Anyone else super-excited about the Ender’s Game Movie? Here’s a the first trailer!
And School Library Journal has this exhaustive look at upcoming movies. Who knew about A Wrinkle in Time? Awesome!
We are SO lucky to be hosting Margaret Stohl on the very day her new dystopian novel premiers!
Dolores has been raised on a farm near a future Los Angeles devastated by ecological failure and an alien invasion. Dol and her best friend Ro depend on each other to keep their uncontrollable emotions in check. But what if their greatest weakness turns out to be their greatest strength – and maybe the only way to liberate humanity from the mysterious invaders and their all-powerful Icons?
Get your SIGNED copy of Icons! Even if you can’t make the event, bring your completed book order form with payment to the library by Friday May 3 and we’ll deliver it to your homeroom. You can even order copies of books from her Beautiful Creatures series. Questions? You know where to go!
Our new shipment of books is IN! There’s a lot to laugh about here. Including:
A Sauron-like character is banished from his own world and into the body of a 12-year old human boy. All of his powers are gone along with many of his memories. He can’t even remember his own name, and now he’s known as Dirk Lloyd, or His Lord Dirkness. When even his Ring of Power is lifeless, how is a Dark Lord to get back to Mount Dread and his legions of Orc armies?
With a little help from his friends, of course. Dirk assembles a ragtag group of minions, who at first are merely amused by the way he keeps saying crazy things and laughing (mwahaha), but eventually become his friends. Now, if only he hadn’t given his ring of power to a cute goth girl who caught his eye…
The Dark Lord is also available on our humor Kindle (aka The Mark Twain) along with Ungifted, The True Meaning of Smekday, and many other hilarious books. Click on Destiny at the right and search “humor Kindle” to learn more. For a list of more funny books, go into Destiny, choose Resource lists and scroll down for the Humor one. 
Other new and noteworthy humor books:
This just in! We’re rolling out our 12 new Kindles! Thanks to all 
students who voted on the genres and suggested books. If you’d like to check out a Kindle, you need to download the Technology Agreement form and bring it to the library, signed by you and your parents. (8th graders can access our 8th grade only collection by having their parents sign a different form that specifies which books are on the Kindles.)
Don’t forget that we also have over 200 eBooks that you can read 
on many of your own devices! I just found out that you can read them on a Kindle Fire. You just have to be connected to the internet. You can read them offline on iPads and Android Tablets. Click on eBooks (above) for more info.
Also, author S.S. Taylor came to Hillview last week to speak with our seventh graders about her new steampunk adventure novel, The Expeditioners. It’s about a post-decline future America where brave explorers are discovering new lands that the old computer maps left off. Kit’s father was one of the best Explorers, but he goes missing on an expedition, leaving clues to a mysterious treasure for Kit and his brother and sister to find. The website for the book is really cool, with lots of awesome artwork and a link to a great book trailer!
Keep reading to hear about our Kindle contest…
Seraphina has a terrible secret. Her mother was a dragon, and her left arm and torso are covered in silver scales. It’s a bad time to be a half-breed: her kingdom is renegotiating a fragile peace with the violent dragons. When a member of the royal family is decapitated, apparently by a dragon, Seraphina is pulled into the investigation of the crime. With her new high profile role, will she be able to keep her secret – and her kingdom – safe?
We have 12 new Kindles! Sixth and seventh graders will get first priority once they are ready. In the meantime, help us choose the genre categories for our new eReaders! Come to the library and vote for up to 12 categories. Choose from those below, or write in your own!
Traveling for the holidays? Or staying close to home but can’t keep enough books in the house for your voracious reader? The Hillview library is wading into the eBook market in two exciting ways!
Check out eBooks to read on your computer, iPad or Android tablet! (Sorry, not on Kindles or Nooks!) We now have over 200 eBooks in our collection. Click on the eBook button above for full directions. You can see what eBooks we have by looking at the eBook or new eBook resource list on Destiny Quest (on the right).
We are piloting a Kindle eReader loan program. Currently we have six Kindles to check out to eighth graders, each loaded up with books in a different genre. Parents can download the permission form here. (Sorry, sixth and seventh graders! If it goes well we’ll have more Kindles available by the next vacation!)
The Menlo Park Public Library has eBooks that I believe you can download onto your own eReaders – check their website for more info.
As always, contact Ms. P with any questions or concerns. Happy Holidays, and Happy eReading!
We’ve won a Jeanie Ritchie Grant to add some writing enrichment to 7th and 8th graders’ flex time! Here’s how it works:Click here to download the 7th grade application.
Click here to download the 8th grade application.
Questions? Contact Ms. Piombo in the library! (Or at tpiombo@mpcsd.org)
New Books! New contest! New chance to suggest books to order!
October’s contest is a Monster Match! Match up the famous literary monsters (like Frankenstein) with the author of their book (Kenneth Oppel, right?). Get a candy-corn scented bookmark, and correct answers go into a drawing for Keplers gift cards.
Speaking of Kenneth Oppel, I recently devoured Such Wicked Intent, the dark and gripping second book in The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein series. If you like a good anti-hero, Victor is your man.
Or perhaps you’ve been waiting for the latest in a favorite series? You’re in luck! We just added:
Olympus. (Book club meets at lunch on Friday November 9 and everyone’s invited!)Not your scene? Click on Destiny (on your right at the top) and check out our resource lists. Creepy Reads just in time for Halloween? Books Like Diary of a Wimpy Kid? Maybe just take a peek at our current Top 10 – the Hunger Games series is moving down the list, making room for new contenders!
Finally, I’m putting together a big book order – come and tell me what you’d like to see on it! I’ll also be ordering eBooks – suggest some of those as well!
Best Book of the Summer survey. Nothing could be easier: just tell us what your favorite book was this summer to get a free scented bookmark. You’ll also be entered into a drawing for a Kepler’s gift card!
Book Clubs. Join our lunchtime book clubs or keep your ears open for Flex-time book clubs (like our ever-popular 8th Grade Book Club).
Books Come Alive! On Halloween, dress up as a character from your favorite book. Prizes for all who participate, plus a separate costume contest category just for us.
Author, Author! Eighth grade students are invited to apply for our popular Jeannie Ritchie Grant writing class. More info to come!
Cross-Town Book Challenge. 7th and 8th graders are invited to form teams to compete against other Academies. The winning team will face La Entrada in a cross-town literary showdown! Fun and prizes for all who participate.
Book Trailers. Create your own book trailers – to be shown on HVTV and in the library to advertise great books.
Author Events. We are working with Kepler’s to bring in great authors. Previous authors have included Scott Westerfeld (Leviathan) Neal Shusterman (Everlost), James Dashner (Maze Runner) and Ally Carter (Gallagher Girls).
Display Case Contest. Enter your designs in our contest and win a chance to put together your own display case. (We now have TWO!) Suggested theme: Fall into a Good Book. (Or create your own fabulous theme!)
Imagine if you were colonizing another planet. New World is pristine – a gorgeous paradise, but it turns out that it has intelligent life after all. And those aliens? They’re not too happy to see you. The journey took decades – there’s no going back to Earth.
And did we mention that every living thing on the planet broadcasts their every thought and emotion to everyone else? Birds, fish, dogs, even people.
Well, only the men. Women’s minds are silent, but they know everything the men think.
This is the world that Todd Hewitt was born into. He’s been raised by his mother’s best friends, Ben and Cillian. His dad died before he was born, and his mother died, like all the other women, of the same germ that caused all the men to broadcast their “Noise.” After the war that killed all the aliens, they are the only ones left on the planet – a dying town of miserable men who can’t keep their misery to themselves.
Todd’s never had any reason to doubt what he’s been told. It’s not like lying is possible when everyone can read everyone else’s mind, right?
But then, right before the birthday that marks the day he will become a man, Ben and Cillian send him away, telling him that everything he knows is a lie. And the truth could kill him.
I could NOT put the book down! It’s the first in a series – I read all 3 in a fast clip. Definitely not for the faint of heart. At least as violent as The Hunger Games, with a little cursing thrown in. But with a LOT of heart! Did I mention Todd’s dog? And Viola, the kick-butt girl he finds whose spaceship has crashed on New World, and who becomes a narrator in the second and third book. (The third book gets all kinds of weird – one of the aliens becomes a narrator too.)
And SO many interesting things to think about!
And the movie rights have been bought by Lionsgate, who made The Hunger Games movie.
If you read this, tell us what you think!
