Parenthetical.net

Musings and snark about YA lit, libraries, and geekdom, from an overly opinionated middle school librarian.

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Entries from June 2008

Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow

June 30th, 2008 · No Comments

Marcus and his too-smart-for-their-own-good punk friends are in the wrong place at a very wrong time — the destruction of the San Francisco Bay Bridge by terrorists. They get picked up by Homeland Security, taken to a secret detention facility, and abused. This experience focuses Marcus’s teen rebellion and, upon his release, he [...]

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Tags: Politics · Reviews

“The two men are very good friends”

June 18th, 2008 · No Comments

Via Green Is the New Red, a British picture book about policemen from 1974 is… made hilariously wrong. (They don’t publish the original for comparison, so we can’t see how wrong it was to start with.*)

*Martini-Corona, this is your cue to scan in I Want to Be a Waitress for the viewing pleasure of [...]

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Tags: Links

“Harold forever!”

June 18th, 2008 · 2 Comments

Voting is over, unfortunately, but you should go watch the finalists of the Gale Cengage Librareo video contest. (If for some reason you can’t get enough amateur music videos about books, all of the entries are available on YouTube.)
My two favorites were “Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse” (whose song is written to the [...]

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Tags: Libraries · Links

“Meet a Black Guy” (and an Iraqi)

June 13th, 2008 · 3 Comments

Via Stuff White People Like, more on the subject of “checking people out”:
‘Black Guy’ booth livens up Corvallis Saturday market

Sherry Littlefield of Corvallis said the booth was unnecessary. She and friend Ron Naasko said they have black friends, and would be voting for Barack Obama for president.
Also not to be missed:
“Two Wars”, an episode of [...]

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Tags: Links

When in doubt, plop ‘em on a lawn

June 12th, 2008 · 1 Comment

Alison just started an interesting converstation over at Shelftalker about trends in book covers.
I see the photo-of-girl-lying-on-grass thing way more often than I see the silhouette thing (girls’ school, ya know). It does express a message:
Dear potential readers,
This book is about an introspective teenage girl with dreams for her future. She [...]

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Tags: Links

Paging twenty- and thirtysomething bookworms!

June 9th, 2008 · 7 Comments

(Hyuck. Get it? Paging?) Anyway, children of the 70s and 80s, please to check out the weekly Fine Lines feature over at Jezebel: “a sentimental, sometimes-critical, far more wizened look at the children’s and YA books we loved in our youth.” It’s kind of like TWOP for YA lit.
In addition to [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized

The Looking Glass Wars, Frank Beddor

June 6th, 2008 · No Comments

At the age of seven, Princess Alyss Heart of Wonderland watches her mother murdered in a bloody coup by her exiled Aunt Redd. Alyss escapes to Victorian London, where she is adopted by a middle-class family (friends of a certain Rev. Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, of course…) and tries to live a normal life. [...]

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Tags: Reviews

An off-topic squee(bama)

June 5th, 2008 · No Comments

I try not to talk about politics much in this blog, unless it has to do with a book I’ve read, or books in general, or libraries, or geekiness. I try to stay on-topic. (But look at the image there! How on-topic is that?!)
I care about politics, though. A whole lot. [...]

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Tags: Politics