Month: October 2012

The Cybils 2012 – Vote for your favourite books now!

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The Cybils are awards given each year by bloggers for the year’s best children’s and young adult titles. I’m lucky enough this year to be a round 2 judge for the Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy category, which means I get to help choose the top book in this category for 2012.  It’s a really exciting opportunity and I’m looking forward to reading all the shortlisted books when they’re announced on 1 January 2013.

You can get involved by voting for your favourite in each category – Book Apps, Easy Readers/Short Chapter Books, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Fiction Picture Books, Graphic Novels, Middle Grade Fiction, Non-Fiction Picture Books, Non-Fiction: Middle Grade and Young Adult, Poetry, and Young Adult Fiction.  You can vote from today until 15 October and any English or bilingual books published in the U.S. or Canada between Oct. 16, 2011 and Oct. 15, 2012 are eligible.

Anyone can vote and all you have to do to vote is go to www.cybils.com and fill out the form.

Eve and Adam by Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate

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Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate have introduced us to characters that we both love and love to hate.  They’ve coauthored over 100 books together, including one of the coolest series of my childhood, Animorphs.  Michael is the author of the fantastic Gone series and BZRK, and Katherine stole our hearts earlier this year when she introduced us to the loveable, One and Only Ivan.  They’ve joined forces once again to bring us creation story like no other, Eve and Adam.

Evening Spiker is recuperating from a freak accident in her mum’s medical facility. She is healing at a remarkable rate, faster than physically possible. As she grows closer to the hot lab assistant Solo, who seems to be hanging around a lot, she realises that things at Spiker Biotech are not quite as they seem. Joining forces, Solo and Eve uncover a secret so huge it could change the world completely. Spiker Biotech is about more than just saving lives. It’s about creating them.

Eve and Adam is an exciting, futuristic thriller, and one hell of a cool book!  Take some ordinary teenagers, throw in a billion-dollar biopharmaceuticals company, genetic engineering, morally corrupt scientists and some sexual tension, and you have Eve and Adam.  Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate sure know how to write and they suck you in from the very first sentence.  This has to be one of the best first sentences ever – ‘I am thinking of an apple when the streetcar hits and my leg severs and my ribs crumble and my arm is no longer an arm but something unrecognizable, wet and red.’

The narration of the story alternates between Eve (Evening or E.V. to her friends), the daughter of Terra Spiker (head of Spiker Biopharmaceuticals) and Solo who is Terra’s ward.  After her accident, Terra gives Eve the task of designing the perfect boy, using special software that her company has developed.  After some initial skepticism Eve takes to the task and it takes her mind off her injuries, but it’s not long before she starts to wonder why her leg doesn’t hurt and there are no scars.  Solo is a mysterious character and you wonder what his motives are.  He seems to be sneaking around looking for something in particular, and puts on an act to make himself seem dumber than he actually is.  When he finds what he has been searching for it’s shocking and neither him or Eve are quite prepared for the trouble that follows.  Into this mix comes Adam, Eve’s perfect boy.  I love the way that Eve describes him when she first sees him in person,

“He’s the most beautiful male I’ve ever seen.  Ever.  Anywhere.  George Clooney and Johnny Depp and Justin Timberlake and all of them, all of them, would be cast as Adam’s less attractive best friend.”

The story is so gripping that I read it in one day.  The end left me wondering whether Eve and Adam is the start of a new series or whether it is a stand alone novel.  I felt like there were a few unanswered questions so this may not be the last we see of Eve, Adam, Aislin and Solo.

5 out of 5 stars

Win The Crystal Code by Richard Newsome

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The Crystal Code is the latest book in Richard Newsome’s action-packed Billionaire Series.  I absolutely love this series and if you know anyone who loves books packed with action, adventure and mystery you have to push this series on them.  Once they’ve read the first chapter they’ll be hooked!  You can read my review of The Crystal Code here on the blog.

To celebrate the release of The Crystal Code I’ve got a copy to give away, thanks to the wonderful people at Text Publishing.

Thanks to everyone who entered.  This competition is now closed.

Picture Book Nook: This Moose Belongs to Me by Oliver Jeffers

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Oliver Jeffers is one of those illustrators that can do nothing wrong.  Whichever book he writes and/or illustrates is wonderful, whether it’s his own picture books, or illustrations for other authors’ books, such as John Boyne.  Oliver’s latest picture book, This Moose Belongs to Me, is another beautifully illustrated tale.

“Wilfred owned a moose. He hadn’t always owned a moose. The moose came to him a while ago and he knew, just KNEW, that it was meant to be his. He thought he would call him Marcel.”

Most of the time Marcel is very obedient, abiding by the many rules on How to Be a Good Pet. But one dark day, while deep in the woods, someone else claims the moose as their own …
Is Marcel really Wilfred’s pet after all?

This Moose Belongs to Me is a classic Oliver Jeffers story, with the wit, subtle humour and odd characters that I love in his books.  It’s quite a simple story filled with lots of quirky details, such as Wilfred’s rules of how to be a good pet, the string to help him find his way home, and even Wilfred himself, who wears a bow-tie and listens to records.  It’s the sort of story that children of all ages will love.  What kid wouldn’t want to have a moose for a pet, that would go anywhere you wanted to go and provide shelter from the rain?

Oliver’s illustrations are as remarkable as always, but he has tried a different technique with this book.  Instead of using a plain white or coloured background he has painted onto landscape paintings created by another artist (Alexander Dzigurski).  This has created a really interesting effect.  Even though the background and the characters were painted by different people, many years apart,  they go together perfectly.  You feel like you want to dive into the book and follow Wilfred and Marcel through the beautiful landscapes, especially the cover image. It’s almost difficult to tell the two different artists apart on some pages.  If you’re familiar with Oliver’s other books you might even be able to spot several characters from them in this book too.

This Moose Belongs to Me is great for children young and old.  Younger children will love the story and older children (and adults) will appreciate the remarkable illustrations.

5 out of 5 stars