Featured Contributor Friday

For today we have another new voice for the blog — Tracy, who is a woman-of-all-trades here at the Library. You may have seen her at the Reference desk, in the Children’s Department or behind the Circulation desk, always enthusiastically offering her reading suggestions.  Below are three bite-sized YA reviews.

Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani / Pub Date: Sept. 2009 / 288 pgs.

This is popular author Trigiani’s first Young Adult offering. Viola’s parents are off to Afghanistan to film a documentary, and that means Viola must do something she has never wanted to do before.  She is sent to Prefect Academy, an all-girls boarding school in South Bend, Indiana.  Being an only child from Brooklyn, New York, the challenge of sharing a room with 3 other girls is just the first obstacle she must overcome.  Fortunately, she has inherited a creative flair and making her own short film will help her to discover her unique talents.  Over the course of a year, Viola will develop relationships in love and friendship.  This fun and witty book is the first in a four volume series.

The Young Inferno by John Agard, Illustrated by Satoshi Katamura / Pub. Date : April 2009 / 80 pgs.

In this poetic and contemporary version of Dante’s Inferno, the narrator is a teenager in a hoodie interpreting his travels through the 9 circles of Hell.  He follows his guide Aesop to a mythological world described by the boy with 21^st century insight.  Agard’s brilliant interpretation is enhanced by the bold black and white illustrations by Kitamura which provide a visual storyboard.  When the boy finally finishes his journey below, and rises to the Upper World, his life is immediately changed forever in an unexpected encounter in a library, of all places.  This unique novel is dark and lovely, all in one.

City of Fire by Laurence Yep / Pub Date: Sept. 2009 / 320 pgs.

In this first book of a new trilogy, the reader experiences an alternate world in the year 1941.  In this world there are magical creatures, many of them in disguise.  Our main character is 12-year-old Scirye who is out to avenge her sister’s death and to find the people’s treasure that her sister was trying to protect.  Helping her along the way are Bayang, a dragon in disguise, Leech, a boy with unknown powers and his companion Koko.  They each have their own reasons for wanting to find the thieves who stole the treasure.  The adventurers travel to Houlani, a new Hawaiian island created by magic, and make new friends along the way.  Will they be able to stop the mysterious  Mr. Roland and the evil dragon Badik before it is too late?  This magical first book in Yep’s new series will keep you wishing for books 2 and 3 to hurry their way onto the shelves.

-Tracy