Marie Lu at Hillview, October 19!

We’re so excited we can hardly breathe! Just days after the latest Young Elites novel debuts, Marie Lu will meet with seventh and eighth grade students at Hillview during Qu3st. Ask your Qu3st teacher if you’re coming.  (Or beg them to take you – there’s still a little room!)

If you’d like to order a signed copy of any of the books in the Young Elites series (including the new one!), return this form (marie-lu-hillview-10-19 )to the library by Friday, October 7. (Preorder even if you can’t make it.)

The Young Elites is a rare novel – a villain origin story that has you rooting for the narrator, Adelina Amouteru, who survived a blood fever that left her permanently scarred and perpetually persecuted; while at the same time you’re horrified at the poor choices she keeps making on her journey to Maleficent-level badness.  You’ll find the book, and the sequel, The Rose Society, in our Teen section. Join us for the Teen Book club this month when we discuss the book!

Kindle Summer Check Out Lottery

Don’t worry; it’s not the Shirley Jackson kind of lottery. We’re checking out Kindles to students for the summer! Up to 24 lucky students will check out a kindle pre-loaded with at least 10 awesome books.

Click here to see what’s on each kindle and what they are called.

Fill out this form to let us know your top three choices.

If you haven’t already, you’ll need to fill out a kindle technology use form.

Seventh and eighth graders who’d like one of our Teen kindles also need to have the Teen permission slip on file if it isn’t already.

 

Stacey Lee at Hillview!

This Friday, during OS, many students have the opportunity to meet author Stacey Lee and hear all about Under a Painted Sky. She’ll also talk about her upcoming book, which is about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake!  You can pre-order signed copies of either, or get them at next week’s Book Fair, or check them out from your library!

“They say death aims only once and never misses, but I doubt Ty Yorkshire thought it would strike with a scrubbing brush.” Samantha is on the run. She wants to run to New York City and teach violin, but after she kills a man by accident, she runs West to escape the long arm of the law. A orphan, Sam travels with Annamae, an escaped slave looking for her missing brother. Life on the Westward trail in 1849 is not safe for two girls, even less so if you’re Chinese American or African American, so Sammy and Annamae go undercover as boys. Along the trail the girls meet a trio of cowboys who help them survive, but the closer they get, the greater the risk that the cowboys will see through their disguises. I am not a huge fan of Westerns, but these are characters you can root for as trouble follows them everywhere under the painted sky.

New – Digital Audiobooks!

    Our OverDrive Digital collection now includes audiobooks! Thanks to a generous donation from the PTO, we’ve added audiobooks that you can download onto your devices. Most devices can use the OverDrive app (including your school iPad), but some (iPod shuffle) may require you to connect to a PC. It’s new to us too, so let us know if you have questions!

To access, click on the OverDrive link on your right. You’ll need your ID # (on your ASB card). Some of the audiobooks are in our Teen Collection. 7th and 8th graders may access those audiobooks (and teen eBooks and paper books) with the parental permission slip.

New Books. New eBooks. Writing Contest!

Check out your library and our OverDrive eBook collection – lots of new books have arrived! Including new TEEN eBooks. 7th and 8th graders can check out teen books with parent permission (not necessary to fill out the form again if you already have!)  6th graders can check out individual teen titles with a different form.

The Society for Young Inklings is hosting their annual writing contest. You can submit poetry or short stories. Winners are published in their anthology AND win time with a writing mentor! How awesome is that?!  (Also, you’ll receive a copy of the book and our library will get one too. So, your writing will be in our library.🙂 Applications are due March 15 and Ms. Piombo is here to help!

Coming Soon… OverDrive Teen Section!

Have you been wondering if Hillview’s Teen collection would ever go digital? Wonder no more – it’s in the works! Soon you’ll be able to download Teen eBooks onto your school iPads and personal devices.🙂 7th and 8th graders need to make sure you have the parent permission slip on file. (Anyone may access an individual book from our print collection by filling out this form.)

Between this, and Penguin publisher’s decision to actually sell us their eBooks (rather than rent them to us by the year – no thanks!) – it feels like the holidays all over again here. We can’t WAIT to fill up on Teen eBooks and we’d love your input! What Teen aBooks would you like us to purchase?  Either reply in the comments, or log in to OverDrive and send us a request that way. Or come see us!

Get Creative Over Break!

The Stanford Anthology for Youth’s Writing and Art contest ends January 10 at midnight.  Check out the guidelines – enter for free! Submit up to 2 pieces of writing (fiction or poetry) and up to 3 works of art!

Let Ms. Piombo know if you’re entering the contest. Run your work by me first!

Writers and Artists 13 and younger may submit to Stone Soup Magazine on an ongoing basis. Read their submission guidelines first, and please note that you may not send them anything you are sending elsewhere.

Teens 13-18 may enter one of Teen Ink’s several writing and art contests.

Menlo Park Library’s TAG offers this list of writing, art and movie contests.

Winter Reading Challenge at all San Mateo County libraries! Find more info here. Atherton is offering free books (while supplies last) to participants.

 

Book Clubs – Now 7th graders can choose TEEN book club as well!

7th and 8th graders are invited to attend the Teen book club on Wednesday December 9 at lunch in the library to discuss Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Boys. Unlike the rest of the women in her family, Blue Sargent has no psychic powers. Instead she’s a kind of amplifier that makes everyone else’s powers stronger, which is why her mother takes her along every year for the annual graveyard walk of the spirits of those who will die in that year. Blue never sees anyone, until a the spirit of a lost boy stumbles across her path. This only happens if he is her true love, or if she is going to kill him. Blue doesn’t even know this Gansey – he’s one of the rich boys who go to the elite private school in town – the Raven boys. But even though Blue detests the spoiled Raven Boys, she can’t help but become friends with Richard Gansey when she meets him in person, along with his friends Adam, a proud local boy putting himself through school, Ronan, angry and standoffish, and Noah, shy and a little odd.  Soon Blue is swept up in Gansey’s search for an ancient sleeping Welsh king, but others are looking for him as well, and Gansey’s future is uncertain at best. Once you read this first book, you’ll want to devour the rest of the books in the Raven Cycle. (Ms. Piombo is counting the days until book 4, The Raven King, comes out in April 2016.)

All students are invited to attend the Whole School Book Club on Thursday, November 19 at lunch in the library as we discuss Ally Condie’s Matched.  Everyone in Cassia’s society is happy, now that they are freed from the nightmare of too many choices. Nearly all major decisions are made for you. Your ideal job, how many children to have, even who you marry – a computer algorithm matches you with your perfect life. Cassia is a little anxious about her upcoming Match day, when she’ll find out the identity of her future husband. Usually it’s a stranger from another City, but Cassia is relieved when her match turns out to be her best friend Xander. They already know and love each other. But a random computer glitch suggests that this match might be a mistake, and one fleeting image of another boy puts a crack in Cassia’s perfect world that threatens not only her future happiness, but the safety of everyone she loves. First in an exciting and thoughtful dystopian trilogy!

Book Clubs!

Join the School-Wide book club as we discuss The Swap, a book that Jon Scieszka calls “seriously, truly, fearlessly funny!” Ellie and Jack swap bodies in the wake of an ill-conceived wish. Now Jack is dealing with mean girls and Ellie is finding that popular boys are not as carefree as she thought…

The 8th grade book club will get a little creepy this month! Rory Devaux travels all the way from Louisiana to attend a prestigious London boarding school at exactly the worst moment. Someone is murdering young women in the style of Jack the Ripper, and Rory believes she can see the killer – even when no one else can. Why does she have this connection to a stone-cold killer?

One Came Home, Amy Timberlake

Tags

Character, Plot, setting

Georgie loves her sister Agatha, even if they don’t always get along. When Georgie’s meddling ruins her sister’s chances of marriage, Agatha runs away. Days later the sheriff brings home a dismembered body, unrecognizable except for Agatha’s red hair and distinctive peacock green dress. It’s 1871, long before DNA testing, but Georgie KNOWS that it isn’t Agatha. So she runs away too, determined to find her sister and bring her home alive. Trouble is, a young woman IS dead, and even if she isn’t Agatha, whoever killed her is not going to be too pleased with Georgie poking around. Will Georgie’s considerable intelligence, her skill as sharpshooter and her determination be enough to see her safely through her quest?

It’s hard to decide what’s best about this novel: Georgie’s unforgettable character, the mystery of the missing sister, the language… It may be the novel’s unique sense of time and place: if you’ve never read a book about the great passenger pigeon nesting in Wisconsin in 1871, don’t miss your chance. It’s available in print and on OverDrive. Check out the novel’s long list of awards!