GreenBeanTeenQueen

Rating: 4/5 Stars Genre: Contemporary/Romance Release Date: 9/29/2011 Add to Goodreads About the Book: Lola loves dressing in unique costumes. The more elaborate, the better. She has an awesome wardrobe, a rocker boyfriend, and awesome dads who are loving. Her life is pretty perfect-until Cricket Bell moves in next door. Cricket Bell, who broke Lola's heart a few years before. Lola is over Cricket, isn't she? But with Cricket so close, Lola has to decide where her heart truly lies and what she really feels for the boy next door. GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: OK, here's the thing, I loved Anna and the French Kiss . Adored Anna. So when I heard about Lola, a companion novel to Anna, I was nervous. How would it live up to the first book? How could I not compare the two? And would Cricket be as crushworthy as St. Clair? The answers were yes and no. In some ways I really enjoyed Lola and in others it didn't quite live up to my expectations. It's still a great novel...

photo_credit Jenni Howell Photography Please welcome Tess Hilmo, author of With a Name Like Love, to GreenBeanTeenQueen. Today is the official launch day of Tess Hilmo's debut! To celebrate, I asked Ms. Hilmo to write about libraries because, you know, I'm a librarian and all and I always love hearing about everyone's library experience. I hope you like it too! Built in Friends Growing up, I lived in ten different places by the time I was 14. Ten! It was a challenge to make new friends with each move. But there was one friend I never had to worry about. My librarian. See these chairs? They are bright and welcoming and a perfect place for an uncertain girl who needed somewhere to hang out. This was my favorite refuge during my high school years–the Newbury Park California library branch–but there were many inviting chairs and many kind librarians that helped me long before I found this particular spot. Wherever we happened to be, I knew I could go into my local ...

Tween Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted at GreenBeanTeenQueen to highlight great reads for tweens. Join the fun and add your link below. For today's Tween Tuesday, I'm excited to sharing debut author Tess Hilmo's novel, With a Name Like Love. Today is the official launch day of the book, so I hope you find this one at a library or bookstore near you in the wild today! You can follow the blog tour to Mother Daughter Book Club . And check out Tess Hilmo's website for a discussion guide , because you'll be wanting to use this one in book club-just saying!:) Rating: 5/5 Stars Genre: Mystery/Historical Release Date: 9/27/2011 Add to Goodreads About the Book: Olivene " Ollie" Love is the eldest daughter of the traveling minister, Reverand Everlasting Love. While Ollie appreciates her father's ministry, Ollie longs for a house with indoor plumbing and to stay in a town longer than three days. When the Love's come across Binder, Arkansas, Ollie me...

Banned Books Week is here! I hope you will celebrate the freedom to read this week by reading a banned book. ALA is hosting a virtual Read Out  so I decided to join in the fun and celebrate by reading one of my favorites, A Wrinkle In Time . I also wanted to re-post my review of Sarah Ockler's novel, Twenty Boy Summer , since it was recently banned in my community and Sarah will be visiting my library this week. Rating: 4/5 Stars Genre: Contemporary Release Date: 6/1/09 About the Book: Frankie, Anna and Matt have always been inseparable.  Then one summer changed everything-Matt and Anna become something more.  They spend a month sneaking out and sharing a summer romance-until the tragic accident that Matt dies in. Now, a year later, Anna is joining Frankie and family on their first summer vacation without Matt.  Frankie is convinced if they find a boy every day, Anna will have a summer romance.  Anna still keeps her and Matt a secret and she's ...

I'm a big fan of The Drake Chronicles series by Alyxandra Harvey, so of course I was excited to hear about Bloomsbury's new bind up of the first three books in the series. Hearts At Stake , Blood Feud , and Out for Blood have all been repackaged into one new volume titled Ruling Passion. Check out the gorgeous new cover! All the Drake brothers are very crush-worthy (my favorite is Nicholas-love him!) This series is such fun and the characters are all awesome and kick butt with just a bit of snark, which I always enjoy. So I'm thrilled to share the love. One lucky winner will recieve a copy of Ruling Passion thanks to Bloomsbury Teen. -US Shipping Address Only -One Entry Per Person -Contest Ends Sept. 27 at midnight CT Leave a comment below to enter-good luck!

Tween Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted here at GreenBeanTeenQueen to highlight great reads for tweens. Join the fun and post your link below. Rating: 4.5/5 Stars Genre: Fantasy/Science Fiction/Graphic Novel Release Date: 09/01/2011 Add to Goodreads About the Book: (from publicist): Kazu Kibuishi's thrilling, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling series continues! Emily and her friends think they’ll find the help they need in Cielis, but something isn’t right.  Streets that were once busy are deserted, and the townspeople who are left live in fear.  Emily is soon escorted to the Academy, where she’s expected to compete for a spot on the Guardian Coucil, a group of the most powerful Stonekeepers.  But as the number of competitors gets smaller and smaller, an awful secret is slowly uncovered – a secret that, if left buried, means the certain destruction of everything Emily fights for. GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: I first came across the Amulet series when I first started workin...

Next month, I will be presenting a session at my state library conference on Keeping Up With YA. The goal for the session is to present titles that are "must know" books and books that be paired with those titles to help keep up YA collections. My session is only 45min. long which is not a lot of time to talk books, so my goal is to provide attendees with handouts that will have even more titles in the categories I'll be talking about. I'd love some help putting together a list of "must know" YA reads-I'd like books from the last three-five years that librarians should know and have in their collection. The genres I'd like to cover are: Contemporary Romance Contemporary Fiction Mystery Science Fiction Dystopian Paranormal Issue-driven YA Humor Fantasy Historical Audiobooks What books would you say are "must know" YA titles that librarians should read and know about? And what books would you say are "must reads" for teens?