Posts by Andrea Lipinski

Lynda Barry, most renowned for her comic strips and graphic novels featuring the character of Marlys, has written and illustrated two different books that incorporate cartoon characters into an unusual and inspiring exploration of the creative process.  One focuses more on writing and the other focuses more on artwork, but the graphic novel format means that fans of words and pictures alike will be able to appreciate both books.

I first learned about the animated film Sita Sings the Blues when it was featured in the New York International Children's Film Festival (Since I know you're wondering, I'll tell you that I got on their mailing list originally because of my deep and abiding love for the short films of Wallace and Gromit).  Anyway, since I'm a fan of animated films, especially films that I can enjoy and also recommend to my teen patrons, I decided to see this film.  And my goodness, it is a wonder to behold!  It's a feast for the ears as well as the eyes.

Here are some of the latest and greatest graphic novels around, as recommended by the American Library Association's 2011 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list.  See if you agree with my favorites from this list, and feel free to recommend some of your own!

After discussing 2010's music CD releases with the members of the Kingsbridge Library's Teen Advisory Group, I learned a few things about popular music. I learned that just because a performer was popular with teens all over the country didn't mean that this performer was popular with MY teens (like Taylor Swift, for example). I learned how to pronounce Ke$ha's name correctly (excuse me for not knowing how to pronounce something with a DOLLAR SIGN in it!)  I learned that many teens are of the opinion that "only old people buy music from amazon.com," at which point I told them to get off of my lawn while cursing my lumbago. And 

There are many novels about death in the young adult section of most libraries.  Some of them deal with the death of the teen narrator, or with the death of a parent or another family member.  But today I'm going to focus on stories where death and friendship are intertwined.  Many of these stories are especially poignant because (let's face it) we choose our friends, not our families, so often our friends are closer to us than family members could ever be. 

To jumpstart our brainstorming session of DVDs that were released in 2010, I printed out a list from amazon.com of their top-selling DVDs and brought it to my last Teen Advisory Group meeting.  My kids agreed with some of titles on that list, violently disagreed with others, and used the titles on that list as starting points to remember even more of their favorite films and TV shows that were released this year.  Their favorite DVDs of the year were filled with plenty of action, special effects, humor, and horror.

Lucia is a fan of Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm.  In this story, an 11-year-old girl named Turtle is sent to Key West, Florida to live with her aunt and cousins.  And while she's there, she finds a long-lost treasure map.  This is a funny and dramatic story that takes place during the mid 1930s.

Finbar Frame has a lot of things going against him.  He's not a popular star athlete like his brother, he's allergic to the sun, and... oh yes, his name is Finbar.  When a girl on the train sees Finbar's pale skin and bandaged arms, she has a suspicion about what he really is.  When she asks what happened to his arms and Finbar answers, "Too much sun," she's not repulsed or confused as most people would be.  Instead, she's delighted. 

Right now, the teens in our Teen Advisory Group are reading a boatload of books so that they can recommend their personal favorites.  Solen, our top reader of the year (so far!) wanted to share some of his favorite books from 2010, and here they are:

A few years ago I picked up Suzanne Supplee's novel Artichoke's Heart, which caught my eye because the unique title seemed at odds with the box of chocolates on the cover.  But the more I read this story, about an overweight girl named Rosemary who gets diet books, a treadmill, and tickets to a conference called "Healing the Fat Girl Within" for Christmas, the more I was hooked.

Will Rose be able to protect her best friend Lissa, with whom she shares an unusual psychic bond?  Will Lissa and Rose be able to help Victor Dashkov break out of prison in order to save Dimitri, who loves Rose but also wants to kill her?  How will Rose's new boyfriend react when he learns that she wants to save her old boyfriend?  And is the love between Rose and Dimitri doomed to fail because he's an evil undead vampire?

Hmmm.  Perhaps we should rewind this story a little bit.

Hope and Lizzie are sisters who are just one year apart.  They've been close for many years, but one day when Hope comes in and sees her sister Lizzie holding a shotgun, she realizes that their lives are very different now.  And that Lizzie has been keeping secrets.  After Lizzie is taken away from the family, Hope is left behind with their mother and with a lot of questions.  Why was Lizzie so quiet and depressed lately?  What secrets was she keeping?  And why would she want to kill herself?

Revolver by Matt Kindt

Imagine if the film Groundhog Day was put into a blender with a parallel universe and a generous dose of darkness.  If you drank the smoothie that was made from these strange ingredients, then you might have the first inkling of an idea of what Revolver was all about. 

As her sophomore year of high school begins, Jess is suddenly having trouble fitting in to the school scene.  She never had problems like this before, but her best friends Bizza and Char have turned into too-cool punk wannabes overnight and now Jess feels completely and utterly alone.  It's time to reinvent herself and join a new group of friends.  But will she choose the math crowd, the band crowd, or even the Dungeons & Dragons crowd?  Which of these cliques will accept her?  Where will Jess really fit in?  And can Jess hang out with the D&D crowd without their dorkiness rubbing off on her?

How I Made It to Eighteen: A Mostly True Story by Tracy White is so moving and so painful that it will inspire readers to track down the author just so that they can talk to her and look deeply into her eyes to see if she's really okay now.  But this isn't the story of Tracy White.  It's the story of Stacy Black.  Sort of. 

• Imagine living in a world where young people compete in televised games.  The winner earns the right to live, plenty of food for his or her family, and prosperity for the entire district.  But each game has only one winner, and all of the losers die.
• Imagine if the moon was hit by a meteor and shifted out of its orbit.
• Imagine living in a world where plants can kill you and butterflies can explode.
• Imagine if the world was so dark that nobody could see without electricity and light bulbs—and the only generator in the city was breaking down.
• Imagine living in a world where everyone goes under the knife and is made beautiful as 

Three things jumped out at me when I first saw the cover of this book:

- The author: (Todd Strasser? I LOVE his stuff!)

- The title: (Wish You Were Dead?  I am SO there!)

- The picture: (Is that a hand reaching out to kill me?  Or a hand reaching out for help?)

Some of you might think that you already know the story of the Wizard of Oz.  But if you're basing that assumption on your memories of the 1939 movie starring Judy Garland, then some of you are wrong.  However, it's not too late to catch up with the REAL story of what happened in the land of Oz.  Eric Shanower's graphic novel version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is incredibly faithful to L. Frank Baum's original story ... which means that it demonstrates all the ways in which the land of Oz was wonderful, magical, unusual, and sometimes dangerous.

One of the coolest and creepiest books of 2009 was The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan.  Now in 2010 Ryan brings us The Dead-Tossed Waves, which isn't a sequel but a "companion" book.  That means that we don't learn exactly what happened after the end of The Forest of Hands and Teeth but it's set in the same eerie world.  And what a world it is!