May 18, 2012

Jean Craighead George, the Newbery Award-winning author of Julie of the Wolves, My Side of the Mountain, and over 100 other novels, passed away on May 15th at 92 years old. Jean shared her infectious love of nature and animals with her readers, and her books will continue to be regarded as classics. She told School Library Journal in a 2009 interview, "Remember me as somebody who talked about nature, who awakened readers to a new world, and helped them restore it." If you aren't watching The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, I can only assume it's because 1) you haven't yet heard of this fantabulous contemporary take on Pride & Prejudice, or 2) you HAVE heard of the videos, but you've been physically detained from watching them by an overbearing mother who wants you to stay off YouTube and focus on getting yourself in to the 2.5 WPF Club. Get caught up on Lizzie and her sisters' adventures by clicking below. Andrew Fukuda's The Hunt and Julie Kagawa's The Immortal Rules are both set in a post-apocalyptic world overrun with vampires. These vamps don't sneak through human society, falling in love with teenage girls, or live openly in accord with humans, drinking blood out of cans bought at 7 Eleven—no, they have utterly crushed human society. The vampocalypse is here, and it's a bad time to be a human.   Click here to read our joint review of these thrilling vampocalypse novels.   See what all the fuss is about with the e-reader omnibus of the first five Wool books by self-pub phenom Hugh Howey, on sale for only $5.99. Download soon, this is going to be a hot series! In addition to garnering critical praise, the Wool novels have found a home at Random House, and are headed for the big screen.  Meet Celaena, an assassin who has to fight her way to freedom in this exciting trailer for Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass.    The Peter and the Starcatchers adaptation success continues! In addition to the wildly popular Broadway adaptation, which just received an impressive nine Tony nominations, the film version is chugging along nicely with the addition of screenwriter Jesse Wigutow. Check out this fabulous eighties-flavored trailer for the CW's The Carrie Diaries.   If you were dismayed by the CW's Fall season cancellation news from last week, take heart, it might not be the end of the line for The Secret Circle, and it is most definitely not over yet for The Selection. Fans of The Secret Circle have banded together to get the show picked up by another network, setting their sights on MTV, ABC Family, and SyFy. If you're not yet ready to say goodbye to Cassie Blake and the circle, head over here to find out how to get involved and Save The Circle. According to Deadline, CW President Mark Pedowitz had this to say to attendees of the network's upfront presentation: “I truly believe that there is a series in The Selection.” The network plans to rework the show, veering further from Kiera Cass's source material, with possible recasts. Aimee Teegarden (Friday Night Lights) will stay on as main character America. If all goes well, the show will likely get a mid-season premiere.

This pic from the set of the Beautiful Creatures movie could be a preview of your immediate future. You could win a set visit and the opportunity to interview authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl! Head over here for deets on entering soon—the contest ends May 21st.

May 15, 2012

A very happy book birthday to each of this week's new release lovelies! Head over here to see the full list for this week. Some beautiful covers hit the web over the past few weeks! Click below to see our favorites.   I have two weeks. You'll shoot me at the end no matter what I do.   That's what you do to enemy agents. It's what we do to enemy agents. But I look at all the dark and twisted roads ahead and cooperation is the easy way out. Possibly the only way out for a girl caught red-handed doing dirty work like mine—and I will do anything, anything, to avoid SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden interrogating me again.   He has said that I can have as much paper as I need. All I have to do is cough up everything I can remember about the British War Effort. And I'm going to. But the story of how I came to be here starts with my friend Maddie. She is the pilot who flew me into France—an Allied Invasion of Two.   We are a sensational team. Click here to read our full review of Code Name Verity.   Worldwide death and destruction, a monarchy overthrown, and a surviving royal child are on dramatic display in this book trailer for The Last Princess. If you like what you see in the video, make sure to enter Alloy Entertainment/Little Brown's amazing sweepstakes here. One grand prize winner gets a copy of The Last Princess signed by Galaxy Craze, a copy of Stefan’s Diaries, Vol. 5: The Asylum signed by actress Nina Dobrev, and a copy of The Hunger Games signed by actress Willow Shields! If you're in the mood for a quick romantic read, make sure to snag Kiss Crush Collide for your e-reader—it's only $2.99 for a limited time.   Of course we're all going to watch Catching Fire when it comes out, but how would you like to act in the film as well? Whether you're aiming as high as Johanna Mason/Finnick Odair or as low as random Capitolite partier/woebegone District 12er, you have a shot! Click here to get the deets. The 39 Clues movie adaptation is one step closer to the big screen! Shawn Levy is in talks to direct the film, which will be produced by Steven Spielberg and Scholastic’s Deborah Forte for Dreamworks. The best-selling series follows two kids, Dan and Amy, on a worldwide treasure hunt as they follow the 39 clues to find the source of their family's power. Florence and the Machine's official music video for their Snow White and the Huntsman song "Breath of Life" has been released, and it has a few new scenes from the movie. Check out the operatic video below.

Chris Hemsworth is flanked by his two darkly-dressed costars, Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron, as they pose for pics at the premiere of Snow White and the Huntsman Monday night in London. I'm kind of digging the doom-and-gloom couture. It'd be a bit weird to see them showing up in sunny yellow frills for that grim, nightmarish movie. To see more premiere pics, head over here.

May 11, 2012

It is with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to author/illustrator Maurice Sendak, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 83.  Perhaps most famous for penning childhood favorites Where the Wild Things Are, Higglety Pigglety Pop! and In the Night Kitchen, Sendak leaves behind an impressive body of work, including an upcoming posthumous picture book, My Brother's Book. His stories are uncompromising, beautiful, dark glimpses into childhood, in all its uncertainty and vulnerability.  He will be greatly missed, but we have no doubt that his books and his influence in children's literature will endure. We've rounded up a few of our favorite Sendak interviews and articles—click here to remember and celebrate his life and work with us. Congratulations to the winners of the Children's Choice Book Awards! Author of the Year: Jeff Kinney Illustrator of the Year: Brian Selznick Kindergarten to 2nd Grade Book of the Year: Three Hens and a Peacock Cole by Lester L. Laminack, illustrated by Henry Cole 3rd to 4th Grade Book of the Year: Bad Kitty Meets the Baby by Nick Bruel 5th to 6th Grade Book of the Year: Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt Teen Book of the Year: Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare In case you are unfamiliar with them, the Children's Choice Book Awards are sort of like the Oscars of kidlit, with MUCH better speeches. Need proof? Check out videos of the acceptance speeches from Monday night's awards ceremony in NYC. These Friday goodies are for fans of the beautiful, action-packed, terrifyingly gory Game of Thrones HBO series. First, if you have trouble keeping up with the House family trees this handy graphic will help you along (and no, Eddard is not trying to stab Catelyn, no matter what it looks like): HBO has a very helpful ever-updating map of Westeros to keep you up to speed on geography as you progress through season 2 (though, let's face it, they do a pretty good job of making fantasy world maps stick in your brain with those CGI credits): If you'd like more in-depth history behind the Houses and the rebellion against the Mad King (delivered in the rumbling brogues of your favorite GOT actors), check out these snazzy animated videos: If you're looking to show your House pride (House Stark represent!) or general GOT fandom, check out these minimalist movie posters from Etsy: Fancy a GOT earworm? Good luck getting Adam WarRock's clever, infectious  "When the Winter Comes" rap out of your head: Of course, we could never end any GOT roundup without watching Joffrey Gets Slapped once again (it ALWAYS cures what ails yeh). Charlotte and Oliver have been friends forever. She knows that he, Abe, and Trip consider her to be one of the guys, and she likes it that way. She likes being the friend who keeps them all together. Likes offering a girl's perspective on their love lives. Likes being the behind-the-scenes wordsmith who writes all the lyrics for the boys' band. Char has a house full of stepsisters and a past full of backstabbing (female) ex-best friends, so for her, being friends with boys is refreshingly drama-free...until it isn't any more.   When a new boy enters the scene and makes Char feel like, well, a total girl...and two of her other friends have a falling out that may or may not be related to one of them deciding he possibly wants to be more than friends with Char...being friends with all these boys suddenly becomes a lot more complicated. Click here to read our full review of Being Friends With Boys.   Now you can grab the first two books in Jennifer Lynn Barnes' Raised by Wolves series, Raised by Wolves and Trial by Fire for only $1.99 each. Download soon before the deal expires! Despite what the girl in this trailer wants to believe, this is not a dream. Hemlock and its creepy book trailer are very real indeed.   We pretty much never get sick of watching new Snow White and the Huntsman clips, which is handy because new ones surface nearly every day. Click below to watch several new teasers, including scenes from the final showdown between Snow and the Evil Queen, a new clip of the confrontational Huntsman balking at his assignment from Queen Ravenna, and a very short clip of Prince William just being generally handsome. MTV had the honor of visiting the Beautiful Creatures movie set in New Orleans, and they came back with this amazing video. Take a peek at some glass-shattering scenes interspersed with cast interviews....and wish in vain that the movie was coming to theaters soon (the new release date is forever-far-away February 15, 2013). The CW has made its Fall TV order, and the good news is, The Carrie Diaries is in it! The bad news? The Selection and The Secret Circle are missing. While we are thrilled to see a young Carrie Bradshaw take on Manhattan, it's kind of a bummer that we have to say goodbye to Cassie and her deranged family tree. Also, the CW show was pretty much the coolest thing about The Selection (in our opinion anyway), so this news is a big bucket of underwhelming.

Jenny Han (We'll Always Have Summer), Jessi Kirby (In Honor), and Morgan Matson (Second Chance Summer) read from their books at Book Passage in San Francisco on Wednesday night as part of their fabulous Summer Lovin' Tour.

May 7, 2012

A very happy book birthday to each of this week's new release lovelies! Jump over here to see the rest of the lovelies. Head to Las Vegas with June and Day in the first chapter of Prodigy, book two in Marie Lu's Legend series at USA Today's site. Be warned: Prodigy comes out January 13, 2013, so prepare for a painfully long wait for the rest of the novel. Mia Price is a lightning addict. She's survived countless strikes, but her craving to connect to the energy in storms endangers her life and the lives of those around her.   Los Angeles, where lightning rarely strikes, is one of the few places Mia feels safe from her addiction. But when an earthquake devastates the city, her haven is transformed into a minefield of chaos and danger. The beaches become massive tent cities. Downtown is a crumbling wasteland, where a traveling party moves to a different empty building each night, the revelers drawn to the destruction by a force they cannot deny. Two warring cults rise to power, and both see Mia as the key to their opposing doomsday prophecies. They believe she has a connection to the freak electrical storm that caused the quake, and to the far more devastating storm that is yet to come.   Mia wants to trust the enigmatic and alluring Jeremy when he promises to protect her, but she fears he isn't who he claims to be. In the end, the passion and power that brought them together could be their downfall. When the final disaster strikes, Mia must risk unleashing the full horror of her strength to save the people she loves, or lose everything. Click here to read our full Struck review.   In Andrew Fukuda's The Hunt, vampires rule the world and the remaining humans have to go incognito to survive. Of course, it's much harder to go incognito when you're forced to participate in a hunt for those remaining humans. Check out the US and UK trailers to see how one human fakes it so he can make it out alive. In the mood for a suspenseful Gothic mystery? You're in luck! The Twin's Daughter is on sale for only $1.99 on your e-reader. The deal won't last long, so download soon. Sadly, it seems no Hunger Games series casting decision can be made without some sort of disappointing racist display from fans. The latest controversy? A groundswell of online support for (unbelievably-gorgeous-how-is-this-amount-of-hotness-street-legal?) actor Jesse Williams (Grey's Anatomy, Cabin in the Woods) to be cast as Finnick Odair in Catching Fire resulted in some pretty loud, nasty, and undeniably racist objections. Following the Rue/Thresh/Cinna controversy, it's hugely disappointing to see more of this kind of behavior from fans.  The only plus side to this fiasco is that Jesse Williams is now DEFINITELY on the media's (and by extension the casting director's) radar.   In other less enraging Catching Fire news, stars Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson weighed in on the changing of the director guard to E! Online and MTV News. Both are definitely sad to see Gary Ross go, but they are also optimistic about the talent new director Francis Lawrence brings to the project. I'm certainly encouraged by Lawrence's acknowledgment that he has inherited a very passionate and vocal fanbase, and his declaration that he wants to hear from them. Click through to check out two new clips from Snow White and the Huntsman, including the one pictured here, which features Kristen Stewart as Snow, getting lost and freaked out in the Dark Forest. Then watch the cast divulge embarrassing details about themselves in MTV's "Yes or No Show."

This pic from the Beautiful Creatures movie gives us a peek into a charming, romantic moment between Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) and Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert).

May 3, 2012

Some amazing book tours could be coming your way in the next couple of months. Here are a few standouts: The lovely Jennifer L. Armentrout will be touring with the gorgeous cover models from her Lux series in a few lucky towns in the South. Head over here to see if you're in her tour path! If you're not, never fear, there are ways to take your love for all things Daemon and get involved online via the enthusiastic #daemoninvasion. The invasion includes wonderfully creative street teams who complete tasks and challenges to win Lux-related prizes. Get the deets on getting involved on Jennifer's blog, and link up with a street team on Twitter using the hashtag #daemoninvasion. The biggest challenge? Narrowing it down to ONE team.  Kristin Cashore is taking her teen Queen Bitterblue on the road. I'm sad to report she won't be taking any models with her (but wouldn't it be great to have a Po model on hand? He could walk around the signing line and pass out fake Lienid gold jewelry). Check here to see if she'll hit a bookstore near you. The Fierce Reads Tour includes some rock star Macmillan debut authors, including Anna Banks (Of Poseidon), Leigh Bardugo (Shadow and Bone), Jennifer Bosworth (Struck), Emmy Laybourne (Monument 14), and Marissa Meyer (Cinder). Click below to see if your local bookstore will be getting fierce. One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.   Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so. Click here to read our full review of Insurgent.   Go inside the frightening, bleak post-apocalyptic world of Paolo Bacigalupi's The Drowned Cities with this grim trailer. This companion novel to Bacigalupi's Printz-winning Ship Breaker is out in stores now, but you can download the first 11 chapters for free on your e-reader to get a taste of the story. For a limited time you can add the first book in Michelle Zink's Prophecy of the Sisters trilogy to your e-reader for only $2.99. Don't miss out, download it soon! It's official! Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) will be the director for Catching Fire. In a truly cool "oh, hello there, fellow fans, I'm the guy taking over your beloved franchise" statement, Francis asks fans to post what scenes they are most looking forward to on the movie's Facebook page. Facebook posts can't contain our list, Francis, but we'll TRY. According to Variety, Kyle Gallner (A Nightmare on Elm Street) has been cast in the Beautiful Creatures movie in the role of Larkin. Larkin is cousin to Lena Duchannes, played by Alice Englert, and the brother of Ridley, played by Emmy Rossum.  This featurette for the adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter features plenty of campy presidential vamp slaying action.

Now this is a beautiful sight for any proud author! Kami Garcia has her own chair on the set of the Beautiful Creatures movie.