Hatchet / Gary Paulsen +
73. Life As We Knew It / Susan Beth Pfeffer
74. The Golden Compass / Phillip Pullman +
75. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging / Louise Rennison
76. The Lightning Thief / Rick Riordan
77. Always Running: La Vida Loca / Luis Rodriguez
78. how i live now / Meg Rosoff
79. Harry Potter (series) / J.K. Rowling +
80. Holes / Louis Sachar X
81. Catcher in the Rye / J. D. Salinger +
82. Push / Sapphire
83. Persepolis / Marjane Satrapi X
84. Unwind / Neil Shusterman
85. Coldest Winter Ever / Sister Souljah
86. Stargirl / Jerry Spinelli X
87. Chanda's Secrets / Allan Stratton
88. Tale of One Bad Rat / Brian Talbot
89. Rats Saw God / Rob Thomas +
90. Lord of the Rings / J.R.R. Tolkien X
91. Stuck in Neutral / Terry Trueman
92. Gossip Girl / Cecily Von Ziegesar X
93. Uglies / Scott Westerfeld
94. Every Time a Rainbow Dies / Rita Williams-Garcia
95. Pedro and Me / Judd Winick
96. Hard Love / Ellen Wittlinger X
97. American Born Chinese / Gene Luen Yang X
98. Elsewhere / Gabrielle Zevin
99. I am the Messenger / Markus Zusak +
100. The Book Thief / Markus Zusak


38. I decided not to mark what I plan on eventually reading, because my reading intentions don't seem to matter much. What would be interesting though is the number of books on this list that I have purchased with large intent to read them, and still haven't. I find it interesting that I recall reading at least a few of these around 9 or 10 years old. Others that are "classics" I've just never gotten around to reading.

Dear blogworld, i'm working on that whole constantly updated blog thing. Please forgive me. Thanks, Sara.