I’ve read so many amazing young adult novels this year! Out of all the books I read throughout the year, young adult novels dominated, and it was so difficult to choose just 10 favourites for this list. Here is my Top 10 Young Adult Fiction of 2012. You can read my reviews of each book here on the blog.
Next week I’ll be posting my Top 10 of 2012 lists, and I want to give one of my lucky readers the chance to win a prize pack of some of my favourite books of 2012. The prize includes a copy of:
Mister Whistler by Margaret Mahy and Gavin BishopAll you have to do to get in the draw is enter your name, email, and address in the form below and tell me your favourite review, interview or competition on My Best Friends Are Books this year. The competition closes Wednesday 5 December, so that your prize will arrive before Christmas (NZ only sorry).
Thanks to everyone who entered and gave me some great feedback. The winner is Vicki.
Horror writer and all round good-guy David Gatward released the first issue of his new venture at Halloween, a horror magazine called TheKillRoom. It’s a fantastic magazine, full of short horror stories written by well-known horror writers (such as Scream Street author Tommy Donbavand and author of the Furnace series, Alexander Gordon Smith), and stories from up-and-coming horror authors. Here’s why David decided to start up TheKillRoom,
‘So, the reason behind TheKillRoom… The whole idea came about because during most school visits I do I meet with students who’d love to get published but see it as either impossible, or something you only do when you’re an adult. There was no avenue for this. No real way for them to experience getting in print, or perhaps just going through the process of submitting not just to any magazine, but to one they’d like to read. I began wondering about it being a horror fiction mag. Then I had the idea of producing something that allows kids to get published alongside top-selling horror authors.’
It’s a great read for teen or adult horror fans and I’m looking forward to the next issue. You can download it for free from David’s website (www.davidgatward.com/david-gatward-merchandise/things-to-buy) and I have 4 bound copies to give away. To get in the draw just enter your name and email address in the form below (NZ and Australia only).
First there was Genesis, then Equinox, and now there is the dramatic conclusion to The Rosie Black Chronicles, Dark Star. Lara Morgan grabbed me right from the start of Genesis and I’ve been dying to find out how Rosie’s story will end. Will she be able to bring down Helios and save her world?
To protect Pip and fulfil her deal with Sulawayo, Rosie Black has joined Helios. But trouble is brewing within the ranks of the powerful organisation a rebellion is rising. Who is part of the rebellion? Who is trying to take full control of Helios? How does the mysterious Dark Star fit into these plans? The stakes are high for Rosie. The survival of Pip and the world as she knows it depends on her. Can Rosie find the truth and save those she loves before it is too late?
Dark Star is an action-packed, tense, sci-fi thriller and the perfect end to this fantastic trilogy. Our favourite characters return to help Rosie bring down Helios, and Lara also introduces us to some new characters who have their part to play. There are plenty of twists and turns in the story as, like Rosie, you’re never sure who to trust (is that person part of the rebellion or is it all an act?). From the moment you enter the Enclave with Rosie you’re on edge, and as Rosie discovers more information about Helios and her situation gets more desperate you start to turn the pages faster.
One of the things I like the most about the series is that the romance between the characters doesn’t get in the way of the story. There has always been a thing between Pip and Rosie, and in Equinox (the last book) a relationship developed between Dalton and Rosie, but their relationships don’t take over the story (like many YA series). In the world that they live in there isn’t really time to stop and stare longingly into each others’ eyes, but their relationships still affect their decisions. The bonds between them mean that they are willing to sacrifice their own safety (and their life) to help each other escape. You just hope that they will all make it through and be able to have their romantic moments after they’ve saved the world.
I also love the technology that Lara has created in her future world. There are medical patches that heal wounds, AI taxi cabs, pulse guns, a portal to transport people onto other planets, and many other fantastic inventions. A lot of her technology is more advanced versions of what we have today so it’s not hard to imagine a world like Rosie’s.
Lara ended the story perfectly, tying up the loose ends, but also leaving it open so that you can wonder about what might happen next. If you haven’t read The Rosie Black Chronicles get them from your library or bookshop now.
4 out of 5 stars
Thanks to Walker Books Australia I have a set of The Rosie Black Chronicles, signed by Lara Morgan, to give away. You can enter here.
The Rosie Black Chronicles is an action-packed, fast-paced series set in the not-too-distant future. There are corrupt organisations, secret plans, a killer virus, rebellions, space travel, a colony on Mars, a touch of romance, and a butt-kicking main character, Rosie Black. Dark Star, the dramatic conclusion to The Rosie Black Chronicles has just been released in Australia and NZ (you can read my review here).
To celebrate the release of Dark Star Walker Books have given me a signed set of The Rosie Black Chronicles to give away. All you have to do to get in the draw is leave a comment telling me Who is your favourite butt-kicking book character? Competition closes Wednesday 28 November (Australia and NZ only).
Thanks to everyone who entered. The winner is Christine.
The Rosie Black Chronicles is a fantastic young adult science fiction series, written by Australian author Lara Morgan. The series is published by Walker Books Australia, who also publish some other exciting science fiction/futuristic books for children and teens, including Brian Falkner’s The Tomorrow Code and Brainjack, and Ambelin Kwaymullina’s The Tribe series.
The Rosie Black Chronicles is an action-packed, fast-paced series set in the not-too-distant future. There are corrupt organisations, secret plans, a killer virus, rebellions, space travel, a colony on Mars, a touch of romance, and a butt-kicking main character, Rosie Black. If you like futuristic stories like The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Across the Universe, and Legend then The Rosie Black Chronicles is the perfect series for you.
Last week I received a top-secret package from Helios, the secret organisation from The Rosie Black Chronicles with a flash drive containing information about Rosie Black. I was told to spread the information, so below you will find links to chapter samplers from each of the three books in the series, character profiles, book trailers and an interview with Lara Morgan. Feel free to print these off and share with readers far and wide. Next week I’ll have a special giveaway of a complete set of The Rosie Black Chronicles signed by Lara Morgan, so watch out for this.
Rosie Black Book 1: Genesis Chapter Sampler
Rosie Black Book 2: Equinox Chapter Sampler
Rosie Black Book 3: Dark Star Chapter Sampler
Rosie Black Character Profiles
For more about Lara Morgan and The Rosie Black Chronicles visit www.rosieblack.com
Today on My Best Friends Are Books I have Beck McDowell, author of the fantastic new book, This is Not a Drill, joining me on her blog tour to celebrate the release of her book. The story revolves around a hostage situation in a school in America, with a father who has recently returned from the war in Afghanistan. It’s a very powerful story and you can read my review here on the blog. I got the chance to ask Beck a few questions about the story and her characters.
At first I wanted the alternating viewpoints because part of the conflict was the recent break-up of the two main characters, and I wanted readers to hear both sides of that story. Also, I knew that they’d each bring a different perspective to the problem and a different take on possible solutions.
Mrs. Campbell is based on MANY teachers I’ve known. It’s rather amazing – given the lack of resources, the huge overload of work, and the gigantic (and growing) class sizes teachers face that they’re able to stay calm and tune in to students’ needs in every situation that arises. But I’ve seen hundreds of them in my career step up in difficult circumstance and put kids first day after day.
Wow! What a good question – and a hard one! I can’t narrow it down to one lesson, but I can give you a few: not to underestimate anyone, that there’s hardly ever one right answer, that secrets can cause big problems when they’re locked inside, that brave teens are quietly dealing with huge life issues most people don’t know about, that many students just need someone to talk things over with, that things will get better if you just hang on through the tough times, and that the best way of healing yourself is reaching out to others. A lot of these lessons are incorporated into THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Honestly, I get really emotional when I think about how much my students meant to me through the years. They enriched my life beyond my ability to describe.
Absolutely. Through the years I talked with many students who were home from military duty. And then several were kind enough to give me more detail about military life and to answer my questions while writing the book.
SO difficult! He’s in the middle of this truly horrific act – holding a first grade classroom hostage – and yet he’s suffering real psychological wounds from a war he fought for his country. And if you get right down to it, he’s as scared as the kids are – scared of losing his wife, his child, his career, his reputation – he’s losing everything. So I think it’s okay for the reader to condemn his actions but have sympathy for him as a person.
Yes, especially – of course – the ending. But sometimes a story is too important to walk away from because you know it will be hard to write. It’s one reason for the funny bits with the first graders – comic relief. I think readers will agree with me that life is a big old mixed up jumble of emotions. Even on the saddest days there can be funny moments, and happy events can be tinged with undercurrents of sadness – maybe for the people we’ve lost who aren’t with us to enjoy them.
First, I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through there. The news stories and pictures were so sad, and the ones with kids always tug at my heart the most. I did a lot of research on stress and grief and on first graders in general, but most of that knowledge comes from personal experience with kids. Since we live in an area prone to tornadoes, I’ve taught students who’ve lost homes, parents, siblings, and everything they own. Many have come to school still in shock the next day after entire neighborhoods were wiped out – as was the case in 1989. The kids in my story were younger than the ones I’ve taught, but I think the fall-out from traumatic events affect us in similar ways, no matter how old we are.
You really walk a fine line as a writer between giving relationship backstory and keeping the plot moving forward. There will be readers who feel the backstory of Jake and Emery interrupts the flow of the action, but – to me – the details about their past were necessary to give depth to them and their relationship – and also to give the reader a break from the tension of the story. As you said, it’s very emotional throughout, and I felt those passages gave the reader a chance to slow down and regroup just a little bit. I’ve always been fascinated by the dynamics of relationships of all kinds, so they’ll always be a big part of anything I write. In the end life is all about human connections. The relationships we have with others ultimately trump any worldly accomplishments or professional success we achieve. As I’m sure you’ll agree in the aftermath of the earthquakes there, family and friends are what life’s all about.
Beck McDowell’s new book, This is Not a Drill is out now in Australia and New Zealand from Hardie Grant Egmont. You can enter to win a copy here on the blog. You can check out the other stops on Beck’s blog tour here:
Thursday, Oct. 25 CYNTHIA LEITICH SMITH http://www.cynthialeitichsmith.com/
Friday, Oct. 26 A LIFE BOUND BY BOOKS http://alifeboundbybooks.blogspot.com/
Monday, Oct. 29 THE STORY SIREN http://www.thestorysiren.com/
Tuesday, Oct. 30 YA BLISS http://www.yabliss.com/
Wednesday, Oct. 31 BUZZ WORDS BOOKS http://www.buzzwordsmagazine.blogspot.com.au/
Thursday, Nov. 1 YA LOVE BLOG http://yaloveblog.com/
Friday, Nov. 2 ICEY BOOKS http://www.iceybooks.com/
Monday, Nov. 5 NERDY BOOK CLUB http://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/
Tuesday, Nov. 6 THE NAUGHTY BOOK KITTIES http://naughtybookkitties.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, Nov. 7 THE COMPULSIVE READER http://www.thecompulsivereader.com/
Thursday, Nov. 8 TEACH MENTOR TEXTS http://www.teachmentortexts.com/
Friday, Nov. 9 CONFESSIONS OF A BOOKAHOLIC http://www.totalbookaholic.com/
Monday, Nov. 12 KATIE’S BOOK BLOG http://www.katiesbookblog.com/
Tuesday, Nov. 13 ALLURING READS http://www.alluringreads.com/
Wednesday, Nov. 14 PAGE TURNERS BLOG http://www.pageturnersblog.com/
Annabel Pitcher is one of my favourite authors. Her first two books, My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece and Ketchup Clouds are absolutely brilliant and I can’t wait to read what she writes next. Annabel very kindly answered some of my burning questions about Ketchup Clouds and her writing style.
The plot took a long time to figure out. The only thing I knew from the very beginning was that I wanted to write about a girl, Zoe, who kills someone and completely gets away with it. I imagined a dramatic scene occurring at sunset, which is where I got the title, Ketchup Clouds (i.e. red clouds). Apart from that, I had no idea what the story would involve. Slowly, over a few months of planning, thinking and generally just daydreaming and calling it work, I decided to make it a love story. However, I desperately didn’t want it to be one of those cheesy high school tales, so I tried to think of an unusual way to tell Zoe’s story, a quirky way to explore the well-worn theme of first love. I experimented with all sorts but eventually came to realise that the best way to tell Zoe’s tale was through a series of anonymous letters. Zoe has this terrible secret that she can’t reveal to anyone she knows, so it makes sense for her to try and confess to a stranger. That’s when the whole book really took off and became something exciting! I could just imagine this distraught, teenage girl, wracked with guilt, tiptoeing out in the middle of the night after a bad dream to hide away in the garden shed and write a secret letter. The question was, to whom? I thought of celebrities, The Pope, even Santa Claus (!) but nothing felt quite right. Then one night when I was driving home from my parents’ house, I suddenly remembered that I’d written to an inmate on Death Row in America when I was a teenager. I’d got involved in a ‘pen pal’ scheme through Amnesty International, and the strange thing about writing to someone you’ve never met, someone who has done something wrong, is that you become far more open about your own life and flaws than you would to a friend. Because you’ll never meet them, you can tell them anything. That’s when I knew that Zoe had to write to a criminal on Death Row. So, in answer to your question, there was no real direct inspiration for the novel. I worked hard to come up with an unusual story, but once I had the pieces in place, it was relatively easy to write.
The honest answer is, I do a huge amount of talking out loud! The neighbours probably think I’m crazy! Getting dialogue right is so important if you are to construct a realistic relationship, so I write a bit then act it out to see if it sounds authentic. If anything jars, I delete it straight away. I listen very closely to the way that people talk. Conversations are full of false starts, pauses, repetition, hesitation and so forth, so I try hard to capture that in my dialogue. I think it also helps that I am fascinated by people. I study humans – the way we interact, our psychology, why we do the things we do and how we screw up – and I use all of my research in my books to try and construct three dimensional characters who are neither good nor bad, but somewhere in between. Then it’s just a matter of putting a few characters together and trying to guess what they would say to each other!Many of the books I’ve been reading lately have focused on characters and their relationships with those around them. I love books like this, especially when they’re narrated by the main character, because you really get inside their head and find out what they’re thinking and feeling. In Beck McDowell’s new book This is Not a Drill you get inside the heads of two teenagers who find themselves caught up in a hostage situation in an elementary school in America.
The door swings open and a man walks in like he owns the place. He raises his fist. Gripping a handgun. Aimed directly at the teacher.
Emery finds it awkward as hell tutoring a bunch of grade-one kids with her ex-boyfriend. It’s not easy for Jake either – he knows Emery thinks he’s useless, especially after what he did to her. But when a boy’s father turns up at school with a gun, a bad situation for Emery and Jake suddenly turns deadly. The boy’s father – a soldier home from Iraq – says he just wants to spend time with his kid. But resistance from the teacher has deadly consequences. The man isn’t afraid of opening fire, even in front of the children. And one way or another, he’s not leaving without his son.
This is Not a Drill is a tense, gripping story, set over the course of a few hours. Beck McDowell hooks you from the first page and doesn’t let you go until the very last word, breathless and with your heart pounding. Like the characters, you feel on edge and you turn the pages quickly, but quietly, for fear that the man with the gun might hear you and all hell will break loose. Beck packs so much into the 215 pages of this gripping story, from the affects of war on returning soldiers and their families, to the different ways that children react in traumatic situations.
Although the story is based around the event that is taking place, it’s really a story about relationships. The relationships between the Mr Stutts (the man with the gun) and his family are central to the story, and the relationships between the other characters in the story affect the direction that the story could take. The teacher, Mrs. Campbell has a great relationship with her students. She stays calm for her them and helps keep them calm by distracting them. The relationship of the two narrators is quite tense because something has happened between them, but they quickly have to put this behind them so that they can help protect the children.
The story is incredibly tense, but the children help to relieve that tension. Even though they are being help captive by a man with a gun they still worry about the little things, like eating and going to the bathroom. There is a particularly touching moment when the children decide to sing Edelweiss.
4 out of 5 stars
This is Not a Drill by Beck McDowell is out in Australia and NZ now so grab a copy from your library or bookshop. Beck McDowell is joining me on Thursday for a Q & A about This is Not a Drill and how her experiences as a teacher have helped with her writing.
Thanks to the wonderful people at Hardie Grant Egmont I have a copy of This is Not a Drill to give away. All you have to do to get in the draw is enter your name and email address in the form below. Competition closes Monday 19 November (Australia and NZ only).
If you have read Annabel Pitcher’s debut novel My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece you’ll know what an amazing writer she is. My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece was one of my favourite books of 2011 and I’ve been dying to read Ketchup Clouds ever since Annabel first started talking about it. Ketchup Clouds, is every bit as extraordinary as her first book and it will stay with you long after you reach the end.
Fifteen-year-old Zoe has a secret – a dark and terrible secret that she can’t confess to anyone she knows. But then one day she hears of a criminal, Stuart Harris, locked up on death row in Texas. Like Zoe, Stuart is no stranger to secrets. Or lies. Or murder. Full of heartache yet humour, Zoe tells her story in the only way she can – in letters to the man in prison in America. Armed with a pen, Zoe takes a deep breath, eats a jam sandwich and begins her tale of love and betrayal.
Ketchup Clouds is an utterly beautiful, heart-breaking story, told in an original and very clever way. The whole book is a confession of what Zoe has done, to someone who she knows will understand, but won’t be able to do anything. I don’t want to say too much about the story for fear that I’ll let some important detail slip. Annabel gives you enough detail that you know vaguely what has happened, but you just have to keep reading to find out exactly what happened and to who. She leaves you hanging on every word and dreading what is inevitably going to happen.
There are several things that I really like about Annabel’s writing. I really like the way that she ties up the story at the end, bringing everything together and showing you how the characters have turned out. Like her first book, My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece, you feel completely satisfied at the end and you’re left amazed at how her characters have developed over the course of the story. I also like the way that Annabel portrays the parents in the story. The parents have their own problems that they are dealing with in their own way, and they’re not always the best parents, but deep down they love and care for their children. They are important parts of the story and Annabel portrays them as real people, not just characters in a book.
The main reason I loved Ketchup Clouds was the relationships between the characters. The relationship between Zoe and Stuart was really interesting, because even though we never hear from Stuart, Zoe’s tone changes the more she writes to him. At the beginning she calls him Mr Harris, and by the end she’s calling him Stu. She seems to get more comfortable with Stuart as time goes by and becomes less formal with him. Zoe and her sister Sophie have quite a close relationship and they talk quite openly with each other, especially when it comes to talking about their parents. Zoe’s relationships with Max and Aaron are quite different and Annabel does an excellent job of portraying Zoe’s conflicting emotions and the tough decisions she has to make in their relationships.
Annabel Pitcher is one of those authors whose books I’ll read no matter what they’re about, and I certainly can’t wait to see what she will write next! I’m sure I’m not the only person who wonders if we’ll ever get to read Bizzle the Bazzlebog. Grab a copy of Ketchup Clouds from your library or bookshop now.
5 out of 5 stars
My Best Friends Are Books 