I have started reading Teen directed books for a "contest". It will help me in my position as a Teen Librarian. I want to read some genres that I normally would't choose.


I am the Wallpaper by Hughes, Mark Peter

Gr. 6-9. When this impressive first novel opens, 13-year-old Floey Packer confesses that she identifies with wallpaper, "there but barely noticed." Her existence becomes more conspicuous after her cousin secretly posts her diary online. Being an Internet cult figure furthers Floey's vow to cast aside her drab persona and assume a bolder, sassier identity; unfortunately, several revelations of a delicate nature put a strain on her already-tense relationships with cute male chum Wen and best girlfriend Azra. The repercussions sensitively and humorously dramatize the awkwardly evolving social dynamics of adolescence. Hughes' clever amalgam of Bridget Jones' Diary and Harriet the Spy will hold instant appeal for tweens and early teens; older YAs, with expectations of racier fare raised by the sophisticated cover, may find the content (giggly samplings of booze and all) surprisingly tame. But once readers enter the orbit of Floey's screwball charm--her explorations into Zen Buddhism occasion some hilarious haiku--the disappointment should prove short-lived. JenniferMattson. Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission. Appeared in: From BookList, March 1, 2005 Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.


I also finished Zadie Smiths "On Beauty" great read, highly recommend it

Truly human, fully ourselves, beautiful," muses a character in Smith's third novel, an intrepid attempt to explore the sad stuff of adult life, 21st century-style: adultery, identity crises and emotional suffocation, interracial and intraracial global conflicts and religious zealotry. Like Smith's smash debut, White Teeth (2000), this work gathers narrative steam from the clash between two radically different families, with a plot that explicitly parallels Howards End. A failed romance between the evangelical son of the messy, liberal Belseys-Howard is Anglo-WASP and Kiki African-American-and the gorgeous daughter of the staid, conservative, Anglo-Caribbean Kipps leads to a soulful, transatlantic understanding between the families' matriarchs, Kiki and Carlene, even as their respective husbands, the art professors Howard and Monty, amass mat riel for the culture wars at a fictional Massachusetts university. Meanwhile, Howard and Kiki must deal with Howard's extramarital affair, as their other son, Levi, moves from religion to politics. Everyone theorizes about art, and everyone searches for connections, sexual and otherwise. A very simple but very funny joke-that Howard, a Rembrandt scholar, hates Rembrandt-allows Smith to discourse majestically on some of the master's finest paintings. The articulate portrait of daughter Zora depicts the struggle to incorporate intellectual values into action. The elaborate Forster homage, as well as a too-neat alignment between characters, concerns and foils, threaten Smith's insightful probing of what makes life complicated (and beautiful), but those insights eventually add up. "There is such a shelter in each other," Carlene tells Kiki; it's a take on Forster's "Only Connect-," but one that finds new substance here. Agent, Georgia Garett at A.P. Watt. (Sept. 13) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. Appeared in: Publishers Weekly, Aug 01, 2005 (c) Copyright 2005, Cahners Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier, Inc. All Rights Reserved.