Parenthetical.net

My love of post-apocalyptic science fiction is no secret, so I was all kinds of excited to check out In the Small: a mysterious blue light covers Earth, reducing human beings to the size of… well, iPods, to judge by one of the panels. Collapse of civilization! Humanity stretched to the limit! [...]

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I read the original Coraline, but — and I say this as a total Neil fangirl — I found it overrated. Meh, the other mother has black buttons for eyes and some rats. WTF-ever! (My boyfriend thinks I don’t watch enough horror movies to be properly scared by anything. He’s probably [...]

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My first Cybils review! Woot! There were things I loved about it, but I have some concerns.
First of all, let me say that I loved the art. I tend to be a realism kind of gal. But these black-and-white drawings have so much energy and motion, I couldn’t help but get [...]

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In 1944, Los Alamos doesn’t officially exist. It’s a top-secret military research base in the middle of the desert, whose sole purpose is to develop the weapon known as “the gadget.” This is the story of two girls — wannabe social climber Suze and cheerfully geeky loner Dewey — who live in Los [...]

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* If by “exclusive,” you mean “me, a couple of other librarians, some bookstore folks, a publicist, and 500 students.” And if by “interview,” you mean “hanging out while madly selling books at lunch, and then listening to him speak to a few English classes.”
Summary first: John is awesome. He is intelligent, [...]

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The lovely and talented Kate Diamond tagged me on the “page 56″ meme a while ago, and I have slacked. Anyway:
Here are the rules: Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the next two to five sentences in your journal/blog along with these [...]

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I’m not generally in the habit of posting pictures of myself in this blog (or anywhere else on the internet), but I figure if I’m going to use my real name, I can use my real face. And I’m unreasonably proud of this:

(My colleague is making a display of librarian favorites, and [...]

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I read a classic! On purpose! Without coercion! Twelve-year-old me wants a medal.
My Antonia is the story of a sort of pioneer Magical Mystery Girl, as told through the eyes of Jim, a boy who travels from Virginia to frontier Nebraska to live with his grandparents after his parents die. A [...]

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Ok, what you all need to know up front is that John Green is coming to my school on Friday! Squee!! …Um, I mean: I will conduct myself with appropriate teacherly maturity, and will not be a ridiculous fangirl at all. (Hey, what can I say? YA authors are like movie [...]

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Remember how I said yesterday that you should nominate books for the Cybil awards? Well, now that goes double, ’cause now I’m a panelist!
I’m a member of the Graphic Novel Panel! Squee! Could not be more excited, seriously.
And now y’all need to go nominate graphic novels, especially, so that I [...]

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