Booyor’s BLOGgh!

From the other site:
If you liked reading about Tally and Shay and all the other bubblies in the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld, you’ll definitely like Bogus to Bubbly.

It’s full of trivia about the books. For instance: look at the cover of Uglies. Notice anyone in the girl’s pupil? That’s the reflection of the photographer from the photo shoot. And the design in Aya’s eye on the Extras cover was inspired by the videogame The Last Starfighter.
Check the last word of each book. Notice a pattern?

The real treat is the insight that Scott Westerfeld adds for aspiring authors. He gives quite a bit of honest information about his writing process and the thoughts behind sections of the book.

Floating Ice Rink
I have no idea where this idea came from, except that it allowed me to write a scene that put together my three favorite things: fireworks, falling, and miscreant behavior.

He highlights where the technology from the books intersects with real-life, like how cuttlefish camouflage can actually match checkerboard patterns and that there are flash tattoos under people’s skin that can detect blood sugar. (I did not know that people actually have surgery to put diamonds on their eyes. Ouch.)

And I appreciate Westerfeld’s great sense of humor. The book reads like you’re checking his blog’s RSS feed.

So littlies aren’t considered ugly in Tally’s world - they’re too cute and innocent and small. Like penguins.

If you’ve just created a cool new building that uses smart matter supports, you don’t want someone coming along and turning that matter into, say, liquid. Because that would be bad.

He also describes the process behind creating effective slang and using it in regular conversation. (I actually used “dizzy-making” in conversation with one of the school secretaries without realizing it.) He has an acronym to help with coming up with slang, but I want you to check out this bubbly book.

Star Wars (yes, Jeremy, I immediately posted it)

My Dictator Pets


Scott Westerfeld
With his nanobots (built using rat heart tissue)(just like mom used to make)

and grandma soap

How God Works
My big stress by staying home sick today was trying to figure out how to teach someone else how to use our closed-circuit cable system. The creator of that video sent an e-mail apologizing that she didn’t have the video ready for today but would have to show it next Friday.
My Loving Wife
Taking care of the girls, my prescription, and me (The Slacker Librarian)
Andromeda Strain
Nothing beats staying home sick and reading Andromeda Strain.

Two great things:

1. You can read Something Rotten by Alan Gratz for free until Nov. 30. Great modernization of Hamlet with Bo/Luke Duke as Rosencratz and Guildenstern. Something Wicked I will have to get when I come back home.

2. The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain plays Mike’s theme song.

Vote for DeWiki!

“Through the slits of his brightly polished helm, his blue eyes bored into Eragon, pinning him into place, like an arrow through a rabbit. He lifted his free hand and held it out toward Eragon. ‘My son, come with me. Together, we can destroy the Varden, kill Galbatorix, and conquer all of Alagaesia. But give me your heart, and we shall be invincible.’”
- Brisingr, p. 487

There are a lot of made up words in Brisingr, so I’m considering the correlation with the graph. There’s even an attempt at an appendix in the back, complete with pronunciation guide. But here’s the deal:

Let’s say that you got past the Eragon/Aragorn, Arya/Arwen, Old Brom (Dragon Rider in exile)/Old Ben (Jedi Master in exile), Empire burning down the farm boy’s aunt and uncle and farm/Empire burning down the farm boy’s aunt and uncle and farm, Paolini still doesn’t stop.

Is there any epic where an armored villain is not someone’s dad? And the middle of an aerial combat is not the best place to have a Dr. Phil “if you believe in yourself, you can re-invent yourself and rise above your circumstances” conversation. The whole middle of the book is “whose gods are real, the nomads’ or the dwarves’, or are the elves right and there are no gods?” philosophy rants. It sounded very anachronistic when he’s talking about “all of the gods are good and we all point to something”.

The end was cool because characters died, and when Eragon has a sword named Fire, every time he says its name it ignites on accident.

The part that made me laugh but was not a deal-breaker? The power of the evil king (which, wasn’t it an empire?) comes from a dragon’s heart of hearts: a tiny crystal colored the same as their scales and egg. How does a dragon give you their heart? By vomiting it at your feet. Yeah, a page dedicated to a regurgitating ceremony.

And there are some awkward moments where Eragon and his dragon, Sapphira, have some intimate interactions. Is she like a mom or are they even closer? I don’t know. Kinda weird.

Mix all this in with self-mutilation and heroes that drain the life energy out of people/unsuspecting creatures “for the greater good”, and it took some effort to finish the book.

The author visit was great. Here are some quick observations:

1. I asked him a “Duh” question: “Did you watch Dr. Horrible?” His response: “Well, yeah, I designed the van’s remote control.”
2. He incorporates some cool astronomy into the presentation. He had kids standing with models of planets and used a one foot=one hundred miles scale to span the library. He even quizzed kids on the speed of light and Proxima Centauri.
3. He, too, was intrigued by the cover of Generation Dead and cracked up when I told him the concept.
4. He also smirked when I admitted to the Haiku Project.
5. He knows his audience. He started the presentation with a fist in the air: “Long live Halo!”
6. Lots of cool artwork in giant banner form, done by concept artists from Warhammer and Star Wars
7. He does all of his own site design, including the Flash movies. I was like, “Okay, yeah, that’s cool” until we started chatting about After Effects and ActionScript. Yeah, he actually did the site design.
8. Great stories from his childhood and a great closer to his presentation. (Sworn to secrecy, much like Ally’s title to Gallagher Girls 3.)
9. Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly) reads chapter one of book two on thesoftwire.com (if you can answer the question correctly)
10. He told us about Book 3: Pirates of Hyperspace. Pirates, Hyperspace…what more does a guy need?
11. He is upset by peoples’ assumptions that boys/guys don’t read.
12. He is more of a Mac addict than myself and the Futile Ohm put together.

Pictures tomorrow (as long as people don’t go as crazy as they did today).

Fans of the Gallagher Girls will be excited to know that Ally finished her draft of her Kat Burglar series. You may also be excited that her home repairs went smoothly.

This guy’s coming to my library. He’s a great artist who got tired of filming HP/Nokia TV spots so he decided to write. He’s good friends with Frank Beddor (who showed up last year) and some guy named Nathan Fillion:

He was in some show called Browncoatfly Life to Live or something.

They partnered up to create the Kids Need to Read foundation.

Very excited! I invite all of my sci-fi readers, even the people in Denver, Colorado, Fairfax, Virginia, and Edinburgh!

On second thought, maybe you should talk to me in person.

Check out the site for the book and the site for the video game.

The Haiku:
Tough choices to make
In the book and in real life
But you’ll be better

A local book company asked me to blog for them. Here’s my first entry:

Harmless, a book that is anything but, raises some eyebrows. Do you buy it for your child? Do you put it on the shelf as a librarian? Can it be used in the classroom?

As an 8th grade Language Arts teacher I saw many heart-wrenching situations that my students wound up in, many situations that I think we as educators don’t always catch or know how to deal with. I grew up in a pretty stable environment, a fact I am thankful for, but a stable environment is not always par for the course.

What I love about Harmless is that it is told from three girls’ perspectives. Students can relate to Anna. Emma, or Mariah and their very different home environments. Because the narrator switches each chapter, there isn’t a true emphasis on one character over another. It also demonstrates to young adult readers that open communication with honesty is key to any relationship, as you are sometimes wishing one girl would just come clean to the other people to avoid confusion.

Anna and Emma have known each other since third grade. They have always been a support system for each other. When they get to high school, Mariah joins the circle. Lasting friendships are challenged as Mariah starts dating an older boy. Mariah wants to go to a party but needs Emma and Anna to come with her. Anna and Emma lie to their parents, using the excuse of going to the movies to get out of the house. Mariah is troubled that her family doesn’t ask where she’s going. When one of the girls’ moms shows up unexpectedly at the movies and doesn’t find the group, she frantically texts and calls her daughter.

To avoid getting in trouble, the girls conspire to tell their parents that the circle of girls went on a star-gazing walk when Emma was suddenly assaulted. The girls tell this story when they get home; the parents are thankful that the girls are safe, but they don’t stop there. The parents now want justice to be served for whoever attacked Emma, because it may happen again. The situation escalates as the police search for a phantom assailant and a young girl in a neighboring town goes missing.

When reading the story I was reminded of another controversial story, The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Young girls use their newfound power in society but get caught up in the lies. What is the extent of a person’s responsibility and character?

Would I use Harmless as a classroom novel? Probably in an upper-division high school class, but not at the 8th grade level. Not every single student at the 8th grade is ready for the situations, so a passing grade shouldn’t be connected to reading the book. Would I want my daughter to read it? Absolutely. A word of caution: you have to wade through Mariah’s coarse language and some very serious situations to get to the true value.

One very beneficial aspect of the book, though, is that not every consequence comes from a parent. Your parents are human; they won’t always catch you. But choices still have consequences, especially ones that you can’t see in the flurry of the immediate. I’ve had students tell me about how they’ve lied to their parents and the rough situations that they get themselves into. I would love to deal with these issues before the serious choices and consequences kick in instead of after the fact.

If one student is challenged to think twice about lying to their parents, I’m keeping the book on my shelf.

Best sci-fi that I’ve read in a long time. Best last line to a young adult book series that I’ve seen in a while.

I just finished Specials by Scott Westerfield. Now I can jump into Extras, but I definitely had to read the end of the main trilogy.

The Specials are like an MIB squad, built to take on Special Circumstances. Think Matrix agents but with jet alloy for bones and skintenna networks keeping teams in contact. (And a whole bunch of “morphological violations”.) Everyone thinks that they’re a Boogie Man (I’m thinkin’ it might be ‘Bogey’ Man…I picture a zombie shakin’ his groove thang…for brains.) until they show up on your doorstep to take you away.

Now picture Specials fighting each other on hoverboards. Yep. Sold.

Lots of cool takes on life without getting preachy mixed with hard-core plastic surgery violence. Enough nervous-making tricks to keep you bubbly. (Yeah, I hear they’re going to release a future glossary soon.)

The Haiku
Bubble-headed freaks
Mind-wiped to party all night
Ah! Specials are here!

Before I review this awesome book, I wanted to share this library gem:

I will avoid the obvious “Harriet the Spy” references. But doesn’t she look like she should play opposite Keanu Reeves?

Keanu: Tubman, look out!

Blam!

Harriet: He just bought a one-way ticket.

Thought you might appreciate what comes across our scanners daily.

Genesis Alpha (almost as exciting as the Underground Railroad) is about a young boy who was created for his stem cells. His birth was sped up at month 8 to be able to save his older brother who had cancer.

Flash forward to his teen years and now his brother is on trial for murder. Should the older brother have been saved at the expense of the victim? Crazy questions arise throughout the entire book. This is suspense in the M. Night Shyamalan sense, less Clive Barker or Darren Shan. The reader constantly has to guess who’s crazy, who’s hurting, and who’s a mix.

One of the coolest parts for me is that the killer, whoever it is, left clues inside a World of Warcraft-esque MMORPG. The main character has to investigate in game (but it’s not one of those lame, “If you die in the game, you die FOR REAL” books). What’s really cool is that violence in video games is brought up but discussed quite eloquently. Yay! (for a change)

Questions of if we are more than just our DNA show up as people freak out about the genetic similarities between the two brothers.

Unlike my in-person library reviews, I can’t give too much more detail. It would be like saying, “Bruce Willis is already dead.”

D’oh.

(We’ll see what the 7th grade class thinks about it as I’m brought in for a second round of booktalks.)

Today’s Haiku:

Sharing DNA

Can it make you a killer?

Or just a big freak?