Thursday, June 13   Week 7  Assignment 3

I read Squeetus Blog: Official Blog of Shannon Hale because I was not too familiar with Shannon Hale and I really loved the title of the blog.  It's very celebrity-like; she is well know in publishing material for teens and readers of this blog would be her teen followers and adults interested in trends in YA publishing.  It's honestly written, from the heart, and she's very encouraging to beginning writers.  If Shannon Hale is using this blog to sell her books, this is a successful way of doing it.  The site is very stylish and organized, nice use of space.

Forever Young Adult is very hip and glib; like the City Paper for teens who are well immersed in pop culture.  Perhaps a little more glammed-up than Squeetus but seven girls are the main bloggers here, with guest contributors.  It's a riot.  The site is for young adults only, no other age groups need to read it, for they probably won't understand it. It's ad-supported, and covers all media, not just teen books.

Thursday, June 13    Week 7    Assignment 4

I looked at the Harper Teen website, which is a nice clean page with lists of top books and top authors, podcasts, audio and video excerpts, contests and more.  Clicking on an author link takes the user to another page within Harper to the author's personal blog.  I also checked out Tor Teen, Macmillan's site, which specializes in SF for teens where users can read excerpts of forthcoming books, listen to podcasts and audio, and learn about books being released in popular categories like utopia/dystopia, monsters, courage, being an outcast, etc.  The strongest thing on this site: an impressive page of related links.

Thursday, June 13    Week 8

Nice segue into nonfiction Readers' Services!  Librarians shouldn't lose track of this goldmine of books that will satisfy even the most hard-to-please discerning bookworm.  The four Dewey areas I chose were: Sports (796), Travel (917), Overcoming Adversity (362), and Disaster/Survival (919).  Here is what I would recommend: in sports, Team Seven Eleven: How An Unsung Band of American Cyclists Took on the World--And Won by Geoff Drake, himself an Olympic cyclist in 796.62D.  In travel, Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent in 917.3049B.  All his books are humorous and great fun to read.   In Overcoming Adversity, I chose Beautiful Buttons: a Memoir of Survival and Triumph by Catherine Ann, a heartbreaking biography of an adult child abuse victim in Ontario.  In Disaster/Survival, The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander about his imperial trans-antarctic journey.