How to be Popular by Meg Cabot

Cabot, Meg. How to be Popular: A Novel. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publisher. 2006.
ISBN 978-0060880125 $16.99 288 pages
Genre: chick lit, romances, humor, school life, coming of age

Annotation:
Dont' be a Steph Landry!  Thanks to queen bee Lauren Moffat and a Big Gulp mishap, everyone in town knew Steph's name but she wanted to be known for something else.  Steph wanted to be popular.  With the help of a "How to Be Popular" book she found in Kitty's (her friend Jason's grandmother and her grandfather's fiancee) storage one day, Steph aims to change her fate.  Will she reach her goal and if she does will she be able to handle the consequences?

Pros: While Steph's book is certainly dated, it does give good advice. As Steph transforms, she stays mostly true to herself which made me all the more willing to cheer for her.  I found this book to be a fun and thought-provoking read.

Cons:  While I enjoyed this story, the imaginary line between fiction and reality was obvious to me in this book.   Maybe it's a trivial complaint but while being a great read, I would not recommend this to someone in a cynical frame of mind.  

Library Wars:Love & War, Vol. 1 Kiiro Yumi

Yumi, Kiiro, and Arikawa, Hiro. Library Wars: Love & War, Volume 1. San Francisco, CA: Viz Media, LLC, 2010.

ISBN 978-1421534886 $9.99 200 pages Rated: Older Teen

Genre: manga, action, romance, sci-fi, military

Summary: 

      In the near future, the government creates a committee to "protect" society from books considered harmful to its society.  To counteract this, the libraries swore to protect their own and patron's rights as stated in The Library Freedom Act including guaranteeing patron's privacy, opposition of censorship, and freedom to circulate material.  To circumvent the government, the libraries created the Library Defense Force.  It was a member of this very team that saved Iku Kasahara's treasured book when she was younger.  She's doing her best to train as an elite member of the department and meet her hero. 

Graphic Form & open ended:

     When she was younger, Iru Kasahara waited patiently for 10 years for the newest volume of her favorite fairy tale to be released. Because of the recent government censorship, books were rare and problematic to have but Iru loved to read.[shameless library plug and other book talk tie-in here] On the same day she picked up her book agents of the Media Betterment Act raided the bookstore.  Furious and in tears, Iru did everything she could to save her book from being confiscated and was suddenly saved by a sergeant of the library forces.  Iru couldn't remember his face but she never forgot what he did that day or his heroic actions. After years of training she is finally a recruit of the elite Library Defense Force, a special branch of the Library Forces, but will she ever find her mysterious savior? [flip random pages (lots of action sequences in this book)] Will her strict and sometimes brutal instructor, Dojo, ever approve of her?  [flip to premarked pages] How can she become more like her hero?

     Some additional info: this series has been made into an anime and here's a preview for the movie (in Japanese). Find out more about the anime here!

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese. First Edition. New York, NY: Square Fish, 2008. ISBN 13 978-0312384487 $18.99 240 pages Ages 12 & up

Genre: graphic novel, school life, culture clash, slice of life

Awards

Winner of the Michael L. Printz Award

National Book Award Finalist

Booklist Top Ten Graphic Novel for Youth

NPR Holiday Pick

Publishers Weekly Comics Week Best Comic of the Year

The Reuben Award for Best Comic Book

The Chinese American Librarians Association 2006/2007 Best Book Award

Eisner Awards 2007- Best Graphic Album- New

Time Magazine Top Ten Comic of the Year

Amazon.com Best Graphic Novel /Comic of the Year

Summary:

This graphic novel contains three seemingly unrelated stories that tie together in the end. The main story concerns Jin Wang and his struggles to fit in and attract the attention of his crush, a cute All-American blond.  Then we have the folktale of the Monkey King's journey after he is denied his seat with the gods. In the third story Danny must deal with his annoying cousin, Chin-Kee.

Open-end & cut-back to title

How far are you willing to go to fit in?  What would you do to make someone else like you?  What happens when someone keeps making your life miserable? This graphic novel ties all these questions together and shares a glimpse of what it is to be American Born Chinese.

Pros & Cons:

If you note the award list, you'll see that Mr. Yang certainly did something right here and I would honestly agree. The book is a fun read and ties in a beautiful message about being yourself and fitting in. The cons here would be if you have some Chinese blood in you as I do, please be prepared to laugh and try not to cringe at the stereotypes here.  The absurdity is one of the points and I would recommend reading this to anyone that has issues or wants to know more about "fitting in" and sometimes not as you can see in the drawing below! Go, Chin-Kee!

Feed by M. T. Anderson

Anderson, M. T.. Feed. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2002.

ISBN 9780763617264 $16.99 237 pages

Genre: Science Fiction

Awards: (Anderson, 2012)
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner
New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year
Boston Globe-Horn BookAwards – Honor Book
Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year
Chicago Public Library Best Books for Children and Teens
ALA (American Library Association) Best Books for Young Adults
Junior Library Guild Selection
Volunteer State Book Award Master List (Tennessee)
Riverbank Review Children’s Books of Distinction
Book Sense 76 Top 10 Picks
Horn Book Fanfare
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books – Bulletin Blue Ribbons
Booklist Editors’ Choice

National Book Award Finalist

Annotation:

Titus, like most of the people he knows, lives his life filtered through the feed. The transmitter implanted in his head works miracles by letting him instandtly chat with his friends, listen to new music just by thinking about it and learn about great bargains from his favorite brands. Life is pretty easy going for our hero until he stares across the room and sees beautiful Violet. Violet doesn’t go to SchoolTM and actually wants to see the forests.

Book Whisper technique

For Titus, life is just about perfect - except for the occasional ennui and those weird lesions that everyone is getting – until on a Moon trip he meets Violet and everything he thought he knew starts to slowly unravel in Feed.

Index card

Titus & fiends are “average” teens

Everyone is connected to the feed

Life is simple and concrete.

Story begins with a casual trip to the moon.

Titus meets Violet.

Hacker incident lets the lovers grow closer.

Violet is different and fun. Everything seems “new’ to her.

Moon incident left lingering issues.

Back on Earth, the couple gets closer.

Growing problems with the feed

Life quickly becomes uncertain.

Find out more about the book and author here!

M. T. Anderson. "Feed" M. T. Anderson. 2012. 25 Aug 2012 <http://mt-anderson.com/blog/his-books/books-for-teens-and-adults/feed-2/>.