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When her big chance comes, however, she throws it all away to rescue a teenager drowning off the coast of her island home.
Interacting with a human is strictly forbidden in Diana's culture, let alone saving one and hiding them in a cave.

This, however is no ordinary human. Her name is Alia and unbeknownst to her she is a Warbringer, someone who may be responsible for the greatest war ever to befall the human race.

Using a controversial myth as a guide, Alia and Diana set off to end the curse that Alia has become convinced she carries.

she does her best to stand out.
Full of action, sarcastic wit and strong female characters, Wonder Woman: Warbringer is a great teen read for anyone who loves superhero backstories. Bardugo has created a character with real depth that flies off the page, highly recommend this!
Diana is desperate to prove herself. Surrounded by warriors who make every feat of strength and agility look like a cake walk,

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Digging the Classics
Flying Cars and Lost Cities
Science Fiction
Superheroes
Survival

Poetry

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Fri, 20 Oct 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Poetry can be loud, it can be quiet, it can be musical, it can be classic, it can be modern, it can be freestyle, it can be metered, it can be anything you want it to be.

Poetry is not all old-fashioned and stodgy - and it isn't limited to sonnets and haikus, either. Poetry comes in all different forms and touches on a wide variety of topics and genres. There are verses and vows and limericks and lyrics. There's epic poetry, lyric poetry, speculative poetry (yep, sci-fi/fantasy/horror themes can creep into poems, too!) Poems pop up in greeting cards and commercials. They are shared in verse novels and at poetry slams.

Like plays, many poems are meant to be heard. Read a poem out loud, or listen to it being read by the author or another brilliant performer, and you might find yourself transfixed and transformed.

Think of a song with lyrics that you really like. Those lyrics just might be poetry, set to music. Check out some performance poetry. Consider Lin-Manuel Miranda's mind-blowing award-winning musical Hamilton. See what I mean? Rhythm and rhymes.

I had a lovely conversation with someone who translates poetry. She is fluent in multiple languages and loves melodic, meaningful words. She spoke of the challenge of keeping the original intention of the poem and being aware of both the connotations and the denotations of words used. When poems have a certain meter, feeling, or flavor, it can be more important to use words that capture those feelings and rhythms than having a perfectly exact word-for-word translation, she said. Some words don't translate so precisely, she added, especially if it's a colloquialism or a turn of phrase.

Why am I posting about poetry today? Every Friday, bloggers around the world participate in Poetry Friday. This weekly event has roots in the world of academic blogs. I learned of it nearly ten years ago through the book blogging community and have been participating at my blog, Bildungsroman, every week since. Anyone may participate, and different blogs host the roundup each week.

Do you have any poets or poems you really enjoy? Feel free to leave them in the comments below!

If you're so inclined, donate some poetry collections and verse novels for the Ballou Book Fair!
http://tinyurl.com/BookFairBallouHS

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From Slam to Sonnets

Backbiters by Debra Leea Glasheen

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Wed, 01 Nov 2017 13:00:00 +0000

Guiluli is a Red Mighty, a mutation of humans born from the Corporate World War. After 54 years of existence, Pre-ev (non mutated) humans still don't much like the Red Mighties and as a result, the Red Mighties have created their own Nationland.

Despite all of the world's natural resources being either consumed or poisoned by the war, the Nationland has cleaned up its land, so they have pure water and soil free of contaminants in which to grow food. Yet another reason for those off the Nationland to dislike the Red Mighties.

I like the idea of the evolved/mutated species emerging from a human race destroyed by its own vices and desires. It seems that hominids may be ripe for another evolutionary step, after all we have been homo sapiens for a while now. Maybe this is the next step.

This is an interesting twist on a typical dystopian novel in that I feel there is way more hope of a future that isn't just trying to exist day to day but actually thrive as a civilization. The possibility of cleaning up what we have destroyed. Backbiters is a great read for those that enjoyed the Hunger Games, Divergent, Not a Drop to Drink.

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dystopian

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Wed, 08 Nov 2017 16:01:00 +0000

This book. This book is grounded inside its main character's mind and body in an almost visceral way, and if you've ever had a "crazy" friend--and who hasn't, but I mean one who is actually diagnosed with anxiety disorder and/or OCD--even though this book is entertaining and wonderful and all the things good fiction should be, it will help you to "get" them in a way they might not have been able to articulate to you.

Aza is the star of the show. Or maybe she's not. She's so stuck inside her head, where twisty thoughts and logic have her spinning about the bacteria in her body and how it might just take over and kill her, that maybe she's the victim. Worse, maybe she is the bad guy. And the victim. And the star.

Life is complicated.

Aza is lucky in that she has a best friend, Daisy. Daisy, who talks all. the. time. but who sticks by Aza even though Aza isn't easy to stick by. So when Daisy suggests that she and Aza make like Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden to solve the mystery of the missing billionaire, Aza goes along with it.

Things happen. So many things. And I don't want to talk about any of them, really, because it would spoil this book, which unspools almost magically. It starts from a very clenched place and almost literally unwinds to a a better stasis.

Read it. Read it to find out what role Aza plays in her own life. To see if she can find her way out of her own head, at least a little. And to find out what the title means: "turtles all the way down."

So yeah - consider this review the equivalent of me standing next to you, shoving this book into your hands, making almost uncomfortable levels of eye contact while imploring you to read it.

But really. Read it.

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Everyone's Got Issues
First Love
Keeping You On the Edge of Your Seat
Mysteries

Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Mon, 13 Nov 2017 16:00:00 +0000

Mark Twain famously said (or, more likely, famously didn’t say), “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” This truth is made clear in Jennifer Latham’s searing young adult novel, Dreamland. What rhymes with all too much clarity in Latham’s story is how our nation continues to fall far short of its aspirational tale of freedom and justice for all. Dreamland is the tale of one city in two different time periods, one historical and one present-day. That city is Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the historical time period is one that has been whitewashed out of too many history books.

In 1921, the city of Tulsa contained a thriving African-American community known as Greenwood. Though Greenwood thrived commercially and culturally, its residents still knew what it was to be the “other.” Will Tillman also knows something of what it means to be “other,” as he is the biracial teenage son of a white father and a mother who is a full-blooded member of the Osage Nation. Working for his father brings Will into contact with the African-American community, albeit in quiet defiance of Jim Crow laws. But his work also brings Will into contact with other members of Tulsa’s white business community, members eager to bring the noxious ideals of the Klan to the forefront of Tulsa’s civic life. Students of history will already know what happened in Tulsa in 1921, but even they will benefit from the historical detail Latham includes in her fictional narrative. What happened in the city remains a national shame, while what happens to Will Tillman and Latham's other characters in 1921 remains a mystery.

In present-day Tulsa, Rowan Chase, herself a biracial teenager with an African-American mother and a white father, finds herself connected to this deadly mystery when the renovation of her family’s home uncovers a skeleton. While Rowan and her friend James seek historical answers, the present starts rhyming in ominous ways, and Rowan is forced to confront the racial tensions that still exist in Tulsa and elsewhere in our nation.

Skillfully switching chapters, narrators, and time eras, Latham convincingly demonstrates how American carnage is not a new phenomenon. The means and methods may have changed, but the racial injustice remains. Latham also convincingly shows how individual acts of courage and conscience can lead to larger positive cultural change, however slow and halting that change may be.

Novels matter—just because they aren't "true" doesn't mean they aren't truth. And novels like Dreamland push history to rhyme on the truths rather than the myths, helping the arc of justice straighten and move forward, . As Rowan says early in the novel, the stories are there to be told—we just need the living to listen. Dreamland is a story well worth listening to.

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Nyxia by Scott Reintgen

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Wed, 15 Nov 2017 15:57:00 +0000

Emmett is a humble teen from Detroit. His family has been downtrodden for generations, working menial jobs after menial jobs and he isn't showing much to prove that he can break the cycle that has plagued his family.

One day however, he gets a chance to go to a strange planet to work with an alien people called Adamites. However, there's a catch- he is going to have to compete for his spot against teens from around the world each as hungry as he is to make the cut. Babel, the company who is sponsoring the trip promises a big payout if they can succeed.

Thus begins a gauntlet of events in groups and alone that sees the teens become hardened and their skills improve. The group has many distinct personalities some of which don't mesh and the inevitable conflicts arise.

The tasks the kids are asked to do test their limits in many ways but perhaps the most difficult is manipulating the alien substance, nyxia. For some reason the substance also reminded me of the alien symbiote that Spiderman encountered in his whole Venom story arc because soon the line between manipulator and that which is being manipulated becomes blurred.

Babel is a mysterious company and the folks in charge seem to have a ton of secrets themselves. There definitely seems to be some larger plan in place-the reason the kids have been recruited is because the Adamites like children. I can't wait to see what else is in store for Emmett on Eden. Some read alikes to this book are the Maze Runner series and Philip Reeve's Railhead.

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Keeping You On the Edge of Your Seat
Pure Science
Science Fiction

The Extinction Trials by S.M. Wilson

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Wed, 15 Nov 2017 19:44:00 +0000

Stormchaser is a teen who lives in a world ravaged by hunger and disease. Food is scarce, and an illness that starts with the blistering and peeling of one's skin soon leads to death.

In her world, a few dinosaurs still exist. Stormchaser has befriended a plesiosaur she's named Milo. This is a secret she must guard closely because dinosaurs are universally hated.

When the Trials are announced, Stormchaser enters on a whim; she doesn't have a family, doesn't have anyone dying from the plague like the others.

The contest is a deadly one: enter the area of the world known as Piloria, where the dinosaurs are abundant, and retrieve as many dinosaur eggs as possible. The winner will receive health care and food, two things essential in order to survive their daily nightmare.

She's joined on the Trials by Lincoln and Leif, two boys with a lot on the line. As the competition heats up, they must learn to trust each other if they're going to avoid being eaten alive. But as Stormchaser soon learns, you can't really trust anyone in the Extinction Trials and what she finds hiding under the surface of Piloria will change her life forever.

The Extinction Trials is a super fast action adventure that anyone looking for a strong female hero will love. It's got elements of The Hunger Games without a doubt, and that's a good thing because it means it will make my job as a School Librarian all the easier when I promote this book in the coming weeks. And promote it I shall, because it's got some great scenes, fully realised characters and a ton of action. Highly recommended, can't wait for the sequel!

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dystopian
Everyone's Got Issues
Flying Cars and Lost Cities
Science Fiction
The Great Outdoors

Collected Brevity: Anthologies and Short Story Collections

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Fri, 17 Nov 2017 14:00:00 +0000

When my friend Christopher Golden announced the forthcoming The Twisted Book of Shadows anthology - which will start accepting submissions in February 2018, so mark your calendars! - I started considering what I could write and submit. That led to thinking about my favorite short stories, which is a pretty short list (no pun intended) as I tend to gravitate towards longer stories, full-length novels and serialized television. I started asking friends, colleagues, and patrons of all ages about their favorite anthologies and short story collections, and here's what we've got!

Jules, who runs the fantastic blog Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, loves Naomi Shihab Nye's Honeybee, which offers both poems and prose. She calls it "a rewarding read" - "the results are both striking and moving, yet she manages to throw some humor in there, too." Check out her review of the collection, which includes quotes from the text, with the author's permission. (I love this note from the author: "If I see a lone bee hovering in a flower, I wish it well.")

Allison seconds the recommendation for Naomi Shihab Nye, saying her work is "off all charts. I’ve never read anything by her that didn't have at least a touch of honeyed language. One of my other favorite short story/essayists is Bailey White who used to read her short stories and essays on All Things Considered. Her first book was Mama Makes Up Her Mind. Barbara Kingsolver and bell hooks are two others I love."

Author and artist Sarah Jamila Stevenson, whose novels include The Truth Against the World and The Latte Rebellion, enjoyed the anthology Slasher Boys and Monster Girls edited by April Tucholke. "This 2015 anthology featuring some big names in YA literature brings a fresh perspective to classic horror tropes - and it's not for the faint-hearted. I'll never think of the Mad Tea Party in the same way again, that's for sure..."

Rachel's favorite anthology is The Best Science Fiction of the Year 3 edited by Terry Carr. "This anthology got me hooked on science fiction and fantasy when I was around 12 or 13, and I have been hooked ever since," she said. It contains two of her favorite short stories, Of Mist, Grass and Sand by Vonda N. McIntyre and The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. LeGuin, both of which she considers "still incredibly relevant today." Prompted by our conversation, she looked up the full table of contents and added, "One of the ones I'd forgotten about, that hits me in a completely different way now, is The Women Men Don’t See, written by Alice Bradley Sheldon under the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr."

When I asked the aforementioned Christopher Golden to list some of his favorite anthologies, he included "all of Charles L. Grant's legendary Shadows volumes and Kirby McAuley's Dark Forces, which were all hugely influential on me as a teenager and into my twenties. The horror stories in those books inspired me as a writer and as a reader…and later as an anthologist in my own right."

As for collections, he said, "The easiest and truest answer is that Stephen King set the bar with Night Shift and Different Seasons. If you go back and read those today - the former a collection of short stories and the latter a quartet of novellas - you'll see the master at work. King didn’t realize it at the time, but those were STATEMENTS, establishing the benchmark for weird fiction. Years later, I wrote the introduction for Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts and I had no idea of his parentage. I should have known, reading those stories, because that set a bar for a new generation. Others that should absolutely be on your weird or horror fiction collection list include all six volumes of Clive Barker's groundbreaking Books of Blood, Shirley Jackson's The Lottery and Other Stories, and Robert Shearman's Remember Why You Fear Me. On the fantasy side, Robert Holdstock's The Bone Forest is an overlooked marvel, and Kelly Link's Stranger Things Happen is remarkable."

Thanks to Chris for giving us so many recommendations -- and for giving me a segue to share my own! I really enjoyed Golden's fantastic short story collections The Secret Backs of Things and Tell My Sorrows to the Stones. The titles are fantastic and the collections fully deliver. He recently released Don't Go Alone, a collection of collaborations, which includes Joe Golem and the Copper Girl (co-written with Mike Mignola and part of their series of Joe Golem novels and comics), Ghosts of Albion animated films and books), and Wellness Check (co-written with Thomas E. Sniegoski and part of their fantastic dark fantasy series The Menagerie, which I really love).

Looking for books for younger readers and/or more classic fare? As a kid, there were collections of myths and scary stories that I read multiple times. Check out my booklist packed with short story collections and quick reads for elementary through high school readers. Have fun adding titles to your to-read pile, and feel free to leave your short story recommendations in the comments below!

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From Slam to Sonnets
Multiple Bookish Notes
Science Fiction
Short Stories

Cyber Monday means Round #2 for the Ballou Book Fair!

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Tue, 21 Nov 2017 11:51:00 +0000

We are getting ready to send more books to the library at Ballou Sr High School in Washington DC!

In two weeks last month you purchased over 135 books off the wish list for Ballou as part of our annual book fair. They included everything from novels to biographies to history to a couple of MCAT study guides that were particularly appreciated by this student:

Thank you anonymous for your kind gift to us, we truly appreciate you ????????????????❤️@chasingray @guyslitwire pic.twitter.com/0auZ39B6xS
— Melissa Jackson (@BallouLibrary) November 1, 2017

With millions of people getting ready to shop this weekend, we are hoping to take advantage of your generosity one last time in 2017 and send even more books to Ballou. As you may know, students at the school suffer far too much from poverty and all its accompanying factors. They struggle to stay in school, to stay engaged in their studies and to persevere in the face of the area's violence. They deserve every chance that we can give them and their librarian, Melissa Jackson, is an absolute powerhouse when it comes to going the extra mile for her students. We want to make it easier for her to do her job and the best way we can do that is to buy the books that those students want and need, (and in some cases positively pine for), to fill her library's shelves.

We buy books for Ballou!

There are several hundred books on the list at Amazon and for those folks who shopped last month, you will see that several titles have been added in the past few days. They are courtesy the most recent email from Ballou — books the students are excited about and asked if we would add. (And of course we did!) We also moved several books that are on sale to the top of the list as they are excellent bargains right now. We hope that you will take advantage of the low prices and buy one or more of these titles.

If you can't shop off the list, please help spread the word on social media. Here is the direct link: http://tinyurl.com/BookFairBallouHS. Also follow me (@chasingray) and Melissa Jackson (@Balloulibrary) on twitter for updates.

Have a great Thanksgiving and we look forward to an amazing next week of book buying for Ballou!

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Book Fair for Boys

CYBER MONDAY IS HERE!!!!!!!!

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Mon, 27 Nov 2017 09:14:00 +0000

While you fill your shopping cart at Amazon, please purchase a book or two for Ballou Sr. High School's library!

The wish list has many many (MANY) books that the students have requested.

This is the last chance this year to get them the books they want!

We hope you will shop the list & send a book (or more) to Washington DC so Ballou's AMAZING librarian,

MELISSA JACKSON!

will have dozens of books to put on the shelves!

The link: http://tinyurl.com/BookFairBallouHS

Follow @BallouLibrary & @chasingray for updates!

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

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Book Fair for Boys

On behalf of Ballou Library in Washington DC, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Thu, 07 Dec 2017 08:31:00 +0000

The final total of books gifted to Ballou Library via the October Book Fair & Cyber Monday holiday shopping (which continued all week), comes in just over 200 titles! Thank you so much for buying books and helping to spread the word for this DC high school!

The wish list remains open year-round and there are a ton of great books on it, all of them chosen and approved by Ballou students. These are books the teens want and we so enjoy doing everything we can to get these books to them.

In the coming days I will be moving things around a bit on the list, getting series books together so they are easier to find. (I really really REALLY wish that amazon had "search by title" and "search by author" functions. So frustrating!) And we will, of course, be continuing to assist Ballou to fill its shelves next year and hope that you will return to the list and also help us spread the word about the amazing work done by librarian Melissa Jackson.

Have a lovely holiday folks, and thanks again for all you do to support this high school library.

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Book Fair for Boys

Disappeared by Francisco X. Stork

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Sat, 09 Dec 2017 00:03:00 +0000

Sara is a journalist who wholeheartedly throws herself into her work as a journalist for a newspaper in Juarez. Mexico however is a country where journalists sometimes do their work under threats to themselves and their families and going to the police is not always a good idea. Sara soon finds that if she wants to pursue this particular story she could be putting the lives of herself, her younger brother Emiiano and their mother in danger.

Emiliano is a soccer star at his high school and in addition to this he is also a member of a school group called Jiparis who do hikes through the desert in order to build character in the young men, some of whom were involved in unsavory activities before joining the group.

One part of the Jipari pledge goes , "I will be honest with myself and others". This is easier said than done especially in a city like Juarez. One of the characters tells Emiliano, "everything is a spiderweb" and the speed with which he is enveloped in said web is astounding. Emiliano tells himself that he wants to help his family and friends out but are those his real reasons? Like any teen he wants to be seen as cool and there is also the small matter of a girl he wants to impress.

The first part of the book is told from each character's viewpoint and the author weaves the tale together in a very credible way showing how circumstances

Make no mistake, Disappeared is not a peaches and cream, hunky dory teen novel. It is a gritty and very realistic novel with a ripped from the headlines quality to it. The city of Juarez and the violence there doesn't dominate the headlines as it did a few years ago, but Stork's novel is a timely reminder that evil still exists and that it takes many people working in tandem to defeat it.

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Everyone's Got Issues

The Inexplicable Logic of My Life by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 17:00:00 +0000

Lyrical, visceral, and wise, The Inexplicable Logic of My Life by Benjamin Alire Sáenz haunts the melancholy middle between heartbreak and hope.

Salvador confronts his senior year and the anxiety that accompanies this countdown to supposed independence—questions of college and new beginnings and one’s true place in this world. Add to these the accumulating stressors particular to Sal’s life: homophobic slurs against his openly gay adopted father, feeling Mexican-American but looking white, the deteriorating health of his beloved grandmother Mimi, the deteriorating home life of his friend Fito, the devastating loss experienced by his best friend Samantha.

Not surprisingly, Sal finds himself greeting more days with fists and tears. Sal desperately wants to find himself in the larger sense, but as Sáenz deftly demonstrates in this young adult novel, all growth is loss—a truth that can make growth a daunting task.

With one of many eloquent words of wisdom, Sal’s father tells him early on we must “find a way to discipline our hearts so that their cruelty doesn’t turn us into hurt animals” (13). But how do we discipline our hearts without hardening them? How do we fight the darkness without devolving into darkness ourselves?

In Sal’s case, he scrapes together every illuminating spark: the tenacity of Fito, the loyalty of Sam, the grace of his father, the serenity of his grandmother. And through the spark of The Inexplicable Logic of My Life and Sáenz’s luminous prose, we learn anew how family is forged by more than blood—and though who we are is our life’s work, identity is never a solitary act.

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Everyone's Got Issues
The Way We Live

My Side of the Mountain

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 08:01:00 +0000

This has never happened to me before: I enjoyed the sequel more than the original! Be assured, though, My Side of the Mountain

is very good. Young Sam Gribley goes off to live in the wilderness quite comfortably in a huge hollow tree. He trains a young falcon he named Frightful:

"Every day I worked to train Frightful. It was a long process, I would put her on her stump with a long leash and step back a few feet with some meat in my hand. Then I would whistle. The whistle was supposed eventually to mean food to her. So I would whistle, show her the meat, and after many false flaps she would finally fly to my hand. I would pet her and feed her. She could fly fairly well, so now I made sure that she never ate unless he flew to my fist.

"One day at breakfast I whistled for Frightful. I had no food, she wasn't even hungry, but she came to me anyway. I was thrilled. She had learned a whistle meant 'come.'

"I looked into her steely eyes that morning and thought I saw a gentle recognition. She puffed up her feathers as she sat on my hand. I call this a 'feather word.' It means she is content."

I also enjoyed this, from near the end of the book: "I returned to my patch on the mountain, talking to myself all the way. I talk to myself a lot, but everyone does. The human being, even in the midst of people, spends nine-tenths of his time alone with the private voices of his own head. Living alone on a mountain is not much different, except that your speaking voice gets rusty, I talked inside my head all the way home, thinking up schemes, holding conversations with Bando and Dad and Matt Spell...
"I cooked supper, and then sat down by my little fire and called a forum. It is very sociable inside my head, and I have perfected the art of getting a lot of people arguing together in silence or in a forum, as I prefer to call it. I can get four people all talking at once, and a fifth can be present, but generally I can't get him to talk. Usually these forums discuss such things as a storm and whether or not it is coming, how to make a spring suit, and how to enlarge my house without destroying the life in the tree. Tonight, however, they discussed what to do about Matt Spell. Dad kept telling me to go right down to the city and make sure he published nothing, not even a made-up story. Bando said, no, it's all right, he still doesn't know where you live, and then Matt walked into the conversation and said that he wanted to spend his spring vacation with me, and that he promised not to do anything untoward. Matt kept using 'untoward' - I don't know where he got that expression, but he liked it and kept using it - that's how I knew Matt was speaking; everything was 'untoward.'"

What I liked there was that it seemed that author Jean Craighead George described how her stories got generated. Characters in her head interacted, and she transcribed what took place onto paper. I could be wrong, but maybe.

The sequel that I liked even more is called On the Far Side of the Mountain. There's a third book, Frightful's Mountain, but I have not read it yet. It's here at my desk, so it won't be long.

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Survival
The Great Outdoors

Kick by Mitch Johnson

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Wed, 20 Dec 2017 18:26:00 +0000

Budi has a plan. He wants to be a football star like his hero Kieran Wakefield.

When Budi's a star he won't have to work in the sweatshop anymore. He won't have to be beaten by his foreman when he doesn't work fast enough or makes mistakes. Most of all, he'll be able to pay for his Grandma's medication and move his family into a neighbourhood that isn't crawling with poverty, sickness and addiction.

This is Budi's life, yet he doesn't stop dreaming.
Then one evening when Budi and his friends are in the street playing football, he accidentally kicks the ball into the home of The Dragon, the most dangerous man in Jakarta. The Dragon is angry, and tells Budi to do some dirty work for him. If he refuses, The Dragon will use his influence with the police department and make life even worse for him and his parents.

Caught in an impossible situation, Budi is forced figure out a plan if he's going to protect the ones he loves.

This is a great book, and an important one. I've already written a blog post on it discussing how attractive it is for reluctant and struggling readers which you can read here.

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Get Your Game On
Real Lives

The Disappearances by Emily Bain Murphy

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Fri, 05 Jan 2018 15:00:00 +0000

From my recent Locus review of The Disappearances, a WW2 era fantasy that includes a curse, a literary mystery, some grave robbing, and the disappearance of the stars:

Initially, Emily Bain Murphy’sThe Disappearances reads as straightforward historical fiction. It’s 1942 and teenage Aila is facing the stark reality of life in the wake of her mother’s recent death. To make matters worse, her father is off to the war in the Pacific and she and her younger brother Miles must go live with their mother’s oldest friend in Sterling, Connecticut, where she grew up. Aila knows very little about her mother’s childhood but is resigned to doing her best to fit in. Readers will feel immediate empathy for these children and their predicament but likely expect little in the way of fantasy from reading the first few pages. Then Aila and Miles arrive in their new home with the Clifton family and, in spite of the pouring rain that greets them, Aila is stunned to notice that Matilda Clifton remains completely dry. Clearly, everything in the seemingly dull town of Sterling is not as it appears.

Highly recommended for those who like to see how things used to be done (before cell phones which would have made a lot of the clue-following in this book a lot easier!) and as a reminder that sometimes nothing beats hitting the library. (Cue relevant Doctor Who quote here!)

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Black Light Express by Phillip Reeve

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Mon, 08 Jan 2018 15:30:00 +0000

From my recent review of Black Light Express for Locus:

Philip Reeve’s absolutely incredible world building again takes center stage in Black Light Express, the sequel to Railhead. The second book picks up soon after the events that brought Railhead to a stunning close, with former thief and unwitting catalyst Zen Starling having fled the Network Empire along with Nova, his android girlfriend. Meanwhile, completely against her will, Threnrody Noon, the Paris Hilton of the empire-controlling Noon family, has assumed the position of Empress. She is only a pawn of more powerful interests however and virtually trapped in the palace attending a haze of pointless engagements while her former fiance, Kobi, is on the other side of the galaxy about to be forced into a corporate approved marriage with someone he has never met. Basically, the fallout from Railhead is reverberating across all the lives of the major characters while, unknown to them, it’s about to get a lot lot worse.

What Black Light Express (and the first book, Railhead), offers readers is sentient trains, a vapid rich girl who decides she doesn't want to be a pawn anymore, political machinations, alien technology, aliens, dinosaur-descended aliens, human-android romance, the fact that the human-android romance is the best kind of romance, more stupid rich people, the satisfaction of rich people losing because they are stupid, a protagonist who is smart and scrappy and more than willing to walk on the wrong side of the law because playing by the rules gets you only so far (and those rich jerks are the ones who wrote the rules in the first place).

Oh - and a train is killed and that is far more upsetting than you would think.

As I wrote in my review, I'm really surprised that these books are not more well known. They are excellent SF (which is not too common in the YA literary world) as well as being excellent political mirrors for much of modern society. Check them out!

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Science Fiction

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Mon, 15 Jan 2018 14:00:00 +0000

Lots of authors are publishing gritty, raw stories grounded in current events and this book by Nic Stone is another that falls into this category. The young man on the cover bears an uncanny resemblance to Trayvon Martin what with the hoody and all. Also on the cover is a quote from author Jason Reynolds proclaiming the novel to be "raw and gripping". That quote alone was enough to make me pick this book up as it will for many readers, I am sure.

Justyce is bright, articulate and for the most part just a regular high school kid trying to make it to graduation and then make his way to a prestigious college if all goes well. In the novel's intro we meet him trying to do right by his on again, off again girlfriend Melo who is about to make a bad decision. His actions are somehow misconstrued by a passing police officer and before he knows it Justyce ends up face down with a face full of asphalt. This is only the precursor to what is destined to be an eventful Senior year to say the least.

As it so happens Justyce's grades have allowed him to gain entry to one of Atlanta's most prestigious private schools where seemingly every teacher has at least three degrees. Most of the students are bright, many come from well to do families such as his best friend Manny whose parents are successful professionals. As you would expect, the campus is not very diverse and some of the students display white privilege (perhaps a bit too predictably by lamenting the fact that minorities have it "easy") Justyce's way of dealing with the many, many changes occurring in his life is to write letters to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He's studied the Civil Rights leader's speeches in class and is trying to reconcile the words and the values espoused therein with the realities of daily life. As if that isn't complicated enough, there is also the not so small matter of the evolving relationship with his debate partner SJ.

I've read The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely and this novel is just as gripping, timely and relevant. Stone does a great job balancing the heavy stuff with some touchy feely stuff so it isn't too hard to digest. Well worth a read.

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Everyone's Got Issues
First Love

Saying Goodbye to Guys Lit Wire

By guyslitwire.blogspot.com
Published On :: Tue, 16 Jan 2018 14:30:00 +0000

This is the final post for Guys Lit Wire.

We started this site many years ago (I'm honestly afraid to even see how many years), after an online discussion about how teenage boys seemed less willing to browse for books they wanted than teenage girls. (The argument being that if the guys had more easy to find recommendations, they would read more but when they didn't know how to find books on subjects they liked, they just gave up looking.)

So that was what we set out to do (as evident from the site's name): recommend some books that we thought teenage boys would like. This often meant books from a boy POV, or graphic novels that might lure in reluctant readers, or nonfiction that might appeal to specific audiences that don't read a lot but like certain subjects. What all of these books had in common is that one of our many contributors thought it was a good book and deserved some more attention from readers who would probably love it if they knew about it. We certainly hope that all kinds of kids and teens (boys and girls) have picked up a book because of something we posted here.

Beyond that, we also supported several schools and organizations devoted to getting books into the hands of kids who needed them via underfunded library shelves. Cumulatively, over 10,000 books have been bought & shipped due to our efforts. Most recently, for Ballou Sr High School in Washington DC, over 200 books were bought off their wish list by our readers and sent their way at the end of 2017.

Support for the Annual Book Fair for Ballou will continue, as I take those posts over to my site, Chasing Ray, and continue to host the book fair there. Please follow me on twitter, (@chasingray), for updates on that effort.

Personally, Sarah Stevenson & I would like to thank everyone who was with us on this ride. We are both writing much more heavily now on our own projects and bring an end to GLW with a heavy but grateful heart. Simply put, it is time. All of us at the site are confident however that we accomplished far more here than we ever thought possible. The archives will remain live and there are a ton of great book recommendations to peruse; be sure to check them out.

Sincerely,

Colleen Mondor & Sarah Stevenson

January, 2018

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GLW General Information

Slabá koruna může zdražit zájezdy, říká zástupce cestovek

By www.idnes.cz
Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 04:00:00 GMT

Cestovní ruch v mnoha zemích zamrzl, dovolené v zahraničí přesto mohou zdražit. Očekává to místopředseda Asociace cestovních kanceláří Jan Papež. Důvodem je podle něj oslabení koruny kvůli pandemii, kterou nazval tichou intervencí.

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Ekonomika - Domácí

Hospodářská komora kritizuje Prahu: Už tu nechceme trdla a matrjošky

By www.idnes.cz
Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 10:00:00 GMT

Historické centrum Prahy je kvůli vládním opatřením liduprázdné. Skomírají malé provozovny, jen občas je k vidění stánek s trdelníky. Hospodářská komora Prahy 1 se proto obává o osud místních podnikatelů.

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Ekonomika - Domácí

Third Brighton player tests positive for coronavirus

By www.bbc.co.uk
Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 10:09:03 GMT

A third Brighton player tests positive for coronavirus.

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Coronavirus: 'Stay alert' advice defended by communities secretary

By www.bbc.co.uk
Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 10:09:06 GMT

It follows criticism that a move away from the "stay at home" slogan could confuse the public.

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KVÍZ: Znáte specifika bydlení v družstevním bytě?

By www.idnes.cz
Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 22:00:00 GMT

V družstevních bytech žije přibližně 10 procent českých domácností. Vzhledem k rostoucím cenám nemovitostí je tento typ bydlení oproti osobnímu vlastnictví dostupnější, a zažívá tak další vlnu rozvoje. Družstevní vlastnictví má ale svá specifika. Pokud o koupi družstevního bytu uvažujete, ověřte si své znalosti v dnešním kvízu.

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Finance - Finanční rádce

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