The Hub Reading Challenge, and mini reviews from Tahleen

You might remember from my last post how excited I get by the Youth Media Award winner announcements. Well, now that they have been revealed for over a month, the YALSA Hub Reading Challenge of 2015 is here!

What is the Hub Challenge, you ask? Basically, the objective is to read 25 books published for young adults that were awarded something or other by YALSA. You can read all about how to participate and which books are included here. They also have a handy dandy checklist you can print out and use to keep track of your reading and listening!

Of course, every year I try to participate, though often I don't come anywhere close to completing the challenge. This year I feel like I'm doing an okay job, though! I've already listened to (almost) two audiobooks, and have finished reading one book that was given an Alex Award. Here are my brief thoughts on them:

Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia

Lots of stuff goes down on the weekend of the Statewide high school concerts in the Bellweather Hotel. All hell breaks loose when a young flautist prodigy disappears suddenly, and her roommate claims to have seen her hanging from a pipe in their room--and that she was murdered. All while a major snowstorm descends upon them. I loved this book. Full of quirky and sometimes downright awful characters and a rather large (and perplexing) mystery, this book will keep you turning the pages pretty much until the end.

Skink: No Surrender by Carl Hiaasen, narrated by Kirby Heyborne

If you've read anything by Carl Hiaasen before, you know how awesome and off the wall his novels can be. If you've read any of the books that contain Skink, you especially know. Skink is a one-of-a-kind ex-governer of Florida who takes justice into his own hands, sometimes (most times) not always legally. In this installment, Skink meets Richard, our narrator, whose cousin Malley runs away with her online boyfriend--but it soon becomes clear she is in over her head. So Skink and Richard set off to find and rescue her. Heyborne, as always, does a fantastic job with the narration, and this is a fun and wild ride.

 

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry

I am not quite finished with this one yet, but I am thoroughly enjoying it. It's kind of a like a mix between a Victorian comedy of errors akin to The Importance of Being Earnest, and Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead. There's a lot of humor in this novel about seven girls at a boarding school for young ladies in the English countryside who try to cover up their headmistress's and her brother's mysterious deaths--by poison, as they come to figure out. There is also a nice little twist in the rising action that I SO wanted to talk to someone about, but no one I know is reading it! As always, Jayne Entwhistle's narration is just delightful. (You might recognize her as the narrator of the Flavia de Luce mysteries, which I also highly recommend.) Well deserving of its Odyssey Honor.

That's it for me so far! I'm going to work on getting some of those Printz winners read soon, and the Morris Award winner and honor books. Have you read anything on the list?

Disclaimer: I got all of these books from my local library, whether they were physical copies or digital.

Tahleen reviews: "Zombie Baseball Beatdown" by Paolo Bacigalupi

Title: Zombie Baseball Beatdown
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2013
Narrator: Sunil Malhotra

Rating: 3.5 stars

Rabi, Miguel, and Joe have bigger problems than their losing Little League season. It's true, Rabi is a terrible hitter, and their coach doesn't seem to know what he's doing or how to create a batting line-up. Most of the other kids on the team would like to beat the three of them up, and know how to spin it to their advantage. Miguel's parents have been deported, and his aunt and uncle, who are also in the United States illegally, live in fear that they will be next. You'd think that would be enough problems for the boys. But all that pales in comparison when they stumble upon their coach—zombified. Finding a brain-hungry zombie is only the beginning, as their investigation leads them to the revelation that the zombie problem is much, much bigger than their small Iowan town.

Paolo Bacigalupi has managed to write a book, really a social commentary, on the meatpacking industry, immigration, racism, and zombies. You read that correctly.


I'm not really sure how I feel about this book. I enjoyed Sunil Malhotra's narration, mostly his zombie sounds, and it all works together as a cohesive unit, but part of me feels like Bacigalupi tried too hard to get too much in there, and it was like I was being lectured to at times. We leave this book knowing exactly how the author feels about certain hot-topic issues of the day.

I really enjoyed the relationships between the main characters and the development of their relationships with secondary characters, and the climax is great. The parts with the zombie attacks really make this book worth listening to; if it weren't for that, I'm not sure I would have bothered.  I am not so sure how I feel about the complete open-endedness of the book, but I can understand the logic behind Bacigalupi's choice to end it the way he does. It is impressive that Bacigalupi is able to write a readable and zombie-filled story while really writing a social commentary on two major contemporary issues, I just wish the execution had been a bit more subtle.

I listened to this book as part of the 2014 Hub Challenge. It was one of the Top Ten Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults.

Disclosure: I got a copy of this audiobook from my local library.

Tahleen puts her New Year's Resolution in action

Logo from YALSA's The Hub blog

If you all remember my resolution from a recent Top Ten Tuesday, I resolved to read as many of the Youth Media Award winners as I could. Now is the time to put that plan into action.

As you may know, the awards were announced last Monday morning, to my great pleasure. Today, the Best Fiction for Young Adults, Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults, and Great Graphic Novels for Teens lists were all released, as well as a few others, some already released and others to be released soon. What am I getting at?

This.

The 2014 YALSA Hub Reading Challenge.

This challenge begins today, and participants have until June 22 to read or listen to 25 of the award winners or titles on any of the book lists specified in the starting post. Once the starting post is on The Hub, you can sign up there—at the time I published this, it wasn't up yet. (UPDATE: You can now enter here.)

There are a few reasons I'm doing this and also telling you about the challenge. As a teen services librarian, I feel like it is my duty read these books anyway, and it is pretty fun—I read a bunch of books I probably wouldn't have otherwise when I participated last year, even though I didn't finish. This year I will succeed! I am also a member of a task force to spread the word about these awards and lists, which put a spotlight on the best literature for teens. So, here I am, spreading the word! (This is, full disclosure, not something I was assigned to tell you by the task force; it is all on my own!)

Oh, and if that's not enough motivation for you all to jump in, there's more. Those of us who complete the challenge will be entered into a pretty awesome drawing to win a tote bag full of 2013 and 2014 teen lit titles. AND you get virtual badges along the way! For bragging rights, of course.

Will you be participating in this challenge? Are there any other challenges you're working on this year?

Tahleen is excited for the Youth Media Awards!

So in the past couple of years, I have become more and more aware of the Youth Media Awards, more commonly known as the Newbery, Printz, and Caldecott awards. Mostly this is because of my career as a librarian, but it was always something I was at least vaguely aware of growing up. Now, as a member of the American Library Association, I'm even more excited than ever, especially since I have the opportunity to watch a live webinar of the announcements!

I know the big awards in entertainment tend to be for movies and television around this time of year, and it's all in the forefront of everyone's mind since the Golden Globes were last weekend and the Academy Award nominations were announced yesterday, but I don't watch as many movies as I read books. I love wondering whether or not I've read the winners, if any of the predictions were right, and reading about the ones I've NEVER heard of.

If you'll remember last year's awards, the Printz winner was the real dark horse of the year: In Darkness by Nick Lake (you can see my review on my personal blog, Tahleen's Mixed-Up Files, here). I had remembered seeing the cover in a review journal or something, but NO ONE had any idea it would have a chance at winning, except of course the committee.

Now that I have been in charge of ordering teen books for the collection at my library for a full year, I'm really looking forward to see if I managed to get all the winners! Last year I had to make an order right after the announcements because I think I only had one of the Printz honor books (whomp whomp). I'm hoping this year I'll be more successful. But even if I'm not, I can't wait to see what great literature I have yet to discover. I'm going to make it a goal to read as many of the winners and honor books that I can! I'll have to get started with the Morris Award shortlist, announced in December.

Are you excited about any literary award announcements?