So you've read and own the entire Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins? The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld? And you're hungry for more? (Pardon my pun).

I am really excited by the buzz around a new series called Divergent by Veronica Roth - apparently worked on during college when she should have been doing her creative writing homework at Northwestern University, a choice, which has transformed her into a graduate and full time writer. I, for one, am really excited because everyone is abuzz about a new series called Divergent by Veronica Roth - apparently worked on during college when she should have been doing her creative writing homework @ Northwestern University - a choice - which has now transformed Veronica into a graduate and full time writer.

A Dystopian novel at it's best, the heroine Beatrice, lives in a society where ONE choice made at the age of 16 determines - your friends - your beliefs - and your loyalties FOREVER. The choice - which of the 5 factions: Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful) and Erudite (the intelligent)- to belong to, can seperate or unite you with you family, previous friends, schoolmates and former interests. One is not supposed to be "Divergent" (gifted in more than one faction). If one is - as Beatirce discovers, it can mean death. She makes a choice and renames herself Tris, joining her faction hiding a pretty big secret. Tris then discovers a growing conflict threatening to unravel her seemingly perfect society. Her secret may destroy her or help her save those she loves most...

The first book has just come out and hit CPL's library stacks. There will be two sequels books to follow.

I'm all in!

If you liked the Hunger games you might also check out Graceling by Kirstin Cashore and the companion novel Fire - both gripping all night reads. In Graceling if a person is born with 2 different coloured eyes they are "graced" with a special gift or ability that becomes aparrent as they mature. When Katsa discovers that she is graced with killing she becomes a pawn used by her uncle, the king. Katsa, however, has other ideas about how she wants to live her life and a gripping suspense/romance novel ensues.

And if you like Graceling you will also enjoy The Healer's Keep a companion novel to Vicoria Hanley's The Seer and the Sword

"The Giver" by Lois Lowry will also interest those who like Divergent as well as 1984 (George Orwell) and Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)(both found in our adult fiction collection)

You guys aren’t going to believe this. It’s seriously the best thing EVER and I’m not even just saying that. This is going to be the highlight of my life. Well… it’ll make Top 5 at LEAST.

Cineplex Sunridge and Chinook are offering HARRY POTTER PASSPORTS for $24.99 that will allow you to see the first SEVEN MOVIES again on the BIG SCREEN, as well as buy advance passes for the last movie on July 15^th. It also gives you a chance to win a trip to London for the premiere, and you can download a copy of any of the first movies at a discounted price.

Yeah, I know, right?

The only catch is that they’re only offering two showings per movie, so if you can’t make them, you’re going to miss it.

Still, that’s better than trying to cram all seven of them in on July 14^th (I realized the hard way that movie marathons stopped working after OOTP came out…)

If you’re fan-girling/boying as hard over this as I am, comment on this blog about the geekiest thing you've ever done in the name of Harry Potter. I’ll go first (in the comments section).

Gringott’s account is a little low on sickles at the moment? You can always check out all 7 of the released films on DVD or Blu-Ray from the Calgary Public Library!!!

And just in case you guys need a little something extra to tide you over, you HAVE to check out Team Starkid. Their phenomenal shows “A Very Potter Musical” and “A Very Potter Sequel” are TOTALLY AWESOME. If you haven’t seen them yet, I won’t spoil the fun, but you’re going to LOVE gLee’s Darren Criss as Harry, and he’s not even the best part!

You’ve dug your shorts out of the dirty hamper. You’ve hitched, hiked or biked to the field. Your cleats are tied… and the thunder rolls.

Aaaarrrggghhhh! Practice is cancelled – again. The game’s been postponed – again.

Don’t give in to rain-out-rage! Use your lightning reflexes - grab a great read from your ball-bag and escape the soggy scene.

Here are a few rainy read suggestions...

And remember--things could be worse! This is Calgary...it could be snowing.

So the casting of “The Hunger Games” was pretty high on my radar for a while there, but I just couldn’t keep up with the constant drama that Hollywood was putting us through – Who’s going to be the perfect Katniss? How do we please Team Gale and Team Peeta at the same time? What ethnicity is Rue supposed to be anyways? At any rate, I checked a couple of days ago, and most of the cast now looks set in stone. Here’s the problem… aside from Josh Hutcherson being cast as Peeta (…WHAT?!?! Adorable little Josh from Bridge to Terabithia is now old enough to play hunky Peeta!??!?!), and Elizabeth Banks being cast as Effie… I realized I have NO IDEA WHO ANY OF THESE PEOPLE ARE! A preliminary search of IMDB told me that the guy playing Gale used to date Miley Cyrus, and the girl playing Katniss was in this movie that surprised everyone at the Oscars last year. But I have seriously never heard of any of them before! So here’s my question: Is a cast of relative Unknowns better than an All-Star cast? Will this help separate Suzanne Collin’s characters from other characters that better-known actors have played before? (I once watched a movie that had Rupert Grint in it, and I was like “Ron Weasley? What are you doing here?) And finally… if you could have your ultimate Dream Cast, who would star in The Hunger Games?

Eric Walters is coming to Calgary Public Library on April 15th!

To celebrate, we're giving away a free copy of his recent book Shaken.

To win, be the 3rd person to email cplteenservices@gmail.com and name 4 books written by Eric Walters!

Freedom to Read Week happens every year and is a chance for us all to think about our right to choose what we read. Every year our right to read what we want to is challenged in many ways. Books are often banned, reporters lose their jobs because of opinions they are expressing, and often material is not even published or purchased because of its content. So, we are holding a contest to celebrate the freedom to read!

Here are the rules:

Express your thoughts on the freedom to read with words, film or graphic arts.

Choose one of the following methods:

Make a poster: draw, paint, or use photography and other graphic arts (8 ½ x 14” or 11 x 17”)

Write: a poem, short story, or essay (max. 300 words)

Create a film: (3 min. or less)

All content must be original, except for short, cited quotations.

Criteria:
1. Persuade an audience and support your point of view.
2. Use techniques of form effectively to engage an audience.

Contest is open to Calgary students in Grades 7 – 9. Include your name, school, grade, and telephone number with your entry. Enter by email: freedomtoread@calgarypubliclibrary.com AND upload to Teens Create (http://www.calgarypubliclibrary.com/teenscreate); OR submit your hardcopy to any Calgary Public Library location. One entry per person. Entries must be received no later than Wednesday February 9th 2011.

And of course...there will be prizes!

Imagine a cold, bleak world, where the normally lush vegetation is now brown and leafless. The deserted city streets are covered in a grimy brown substance and the few who are brave enough to venture outside appear distorted and lumpy in their weird protective coverings.

Brutal Post – Apocalypse or just another Calgary winter?

It’s hard to tell the difference sometimes, which is why I thought its a perfect time to highlight some of the many post-apocalyptic YA books that have been published recently.

The three books below have all been published within the last five years and I’ve stayed away from the hyper-popular series like the Hunger Games, Forest of Hands and Teeth, and the Uglies. Those are all important books in the genre, but holy smokes I feel like we've talked about them a lot recently. If you haven’t read them, and your a fan of the genre, then go get 'em! But if you've already read them, hopefully the books below are new for you.

Genesis

Bernard Beckett

In Genesis, author Bernard Beckett uses a "question and answer" form that is similar to the way Plato wrote his classic The Republic. Beckett's story takes place in 2075 on an isolated Island that was spared from the cataclysms that ravaged the rest of the world. The people on the island survived because of the cunning inventions of a guy named... ready for it? Plato. We follow along with Anax as she takes her exam to be admitted into the Government's elite Academy. The subject of the exam is Adam Forde, a guard who had broken the uber-controlling society’s rules. We learn of the fall-out of his free-thinking, and; similarly to Aldus Huxley’s classic dystopia Brave New World, the exam slowly reveals the sinister secrets of the Academy as well as the connections between Anax and Adam Forde.

Life as We Knew It

Susan Beth Pfeffer

Life as We Knew It is the first in a series of three books where readers view what may be the end of the world through the diary entries of a 16 year old girl. We follow along as Miranda goes from being a fairly regular 16 year old girl in Pennsylvania to a survivor of some of the worst environmental catastrophes in human history. It all starts when a meteor collides with the Moon and lurches into a closer orbit to Earth, setting off every kind of natural disaster you could imagine. Miranda, her Mother, Brother and best friend fair better than most, but are confronted with a grim future that may, or may not be worth struggling to see.

The other side of the Island

Allegra Goodman

The other Side of the Island is similar to Genesis in that it's set on an island of survivors under the watchful eye of a power hungry, my-way-or-the-highway kind of government. This time society takes its orders from “Earth Mother”, the head of a corporation who controls everything from the weather and sunsets to the music that people listen to. We follow Honor, a girl who just wants to fit in and follow the rules. Unfortunately (for her), Honor’s parents are more rebellious than she would like and constantly oppose the social conventions forced upon them. This doesn’t sit well with the corporation (or Honor really) and eventually they are arrested. Her parents' disappearance forces Honor to set out on a search to the other side of the Island to find her family and the sinister secrets of the corporation.

The Calgary Public Library challenges teens to a book trailer competition! Enter to win!

Step 1: Be part of a conversation - One Book One Calgary

What is One Book One Calgary? Well, it's big. Very big. Evenyone in Calgary - your mom, your sister, your grandfather - is going to be reading the same book, at the same time. To participate...

Step 2: Grab the book at your local library!

Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta is this year’s One Book One Calgary pick and it is full of quirky facts about Alberta’s mavericks – like did you know that Ralph Klein’s dad was a Stampede wrestler called ‘The Phantom’? To find out more, read the book and….

Step 3: Make a book trailer!

Just like a movie trailer, a book trailer is a short video that promotes a book. Try to keep your trailer no longer than 2 minutes, but otherwise be creative! Search online for book trailers to find examples and resources (click here and here for two awesome examples of Mavericks book trailers). In the book trailer show us your favourite Mavericks - and what you think is important, funny, or notable about Calgary as a city - and what makes us Mavericks. Then...

Step 4: Submit online and enter to win!

Upload your video to YouTube, or Google Video. Then, go to the library's Teens Create website, create an account and link your video to it for a chance to WIN! We're giving away iPod shuffles, iTunes gift cards - and much more. Contest ends November 30th at 11:59pm.

Every year the Young Adult Library Services Association runs a contest where teens vote to come up with a top ten list of the best teen books.

And...the voting for this year has opened! Voting will run from now until September 17th. So...vote! The winners will be announced during teen read week (October 17-23).

The cool think about the Teens' Top Ten is it is chosen entirely by and for teens. The twenty-six official nominations are chosen by fifteen teen book groups and of course, the final winners are chosen by teens who vote. Last year, more than 11,000 teens voted for the Teens' Top Ten, choosing Paper Towns by John Green as their favorite title.