All About Books with Adrianne: April 2012

Friday, April 27, 2012

Movie Review - The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games. Dir. Gary Ross. Author and Screenplay. Suzanne Collins. Lionsgate, 2012. Film.

The United States as we know it no longer exists. In its place we have the country of Panem, run by rulers that live in the Capitol. Every year to mark its victory over an ill fated revolution, the Capitol holds the Hunger Games. Two children from each of the twelve districts, aged 12 - 18, are chosen to fight for their lives in these games. Only one child per year lives to win the Hunger Games, so 23 children a year die. The Hunger Games are reviled in every district, but not the Capitol. There it is treated as reality TV, something to enjoy and look forward to.

Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12 with her mother and sister Prim. Prim is chosen to compete in the games at the age of 12. In desperation Katniss, who is 16, volunteers to take her place. Peeta, the baker's son is chosen as the male tribute for district 12. Peeta and Katniss fight for their lives, and as time goes on the future of Panem.

I am always a little hesitant to watch a movie of a book I have loved so thoroughly. I am often disappointed, but I am happy to say that I enjoyed every minute of the movie version of The Hunger Games. While it was not exactly like the book, the movie stayed true to the spirit of the book. The movie did have some parts that I enjoyed that were not in the book. The scenes that showed the producers adding elements to the forest to terrorize the competitors were great. It was done in much more detail in the movie than it was in the book. I eagerly await the next two installments in The Hunger Games trilogy. I would recommend this book to students 13 and older. There book is full of violence and themes that I don't think younger children can fully understand.

Enjoy this movie trailer for The Hunger Games.

Listen to Suzanne Collins talk about The Hunger Games.

Suzanne Collins is prominent on the Internet. Click the links below to learn more about her.

If you liked The Hunger Games, you will enjoy reading the last two books in the trilogy. Click on the link below each cover to learn more about each book.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

You may also like The Underland Chronicals Suzanne Collins' first series.

After you have finished The Hunger Games series you may like to read more dystopian young adult literature. Learn more about the following books by clicking the title.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Award Winning Novel Review

Cline, E. (2011). Ready player one. New York: Crown Publishers.

If you are a child of the 80's and you love science fiction/fantasy, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is the book for you. The book is set in the year 2044 where life as we know it now does not exist. Unless you are super rich, reality is pretty bleak. The majority of people on earth live their lives on the Internet in the OASIS. The OASIS is a massive virtual utopia where people can be anything that they want to be. The creator of OASIS, James Halliday, was a teenager during the 1980's and a lot of OASIS is based on books, bands, video games, movies and TV of that time period. Upon his death Halliday bequeaths his entire fortune (worth billions) to the person who can solve a series of puzzles. People try for years to figure out the puzzle. Wade, the main character of the story solves the first puzzle. Who knew that this would lead to the death of his aunt, put him on the run for his life, and let him meet the person that he would eventually fall in love with?

I would recommend Ready Player One to students 15 and older. Teenagers who love video games to the point they find it hard to deal with the outside world would enjoy this book.There are a lot of references to the decade of the 1980's which made the book enjoyable for me, but these references may turn off others who are not as familiar with that time in history. Science fiction/fantasy lovers will enjoy the depth the author goes into describing the virtual world that most of the population uses as a way to avoid the dismal reality that surrounds them. This is Ernest Cline's first novel. He wrote a screenplay called Fanboys that became a cult hit. I look forward to reading more from Ernest Cline.

2012 Alex Award Winner

The Alex Awards are presented yearly to 10 adult books that have a special appeal to young adults. Titles for each year are chosen from books published the previous year. The awards are given by the American Library Association (ALA). It began in 1998 and became official in 2002.

The award is named for Margaret A. Edwards. She worked for many years at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore. She was called Alex by friends.

Other Alex Award winners for 2012

If you would like to learn more about Ernest Cline check out these websites:

Listen as Ernest Cline talks about his book Ready Player One:

If you liked Ready Player One you may enjoy these other books. Click on the name below the cover to learn more about each book.

Freedom by Daniel Suarez

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

The Wool Omnibus

Monday, April 16, 2012

Fear:13 Stories of Suspense and Horror

Edited by R. L. Stine

Stine, R.L. (2010). Fear : 13 stories of suspense and horror. New York: Speak.

Murder. Aliens. Cannibals. These gory subjects and more are the focus of the stories edited by R.L. Stine in Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror. Stine and twelve other authors contribute to this book. The stories are unique, engaging and surprising. Teenagers will enjoy reading about characters, similar to themselves, that find themselves in many precarious situations. Some of the teens work out their problems, while others succumb to them. Not knowing what lies before you in each story adds to the suspense and enjoyment of this book.

R.L. Stine has written over 300 hundred books. Many young adults may have read the Goosebumps series by him as younger students. If they are still interested in reading horror stories, but stories that feature kids their age, I would recommend this book of short stories. This book would be good for students thirteen and older. Readers would also be introduced to other authors they may not have read before. Including R.L. Stine the book includes stories from thirteen different authors. Some stories are better than others, as to be expected. I particularly enjoyed Piney Power by F. Paul Wilson. This story is about a secretive community that knows how to take justice into their own hands. More importantly though, it introduced me to F. Paul Wilson, an author who has written more than 40 books. I am eager to see what other books he has to offer.

Learn more about the other authors featured in this book by clicking on their name:

Listen to an interview with R.L. Stine

If you would like to learn about R.L. Stine check out these sites:

Covers of a few of R. L. Stine's books:

If you enjoyed Fear:13 Stories of Suspense and Horror you might also enjoy:

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Ship Breaker

Bacigalupi, P. (2011). Ship breaker. New York: Little, Brown.

What will you do for family? Who is family? Can loyalty to others be thicker than blood? Family is a theme that runs throughout the story of Ship Breaker. Ship Breaker by Paulo Bacigalupi is set some time in the future on what seems to be the Gulf Coast in the United States. A diverse group of people live and work on the beach to break down ships that have sunk on the coast. Ships are stripped of every useful material for large corporations to sell as salvage. Nailer is the main character of the story. He is small enough to work on the light crew, the crew that is responsible for salvaging the smaller things on the ship. Nailer is small for his age and he is able to crawl in and out of the duct work taking out any useful copper wire he can find. Nailer’s mother has died and his father is a violent man addicted to drugs. He is neglectful and abusive towards Nailer, but Nailer is lucky that he has found family in Pima, the leader of his work crew and her mother Sadna.

The people that work to break down ships are largely superstitious and believe in luck and fate. Nailer believes that the fates have brought him luck that day that he and Pima find a newly wrecked luxury ship that no one has laid claim to. They board it to find it filled with objects, that once scavenged will make them rich beyond anything they ever dreamed about. They also find a wounded girl aboard named Nita Chaudhury. After rescuing her from the wreck, they learn that she is a pawn in a deadly game for control of her father’s company. Her father is the owner of the Patel Corporation a huge, powerful player in the salvage business. Nailer has to decide if he will help Nita escape and find her father in defiance of his father who is trying to sell her for a bounty. Nailer struggles with the ideas of family and loyalty as he decides what he must do.

I would recommend this book for children in the seventh grade and up. The book has quite a bit of violence in it. Also students at this age can relate to the strong feelings and loyalty that Nailer felt for his friends. Overall I liked the book and found it to be interesting and very well written. I did have a hard time believing how much Captain Candless relied on Nailer and his opinions. Ship breakers are looked down upon by much of society, and I don’t think the Captain would have relied on one so young and from a group that is held in such low esteem. I do look forward to reading the companion book to Ship Breaker when it is released.

Ship Breaker has a companion book! It will be released May 1, 2012. Learn more about it here:

The Drowned Cities

If you would like to learn more about Paolo Bacigalupi and his books, check out his website here:

Paolo Bacigalupi Website

Listen to Paolo Bacigalupi as he discusses Ship Breaker on YouTube:

To learn more about ship breakers of Bangladesh, please click the links below.

If you liked the book Ship Breaker you might also like the following books.