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Teen Read Week is here!

It kinda sneaked up on me, but Teen Read Week is here! I love that there’s a time of year to celebrate teens reading and get them involved with books and materials of all kinds in brand new ways.

This year’s theme is Picture It. That can be interpreted in so many ways! The obvious connection is to point teens to great graphic novels, or to media tie-ins to favorite television shows, movies, and video games. Although we haven’t gone in that direction for teen tie-ins here yet, there are many of these specifically aimed at teens that might lead them to related books, with you as a guide.

There are a lot of oldies out there that you can give some new life to, as well. Dracula, Frankenstein, Edgar Allan Poe- there are so many connections there I can’t even list them. From Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (sorry, this list hasn’t been updated in awhile); from Jessica Abel’s fantastic graphic novel Life Sucks to the awesome iPad app Dracula: The Official Stoker Family Edition; from storyteller Syd Lieberman’s audio recording of The “Tell-Tale Heart” to Ray Bradbury’s “Usher II”… these are the things that (to paraphrase Dave Etter) create the pictures that storm inside our heads.

Whatever you decide to do or promote, have a great Teen Read Week!

Mid-October update is here!

It seems kinda silly to do it this way, but to avoid repeating work that’s already been done, here’s a link to the post detailing our new update, which just went up tonight.

Part of the update is a printable list of some of my favorite picture book titles for this time of year, titled What Will You Read This Halloween? The titles from the list were also added to the top of our Halloween Book List for Kids page. The list is by no means comprehensive, and if you scroll down to the bottom of that page you’ll find another, longer list that includes additional titles. Note that with a few exceptions, the books on these lists have not actually been reviewed here. Writing the reviews takes a lot longer than reading the books.

At any rate, check out the new Halloween Horrors! update and see what’s new here at MonsterLibrarian.com

Halloween Books, Continued

Lucy, a librarian who read my last post, pointed me to another list of new and not-so-scary books to share at storytime by Nora Rawlinson at EarlyWord, a collection development and readers advisory blog that collects reviews, bestseller lists, and much more in one place. Very nice! These are also mostly current books, although she also listed a couple of her own favorites. It was fun to see Pamela Jane’s Little Goblins Ten on her list- a very cute book that we just received here- and a brand new easy reader. The lack of “scary” easy readers is a frustration of mine. There’s nothing wrong with Biscuit or Henry and Mudge– these are both series a lot of kids love-, but some kids just aren’t motivated by the typical easy readers. They want the spooky stuff. I’ve noticed a few more titles like this recently, and am glad to see that this is changing.

In other news, I was pointed toward a blog called A Book-lovers’ Review, which is holding a contest that looks like a lot of fun, if you like either YA or adult paranormal fiction. It’s called “Trick or Treat Spook-tacular”, and there is a giveaway of a selection of titles, many of them signed, every day until October 31. In the interests of full disclosure, I haven’t encountered this one before and don’t know much about it. According to the reviewer, she includes information about content in her reviews, which could be useful, but this is definitely not a professional review site. Still, the contest looks really cool! I wish I knew how she managed to collect all these signed books, because I’d love to do this kind of giveway for you all right here!!

Enjoy!