Book Roots Blog...

Teen Read Tuesday!!

One of our favorite things is meeting teens who have something to say about books!  To keep the dialogue going (even when we’re not there to talk to) we’ll be posting regular book reviews/recommendations written by the teens we work with.  That way, we can all keep talking about what we love: BOOKS!!

Cirque Du Freak Series By Darren Shan

This series is about a boy who becomes a vampire to save a friend.  At first, he refuses to drink blood, but later accepts is as part of his life.  He ends up in a war between the vampires and the vamaneze.  The vamaneze, unlike the vampires, drink humans dry.  Because of this and other differences, they try to avoid each other until the war breaks out…

I liked how exciting this series was.  I liked the characters because they were unique.  I also liked it because there was plenty of action, comedy, and serious moments.  I’d recommend this series because it is exciting.  There are also plot twists that will leave you wondering what will happen next.  I also recommend it for anyone who likes sad books, because this series has a lot of sad moments that the characters try to overcome time and time again. 

Summer Fun!

We’ve been busy!! Book Roots has visited two brand new Book Match sites this month! How cool is that?!? We’ve also welcomed two new volunteers on board to help get books into the hands (and minds…) of our excited teens. We’ll be adding another new site in August, and in September we’ll be repeating our biggest event of last year with a booth at the College Within Reach Festival. Last fall we were mobbed. Literally. Teens tripping over themselves to talk to us about books. We successfully matched up over 300 teens in the LA County foster care system with more than 600 BOOKS…it was AMAZING. Fingers crossed for another great turnout! That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more exciting Book Roots developments…Next up, another fabulous book recommendation by the brilliant Emilio!

Book Match success!! (PLUS a teen2teen book review…)

We met some great teens last week!!  In addition to listening to us talk about our favorite books, they gave us some great suggestions of books to bring to other groups we work with!  This is my favorite thing. Ever.  Because who knows what teens would like to read better than other teens??  No one! And these guys even took the time to write down what they loved about their favorite books for us to post, right here!! That was the sound of my brain exploding…in a good way…

Without further ado, I present to you this book review by high school student, Emilio (who gets extra brownie points from us because he not only wrote FOUR book reviews on one sitting, but found and liked us on Facebook an hour after we finished our visit…We heart you Emilio, thank you for your support!!):

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride

“This is a story about a guy who grew up feeling like something was missing from his life, but not knowing what it was.  Then, a necromancer happens to notice that he’s a necromancer, too, and takes him prisoner in a cage, along with a ‘wolf girl.’ The man who took him hostage was planning on killing him and taking his power. 

I liked how this book was funny in a serious way.  Although the characters were in danger, their actions and the resulting consequences were very entertaining. I’d recommend this because it’s a funny book.  It also has some romantic comedy which adds to how good it is.  I’d also recommend it because it shows that you should do what you can to help a friend in trouble.”

Why Read?

Our mission at Book Roots is to connect teens with books by listening to what they like and helping them find the book that will turn them on to reading forever.  For me, this happened in the forth grade, when my teacher (Mrs. Castles) gave me Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.  I finished the book, sobbing, on a family road trip, in the back of my parents’ car.  In that moment, all I could think was, “Wow. This is what books can do.”  And I have been chasing that feeling ever since.  

The unfortunate thing is, not everyone has had that experience…yet.  But I believe we can make it happen, by asking, listening, and bringing a lot of books.  So, that’s what we do.

To take this idea to an even wider audience, we’re going to post reviews and teasers for books recommended by teens to teens.  Some of these will be written by teenagers and some of them will be written by us, but all of them will be aimed at helping teens find books that speak to them in some way or another.

Our first teen2teen book teaser is written by Juan Pablo, 8th grade.

Thirteen Reasons Why, By Jay Asher

Thirteen Reasons Why is a shaking, deep type of book that makes the reader reflect on many aspects of life while- and after- reading the story. Taking place in a small town, Clay is mailed a set of tapes recorded by Hannah Baker- a somewhat moody and distant fellow student in his high school who died a few weeks back. Skeptical at first, Clay listens to these haunting tapes, taking the will and sound of Hannah Baker’s voice around in his ears and pocket while he travels through his home and neighborhoods, looking at everything he’s known from the fresh perspective of a girl who committed suicide. As he listens to Hannah share her story with him, he begins to learn the reason for her decision and death- putting together a puzzle. Once he solves this puzzle, will he be able to return to the calm and oblivious life he once had?

Drumroll please…

This marks the end of my very first week as a paid employee of Book Roots.  After two years of making this happen squeezed between three other jobs, with the blood, sweat and book knowledge of my indentured servants very best friends (Jessica McClendon and Nikki Adkins), I am now dividing my time between only two jobs, and actually getting paid (part-time) to do this one.  Thanks to the amazing generosity of author Cornelia Funke and all of our other wonderful supporters, we will soon be getting more books into the hands of more teens, and actually forcing the teens to talk to us…which may be the hardest part. 

Unfortunately, this still requires the blood, sweat and book knowledge of any/everyone I know (Jessica and Nikki, you’re not off the hook…), so if you live in the LA area and are interested in coming along as we force our favorite books on unsuspecting teenagers, give me a shout!  Kidding aside, be ready to listen, these kids have a lot to say.  Also, heaving lifting is required…these books are not going to deliver themselves.

Long live books!!!