Tag Archive | communication

Statistical Probability of Falling in Love, by Jennifer E. Smith (book review) – love is in the air?

Jan27

Bridesmaid’s dress? check.
Passport? yes, Mom!
Dickens novel to throw at Dad? of course.

Even if you’ve never missed a travel connection or worried about having to get along with people you’ve never met or been stranded in a crowded airport, you can still imagine Hadley’s anxiety about traveling by herself from JFK to London for her dad’s second wedding…

Meeting Oliver makes the delay and the flight so much more bearable for her. All those crazy statistics he quotes – he must be making them up! Why, oh why couldn’t they have gotten to say a proper goodbye at Heathrow Airport before she had to find a taxi and rush to the wedding?

Twenty-four hours of hurry and bother – wonder if it’s the last thing that Hadley needs or merely what she’d never expect…
**kmm

Book info: The Statistical Probability of Falling in Love / Jennifer E. Smith. Poppy Books, 2012. [author’s website] [book’s Facebook page] [publisher site] [Hadley’s book trailer] [Oliver’s book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Recommendation: Four minutes late! The plane is leaving; Hadley will be late for her father’s wedding. At least there’s a cute guy to talk to as her trans-Atlantic flight is rescheduled and she tries to calm down in the overcrowded airport.

She can understand why Dad went to study in England – he is a poet, after all – but why did he fall in love with someone there? How could he leave her and Mom alone? Just sneaking in and taking his personal things from their house while they were on vacation – ha! How can he expect her to be a bridesmaid in this wedding and be happy? She’s never even met the woman – her new stepmother – arrgh!

Thankfully, the cute guy is on her flight. Oliver is British, studying at Yale, listens a lot, talks a little. He even has the seat next to hers and helps Hadley relax on her first long plane ride, inventing silly statistics and listening to her worries about the future.

Separated at the passport checkpoint in the London airport, Hadley hopes she can see Oliver one last time before she heads into a strange city and a strange new relationship with her father. With the delays, she’ll barely make it to the London church in time for the wedding.

As the day goes on and Hadley moves her jet-lagged self through the ceremony and family photos, she feels compelled to find Oliver, to find out why he was returning to England suddenly, to see if he can come up with a statistic that will make her feel better about what lies ahead.

Can she remember enough from their sleepy conversations to figure out where he is? Can she travel there without getting run over by traffic traveling on the wrong side of the road? Can she just make it through this nerve-wracking day and go back home to Mom, please?

It’s easy to understand Hadley’s fears and frustrations during all the changes in her life and to root for her to find someone special for herself, even if she doesn’t believe in love at first sight. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

The Big Picture (reflective)

Jan16

Have you ever WORDLED? I used their free app to create the nifty word cloud here, using my initial blogpost about MotherReader and Lee Wind‘s annual Comment Challenge for kidlit bloggers, 2012 edition.

What fun it’s been to “meet” illustrators, authors, and book bloggers through the Challenge! Getting out of my “writing silo” where I see only my computer screen and the books that I’m recommending so that I interact more with the diverse and supportive kidlit community online – priceless!

Since BooksYALove is a fairly new blog, I’m grateful for new visitors (and new followers – yay!) who will help spread the word about the wonderful YA books from debut authors and smaller imprints that I’m discovering.

After all, I’m writing these recommendations (no spoilers ever! I promise) for YA readers… right book for the right reader!
**kmm

Unison Spark, by Andy Marino (book review) – social network or mind control?

Jan6

book cover of Unison Spark by Andy Marino published by Henry HoltA perfect world made just for you,
optimized to provide everything that you want,
more realistic than real life.
What could go wrong with that?

Future Friday takes us to sprawling Eastern Seaboard City, where the Haves can access the ultimate social network – Unison – and the Have-Nots are relegated to the below-street slums, with its rampant crime among the scabbed-together shacks and cast-off technology bits.

Mistletoe can engineer and coax her hunk-of-junk scooter into maneuvers just beyond the maximum recommended for that old model – good thing, as gun-wielding topsider goons pursue her and lost Ambrose through Little Saigon’s alleys and hidden passageways. Why would any sensible topsider come down here?

All good things do have their price, and some revolutionaries think that the price of Unison will far exceed its subscription costs. Can the teens trust the revolutionaries or UniCorp or anyone?

How far is UniCorp willing to go in its search for maximum profits? Can they truly predict every individual Unison user’s ultimate needs through process-flow? When does the will of an individual become merely a consumable piece in a worldwide business plan?

This page-turning potential future is available now at libraries and bookstores – grab it!
**kmm

Book info: Unison Spark / Andy Marino. Henry Holt, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: When Mistletoe saves a young topsider from uniformed non-police thugs, she wonders why this wealthy teen is in the grotty lower city. She certainly can’t go up into his world of real sunshine and Unison – the social network that knows you better than you know yourself.

Ah, Unison! Just shimmer in (for an appropriate fee) and enjoy limitless data flow, countless friends, your own custom-structured world for work and play. Everything is clearer, brighter, happier in Unison – as long as you keep paying your subscription. And UniCorp provides all the little things in the real world that make it less painful to be part of the “fleshbound parade” of humans during those so-long moments of being out of Unison.

No one can predict process-flow as well as teenaged Ambrose, who is chair of UniCorp’s profits division well ahead of his older brother Len. Ambrose will today move into Unison permanently, when surgery to his hypothalamus will eliminate his body’s need for sleep and give him 24 hours a day in Unison to maximize profits for their father’s corporation.

A rogue data-transfer message as he enters the UniCorp building tells Ambrose to go down into Little Saigon now, before the surgery, or his brain and dreams will be siphoned away by… who? Len? Their father? Revolutionaries? Contrary to best process-flow data, Ambrose flees for the subcanopy’s depths.

As Mistletoe and Ambrose escape through Little Saigon’s grimy alleys and tunnels on a puttering old roboscooter, they discover that both received the same rogue message “Carpe somnium” and wonder why they’ve been told to “seize the dream.”

Bombs in a world where explosives are illegal, closed off from the data of Unison and allies in the subcanopy, the teens must stay alive and free as they try to discover who’s trying to keep Ambrose out of Unison and why the data message brought them together.

Clever and suspenseful, Unison Spark is an adventure story of the future which threads questions of self and community through its action-filled pages. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Reading beyond the box (reflective)

Jan5

A new year and a new challenge: Read and thoughtfully comment on 5 blog posts a day for 21 days…

Since it takes about 3 weeks to solidly acquire a new habit, MotherReader and Lee Wind have once again teamed up to help book bloggers get into the good habit of reading what other book bloggers are reading and writing about and (most importantly) joining in the conversation about the kidlit that makes us all so happy with their Comment Challenge 2012.

And there will be prizes for folks who register their 100 comments in 21 days (with 1 day off, just in case), too! We’ll be checking in with Lee on Wednesdays to update our totals and get a bit of encouragement along the way.

So, a new year, new blogs to read, new books to discover – onward…
**kmm

Same Difference (fiction)

Dec9

Sort of rude,
Fairly crude,
Still totally inept at social interaction.

It’s Fun Friday for us, but not so much fun for mid-20s Simon, as a fleeting glimpse of an old high school friend sets off a chain of reminiscences and regrets.

Simon’s high school acquaintances couldn’t even remember that Koreans weren’t Japanese – why did he expect them to show a little respect to Irene who was trying to make her way through the sighted world?

And you’ve got to wonder why Nancy decided to open the letters addressed to the former tenant of her apartment. Did this Sarah really move without a forwarding address to avoid being contacted by Ben? Did Nancy really write back to Ben, pretending to be Sarah!?

Derek won the 2004 Eisner, 2004 Harvey, and 2003 Ignatz Awards with Same Difference as a self-published book; it’s even better in this hardback reissue, published this week with spiffed-up art and Derek’s notes about how he used sites he knew to create an authentic setting for this mostly-not-autobiographical story.

If your local library doesn’t have it yet, head for an independent bookstore to get Same Difference – hope your copy has the cool acetate cover with the fish! Proof again that comics ain’t just for kiddies.
**kmm

Book info: Same Difference / Derek Kirk Kim. First Second Books, 2011. [author’s website] [author’s blog] [publisher site] [author interview]

Recommendation: Regretting the past is familiar for Simon in his mid-20s, but worrying about his pal Nancy’s offbeat response to misdelivered mail is new territory.

Unexpectedly catching sight of an old friend from his small-town California high school, Simon explains to his friends why he just can’t go talk to her. Even several years after graduation, he feels the pain of being an outsider, a grunge-rock Korean surrounded by waves of belligerent Anglo blockheads.

Irene transferred in during their senior year. Since they had two classes together, sometimes Simon would walk with her to class. Oh, and she was blind, so the local yokels loved to make stupid jokes about that, too. When she hinted about going to the dance together, he bailed out, made an excuse about visiting relatives…but didn’t.

Nancy finally lets Simon know about the mail that’s been coming to her new place – mail from Ben Leland to the last tenant, mail that professes his undying love for Sarah, mail that Nancy opens, week after week, and then answers!

When a package arrives from Ben, Nancy decides that she has to get an actual look at him and wrangles Simon into driving her to Pacifica – Simon’s hometown.

Can they find Ben? Will Nancy really try to take a peek at him? Or contact him? Will Simon cross paths with Irene again and get the nerve to apologize? Sometimes growing up is a lot more difficult than it appears on the surface.

Derek Kirk Kim has successfully melded several episodes of his famed webcomic into a single graphic novel which won several awards as a self-published work. Enjoy this new edition with wacky introduction by fellow West Coast cartoonist Gene Yang, plus Derek’s notes on creating his characters and setting. (Review copy courtesy of the publisher.)

Future of Us (fiction)

Nov18
Oooh, tell me about my future!!
I’ll have hundreds and hundreds of friends!?
I’ll look like that in 15 years?
I’ll be incredibly… miserable?

Seeing into the future is a form of time travel, and best friends Josh and Emma have stumbled onto a window into their own destinies through an AOL disk and a dial-up modem.

Somehow, the view from 1996 (when getting online is new to most teens) into their adult lives isn’t as rosy as they’d hoped. Emma decides to try and tweak her future by making some changes right now, checking that Facebook thingie to see how it works.

There are two distinct voices in this book, as Carolyn Mackler writes Emma’s chapters and Jay Asher writes Josh’s, alternating to tell their story.

You can become a fan of the book on Facebook, of course! The Future of Us is being released on Monday, November 21, 2011, and Warner Brothers has already purchased the film rights.
**kmm

Book info: The Future of Us / Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler. Razorbill, 2011. [Jay’s blog] [Carolyn’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

Recommendation: Events from 15 years in her future are the last things that Emma expects from her new computer in 1996! A birthday gift from her dad and stepmom, it even has an internal modem to dial-up and “get online” so her best friend Josh brings over an AOL install CD-ROM.

After dialing up on mom’s phoneline, Emma gets an AOL “welcome” message and something called Facebook with pictures of all these people she doesn’t know. Curious, she searches for other Emma Nelsons on the Facebook and finds one, someone who went to her high school, who has the same birthday, whose picture looks exactly like Emma…15 years older! This Emma has a rotten husband – you can tell by her messages to her “friends” (who could have hundreds of friends?). And the future Josh is married to the most popular girl at their high school! Josh, who’s too shy to talk to anyone except Emma and his best friend Tyson?!

Getting ready for the track meet, telling her boyfriend Graham that it’s all over, Emma wonders if she’s been pranked somehow with this Facebook thing. But when she tears up her application to the college that the future Emma attended, suddenly the Facebook entries are different. The future Emma is less-stressed about her husband (a different one!), but unhappy about her work… hmmm.

As Emma’s updates on the Facebook site change, Josh decides that he’d better start making his big-house-and-a-boat future come true, so he gets up the nerve to ask beautiful Sydney on a date. Never mind his long-hidden feelings for Emma and that awkward try at kissing her a few months ago.

So, can Emma completely alter her own destiny just by changing a few things now? Is Sydney going to be the best thing that ever happened to Josh? Do they really want to know ahead of time about their futures or would they rather go back to the way things were before?

Josh and Emma react to their view into the future in alternating chapters written by Jay Asher (Thirteen Reasons Why) and Carolyn Mackler (Vegan Virgin Valentine and The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things) – would you want to know about your future? (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

To Timbuktu, by Casey Sciezka (nonfiction) – art, teaching, love, travel

Nov16

Nine countries,
Two people,
One true story.

Travel the long route To Timbuktu with Casey and Steven on this World Wednesday, sharing their everyday joys, occasional mishaps, and adventures on their two-year journey together.

Steven’s charcoal sketches perfectly complement Casey’s retelling of their experiences as teachers of English in Beijing (becoming residents instead of visitors that cold winter ), as travelers in Vietnam and Thailand (paradise of warmth and way too many tourists), and as observers in different towns of Mali, including the remote and legendary Timbuktu.

Returning to the US, they’ve established the Local Language Literacy foundation to provide humorous books to African students in their native languages. Casey’s first LLL book was translated into Bamanakan by a teacher they worked with in Mali, and 1300 copies are now in the hands of Malian high school students. Currently, she and Steven are working with author Daour Wade to create books in French and Wolof for students in Senegal.

What an adventure Casey and Steven had as they traveled together! You’ll be glad that you came along on their winding journey To Timbuktu!
**kmm

Book info: To Timbuktu: Nine Countries, Two People, One True Story / Casey Scieszka, illustrated by Steven Weinberg. Roaring Brook, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

Recommendation: World travel – that’s the plan for Casey and Steven after graduation. Now, actually getting jobs overseas – that’s another thing…

When they met in Morocco during junior semester abroad, the pair tried to just live in the moment, as they’d be in college on opposite coasts when they returned to the US. But they couldn’t let each other go and kept up their long-distance romance through that long, difficult year before graduation.

Casey dreams of living overseas and writing the stories told by Muslims who live in different cultures, examining how Islamic schools differ from others in the same country. Steven’s art is his passion; what career that will lead him to is still uncertain. As Casey writes grant applications for her research, Steven wonders how his future fits into hers…

When Casey finally gets funding to live and write in Mali – a year from now – she and Steven decide to travel and work in other countries along the way. Teaching English in Beijing, touring Southeast Asia, grabbing a quick rendezvous with their families in Paris, a detour through Morocco to see their host families again, then they’re finally in Mali!

But can the couple stay in love through traveler’s flu, bureaucratic red tape, and erratic train schedules? When Casey is piled-up with research, will Steven have enough to do? And once you’ve gone all the way To Timbuktu, what do you do next??

This autobiographical travel memoir leaps off the pages, thanks to Casey’s evocative narrative and Steven’s many sketches, taking us from their Beijing neighborhood to the schools of Mali and everywhere in between. And, yes, Casey is the daughter of author Jon Scieskza. (Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher)

Drowned Maiden’s Hair (fiction)

Nov14

Seeking answers from The Beyond.
Unwilling to wait until Heaven to see loved ones again.
Willing to pay anything to hear their voices now…

On this mysterious Monday, welcome to the early 1900s during the height of Spiritualism, when bereaved people became convinced that the chasm between this world and the next could be crossed during seances, that someone could connect them with a loved one for just a little time more together. For every truly gifted medium, there were countless charlatans and tricksters who took advantage of immense grief for large profits.

Seances and bringing forth voices from Beyond are just “the family business” for the genteel spinster Hawthorne sisters, now fallen on hard economic times. Who would guess that a child was suddenly living in their attic bedroom, an orphan child with a heavenly singing voice, an unwanted orphan child who can fit in hidden cupboards and manipulate the ghostly vapors and set chandeliers to swinging?

Wondering how long this arrangement can last? How long the illusions will hold? If there are any true connections to the Other Side? Come back to 1909 with Maud and find out for yourself.
**kmm

Book info: A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: A Melodrama / Laura Amy Schlitz. Candlewick, 2006 (paperback, 2008). [author interview] [publisher site] [book trailer]

Recommendation: Locked in the orphanage outhouse, Maud never imagined that she would be rescued by spinster sisters to become a séance angel…

Suddenly Maud has lovely new dresses and books with all the pages and a bedroom of her own! The Misses Hawthorne have all the “modern conveniences” in their large, remote house – this is 1909, after all. They teach Maud new hymns, buy her a blond wig to cover her flyaway brown hair, have her practice tricks for making chandeliers sway and hiding in secret compartments.

Yes, the Misses Hawthorne are no longer wealthy, so they hold séances to make a living. They help grieving people “hear” their lost loved ones from The Beyond, now assisted by Maud acting as any child who died young. If truth from the doctors and religion from the preachers won’t satisfy a wealthy patron that someone dear has indeed died and gone to heaven, then the Misses Hawthorne are more than willing to act as go-betweens with the Spirit World on their behalf…for a fee.

Moving to a seaside villa to be closer to a grief-stricken mother whose daughter drowned is another new experience for Maud – ice cream! The sea breeze! Sneaking out in the night to play in the sand! For no one outside the house must ever see her, must ever know that a child lives with the Hawthornes…

So, will Maud always have to live hidden in the attic bedroom? What does Muffet, their deaf and mute servant, think about all this trickery? Why does pretending to be dead Caroline feel different from acting as the other child spirits? Is Caroline really speaking to Maud in her dreams?

Go behind the scenes with Maud as she is swept along with the Misses Hawthorne during the height of the Spiritualist movement – and listen for Caroline’s voice…
(One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

I Lost My Mobile at the Mall (fiction)

Nov11

Cellphone lost at the mall.
Home computers stolen.
How can Elly cope with losing constant contact with her friends?

Elly’s terrible luck doesn’t make high school life easy in her all-things-British Australian suburb, as she’s not sure where her surfer boyfriend is after school, she doesn’t know when friends are getting together for pizza, and she has to use the public computer to log on to her favorite social sites… finding out everything – good or bad – well after everyone else does.

Well-known for her humorous adult books, Australian Wendy Harmer is spot on with Elly’s dismay over being out of touch with the rest of Oldcastle High School in her first young adult novel on our Fun Friday. Hope to see more of Elly in future books!
**kmm

Book info: I Lost My Mobile at the Mall: Teen on the Edge of Technological Breakdown / Wendy Harmer. Kane Miller Children’s Books, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [author video]

Recommendation: When she loses her cellphone at the mall (again), Elly can’t even report it missing until her Mum gets home from some fancy event she’s organizing – no landline at home, of course. When her parents refuse to buy Elly another cellphone, she finds herself completely out of the loop, unable to text her friends or send photos or talk to her cute surfer boyfriend. Time slows down to a crawl with every minute that she’s out of contact…

Not that life in Oldcastle is at all exciting. Everything in their Australian coastal town has a British name – the shops, the pubs, even Elly and her sister and her parents and her pets! With the Pickering family coat of arms hanging on the bathroom wall, who can take all this seriously? Now, not having a cellphone in ninth grade – that’s serious! She can’t even talk to her best friend about it – no mobile phone means no calls to far-off Queensland where Carmelita moved last year.

When the family’s home computers are stolen, Elly feels fully cut off from everyone as planning for the ninth grade dance goes into overdrive.

Why do her big sister’s new silver sandals fit Elly better than they fit Tilly? What is boyfriend Will doing in that photo on Bianca’s phone? Does her grandmother really want to learn how to use a computer? When will Carmelita’s advice letter arrive? And where’s the Post Office anyway?

Australian comedienne Wendy Harmer’s first book for young adults brings the effervescent Elly to life as a “teen on the edge of technological breakdown.” (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

On the Grid (nonfiction)

Oct21

Look around your house, apartment, or dorm on this Fun Friday.
Do you know the exact route that water takes to get to your faucet?
Where does it all go when you flush?
How do phone signals follow your cellphone as you travel?
What are all those lines up on your utility poles?

Scott Huler, the 2011 Piedmont Laureate for Creative Non-Fiction, wondered about all that, too. His curiosity about the many infrastructure systems that keep our towns and cities running became this interesting and easy-reading book.

Travel around Huler’s hometown as you educate yourself about the grids and services that keep our level of civilization…civilized. (and watch what you flush!)
**kmm

Book info: On the Grid: A Plot of Land, An Average Neighborhood, and the Systems that Make Our World Work / Scott Huler. Rodale Books, 2010 (paperback 2011). [author’s website] [publisher site] [author interview]

Recommendation: What’s under those manhole covers? Why are there so many different wires on the utility poles? How do cities get drinking water to every faucet?

Looking around his home in Raleigh, North Carolina, Scott Huler decided to trace all the service grids that bring safe drinking water and reliable electricity, take away unwanted stormwater and wastes, provide communication and entertainment and transportation.

Investigating one system at a time, Huler discusses land surveying, the water cycle (raincloud to river to raincloud), drinking water delivery and wastewater treatment, roads for vehicles and pedestrians, electricity generation and transmission, landline and cellular telephone services, cable and internet, garbage and recycling, and mass transit.

It takes lots of engineers, planning, technicians, and maintenance to keep these essential infrastructure services going. This raises questions about supply and demand, capacity and upgrades, and how everything gets paid for.

An interesting book that will have readers looking appreciatively at the services and utilities they use every day – and being more careful about what goes into their wastewater and stormwater systems!
(Looked intriguing, so I bought it – I was right!)