Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Beneath My Mother's Feet by Amjed Qamar

Our One Library, One Book has started. The Teen Book Club will be reading Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Relin for our November 3rd Book Club, but if you've already read it and are itching for more books about Pakistan, check out Beneath My Mother's Feet by Amjed Qamar.

Fourteen year old Nanzia has always been the perfect daughter. Her parents have worked hard to make a life and dowry for her, and obedience is the least she can give to her mother. When her father gets into an accident at work, her older brother dissapears, and her dowry is stolen, Nanzia remembers the words of the Prophet Muhammad. "All children know that the gates of heaven lie beneath their mother's feet." She drops out of school to become a live in maid with her mother in their town of Karachi, Pakistan. Being a maid, though, is a shameful occupation and Nanzia worries that no one will want her for a daughter-in-law. Losing everything, though, Nanzia finds she has gained a wonderful kind of freedom. What is she willing to sacrifice?

Find Beneath My Mother's Feet shelved under Y QAM.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Up All Night

Up All Night is a book of six unusual short stories by six popular YA authors: Peter Abrahams, Libba Bray, Devid Levithan, Patricia McCormick, Sarah Weeks, and Gene Luen Yang. Each story has a common theme. The characters are up all night - and the results are life changing. Each story is different. One is a ghost story, one a romance, one told in comics, but in each a single night changes the course of the lives.

Inspired by the book to write a short story about being up all night? Harper Collins is looking for a teen to write a seventh short story for the paperback version of this book! Click here to find the registration form. Be sure to get it in the mail by October 1, 2008!

Find Up All Night shelved under Y UP

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Shift by Jennifer Bradbury

The summer after high school, Honor Role student Chris and his goofball best friend Win decide to go on a cross country bike-trip. Halfway through, Chris stops to change a flat tire and Win keeps on going. Chris doesn't hear from him again, and then the FBI show up asking all sorts of questions.

Shift alternates between Chris starting college and being questioned by the FBI, and his flash backs to their bike-trip. As he recounts what happened on their journey, Chris is noticing layer upon layer of things he'd never noticed in Win's behavior. Will Chris be able to solve the mystery of what happened to Win, take himself out from under the umbrella of suspicion, AND stay loyal to his best friend?

Find Shift shelved under Y BRA

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge

Mosca Mye is considered strange in her village, mostly because of her ability to read. When the strange con artist Eponymous Klent comes into town, throwing fancy words around like water and filling everyone's head with stories, Mosca sees her chance. She frees him from the stocks and together they flee to the great city of Mandelion! There Mosca meets the Duke's sister Lady Tamarind and gets caught up in a web of illegal printing presses, twin queens, floating coffee houses, and homicidal geese. Will she be able to sort out the strings and make everything right before she loses her head?

Find Fly by Night