Movie Tie-In Tuesday!

This article originally appeared in SLJ's Extra Helping.

Joy Fleishhacker -- School Library Journal, 1/25/2010 8:28:00 AM

A New Film Hero: Percy Jackson
Devotees of Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson & the Olympians” books (Disney/Hyperion) are gearing up to see their beloved hero and his escapades re-imagined as a feature film. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (PG), a live-action adventure/fantasy adapted from the first novel (2005), premieres in theaters on February 12, 2010. Director Chris Columbus is no stranger to bringing blockbuster books for young people to the big screen, having overseen the first two installments of the “Harry Potter” series for Warner Bros. (2001’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and 2002’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). Presented by 20th Century Fox, The Lightning Thief looks to be packed with fast-paced suspense and thrilling visual effects.
Logan Lerman stars as Percy Jackson, here a high school student (in the book he’s 12 years old), who discovers that the gods of Mount Olympus are alive and well in 21st-century America, and that he is—amazingly—the demigod son (half mortal, half god) of Poseidon (Kevin McKidd). Not only are assorted mythological monsters popping up everywhere, but Zeus’s (Sean Bean) lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the number-one suspect in the crime. He’s also worried about his mother (Catherine Keener), who has suddenly disappeared. Caught between squabbling divinities, Percy and his teenage friends—Annabeth Chase (Alexandra Daddario), the demigod daughter of Athena, and Grover Underwood (Brandon T. Jackson), a satyr—embark on an exciting quest to track down the lightning bolt, save Percy’s mother, and unravel a far-reaching mystery to prevent a war between the gods.
The cast also includes Pierce Brosnan as the hero-training Chiron, Uma Thurman as a sultry Medusa, and Melina Kanakaredes as Athena. Impatient fans can catch movie previews at the official Web site or hook into the hype (articles, blogs, links, and more) at the unofficial “Percy Jackson Movies” fansite or the “Percy Jackson & the Olympians” wikia. A film adaptation of Riordan’s second novel, The Sea of Monsters (Disney/Hyperion, 2006), is in the works for a 2012 release.
Book Tie-ins
The movie is guaranteed to stir up interest in and win new enthusiasts for Riordan’s book series, so be sure that you have plenty of copies of all five installments. Disney/Hyperion has recently released a media tie-in paperback edition of The Lightning Thief (2010) with a movie-poster cover. Aglow in steely grays and washed-out shadows, the photographic image depicts a water-bound Percy (Lerman), confidently hefting a sizzling lightning bolt, with the nighttime New York City skyline twinkling in the distance. Filled with a sense of power as yet unleashed, this dramatic cover will grab the eye of film fans and invite them into the rest of the series. Librarians and teachers may be interested in the discussion guide available at the Hyperion Web site.
Pub Info
RIORDAN, Rick. The Lightning Thief. Film tie-in ed. pap. $7.99. ISBN 978-1-4231-3494-7.

Monday New Book Review!

Very LeFreak

by Rachel Cohn

Recommended for Cohn fans

Very (Veronica) is a techno wild child with a complicated past. It's easy to fall for lively Very: she plans flash mobs using a social network she programmed at college, makes play-lists for every situation (even to apologize to her roommate after hooking up with a mutual friend), and has an intense fantasy life with El Virus, a stranger she meets online. She loves to throw killer parties and manages to get her entire circle of friends and Columbia University educators to throw her an “intervention”. This intervention is not for drugs and alcohol though; it’s for her dependency on technology. With the threat of expulsion and scholarship loss Very heads to a tech-detox center in the Vermont woods.
Cohn’s mix of fun, and far-out characters sits uncomfortably with the somber subject matter, including Very's bad first sexual experience at age 12 and the death of her mother. As I read this I would feel increasingly impatient with Very’s behavior and then feel sympathetic when another life tragedy was introduced. Her story never feels entirely cohesive and the ending was disappointing, but readers will have fun watching Very in action. Ages 14–up.

Movie Tie-In Tuesday!

The Lovely Bones

by Alice Sebold

Highly Recommended!

The movie version of The Lovely Bones opened in theaters on Friday, January 15th. Ridley residents may be interested to know that a heavily reconfigured MacDade Mall features largely in the beginning of the movie!

"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."

So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her - her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.

The name The Lovely Bones comes from an ending line in the book;

“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections — sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent — that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events my death brought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous lifeless body had been my life.”

Monday New Book Review!

The Secret Year

by Jennifer Hubbard

Highly Recommended!

Colten (Colt) Morrissey lives in the Flats. Julia is a year older, popular, and from Black Mountain where the “rich kids” live. They meet one night down by the river and start a yearlong romance that no one ever knows about. Not their friends or Julia’s boyfriend. Then Julia dies in a car accident during Labor Day Weekend and Colt has to find a way to mourn her without letting their secret get out. When Julia’s journal ends up in his hands he relives their year together while trying to move on with the year ahead.

I really enjoyed this book. It seemed at first to be a typical star crossed lover kind of story but it developed into a really great narrative. As the story unfolded I really wanted Colt to find peace and happiness since he was such a nice guy! The supporting characters are all interesting and well written especially Colt’s brother Tom whose own secrets help Colt realize that he is not the only one in the world with things to hide.

The war between social classes in a high school setting is by no means a new idea, but Hubbard does an excellent job at making it relevant in her novel by drawing the reader into the drama and showing how it relates to Colt's past, present, and even future.

It was refreshing to read a relationship book from a boy’s point of view and Colt’s character will really draw sympathy and compassion from most female readers while Julia’s character will probably anger you! Hubbard did a great job with this one!

New YA Books for January at the Ridley Library!

Very LeFreak by Rachel Cohn

Consumed with emailing, online video games, and the many distractions of her electronic gadgets, hyper-frenetic Columbia University freshman Veronica, known as Very LeFreak, enters a rehab facility for the technology-addicted after her professors and classmates stage an intervention.

Dream Life by Lauren Mechling

Claire Voyante's first semester at Henry Hudson High School was eventful, to say the least. As she heads into her second semester, things are calming down a bit. But Claire has a few secrets that are getting harder to keep. Her biggest secret of all? The onyx and ivory cameo necklace her grandmother gave her for her 15th birthday. Ever since she started wearing it, her dreams have been coming to her in black and white and turning out to be oddly prophetic.

Wanderlust by Lucy Silag

Will they save their lost friend before it’s too late?
Angst and betrayal abound as teens search the French countryside for their missing classmate in this exciting sequel to Beautiful Americans.

The Secret Year by Jennifer Hubbard

Colt and Julia were secretly together for an entire year, and no one—not even Julia’s boyfriend— knew. They had nothing in common, with Julia in her country club world on Black Mountain and Colt from down on the flats, but it never mattered. Until Julia dies in a car accident, and Colt learns the price of secrecy. He can’t mourn Julia openly, and he’s tormented that he might have played a part in her death. When Julia’s journal ends up in his hands, Colt relives their year together at the same time that he’s desperately trying to forget her. But how do you get over someone who was never yours in the first place?

Darklight by Lesley Livingston

Faerie can't lie . . . or can they?
Much has changed since autumn, when Kelley Winslow learned she was a Faerie princess, fell in love with changeling guard Sonny Flannery, and saved the mortal realm from the ravages of the Wild Hunt. Now Kelley is stuck in New York City, rehearsing Romeo and Juliet and missing Sonny more with every stage kiss, while Sonny has been forced back to the Otherworld and into a deadly game of cat and mouse with the remaining Hunters and Queen Mabh herself.

Deadly Little Lies by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Last fall, sixteen-year-old Camelia fell for Ben, the mysterious new boy at school who turned out to have a very mysterious gift--pyschometry, the ability to sense the future through touch. But just as Camelia and Ben's romance began to heat up, he abruptly left town. Brokenhearted, Camelia has spent the last few months studying everything she can about psychometry, and experiencing her own strange brushes with premonition. Camelia wonders if Ben's abilities have somehow rubbed off on her. Can the power of psychometry be transferred?

By the Time You Read This I'll Be Dead by Julie Ann Peters

Daelyn Rice is broken beyond repair, and after a string of botched suicide attempts, she's determined to get her death right. She starts visiting a website for "completers"- www.through-the-light .com. While she's on the site, Daelyn blogs about her life, uncovering a history of bullying that goes back to kindergarten. When she's not on the Web, Daelyn's at her private school, where she's known as the freak who doesn't talk.Then, a boy named Santana begins to sit with her after school while she's waiting to for her parents to pick her up. Even though she's made it clear that she wants to be left alone, Santana won't give up. And it's too late for Daelyn to be letting people into her life.isn't it?

Fallen by Lauren Kate

Suspected in the death of her boyfriend, seventeen-year-old Luce is sent to a Savannah, Georgia, reform school where she meets two intriguing boys and learns the truth about the strange shadows that have always haunted her.

The Vinyl Princess by Yvonne Prinz

Summer is here, and 16-year-old Allie, a self-professed music geek, is exactly where she wants to be: working full-time at Berkeley’s ultra-cool Bob and Bob Records. There, Allie can spend her days bantering with the street people, talking the talk with the staff, shepherding the uncool bridge-and-tunnel shoppers, all the while blissfully surrounded by music, music, music. It’s the perfect setup for her to develop her secret identity as The Vinyl Princess, author of both a brand-new zine and blog. From the safety of her favourite place on earth, Allie is poised to have it all: love, music and blogging.

Captivate by Carrie Jones
Zara and her friends knew they hadn't solved the pixie problem for good. Far from it. The king's needs grow deeper every day he's stuck in captivity, while his control over his people gets weaker. It's made him vulnerable. And now there's a new king in town.

Hazel by Julie Hearn

Thirteen-year-old Hazel leaves her comfortable, if somewhat unconventional, London home in 1913 after her father has a breakdown, and goes to live in the Caribbean on her grandparents' sugar plantation where she discovers some shocking family secrets.

Wish by Alexandra Bullen

For broken-hearted Olivia Larsen, nothing can change the fact that her twin sister, Violet, is gone... until a mysterious, beautiful gown arrives on her doorstep. The dress doesn't just look magical; it is magical. It has the power to grant her one wish, and the only thing Olivia wants is her sister back.

Tangled by Carolyn Mackler

Paradise wasn't supposed to suck.
Not the state of being, but a resort in the Caribbean.
Jena, Dakota, Skye, and Owen are all there for different reasons, but at Paradise their lives become tangled together in ways none of them can predict. Paradise will change them all.

My Soul to Save by Rachel Vincent
When Kaylee Cavanaugh screams, someone dies. So when teen pop star Eden croaks onstage and Kaylee doesn't wail, she knows something is dead wrong. She can't cry for someone who has no soul. The last thing Kaylee needs right now is to be skipping school, breaking her dad's ironclad curfew and putting her too-hot-to-be-real boyfriend's loyalty to the test. But starry-eyed teens are trading their souls: a flickering lifetime of fame and fortune in exchange for eternity in the Netherworld—a consequence they can't possibly understand. Kaylee can't let that happen, even if trying to save their souls means putting her own at risk….

Witch and Wizard by James Patterson
A sister and brother, along with thousands of young people, have been kidnapped and either thrown in prison or turned up missing after accusations of witchcraft are made against them, and the ruling regime will do anything in order to suppress life and liberty, music and books.