An Abundance of Books: August 2010

The Lost Hero Giveaway

This Contest Is Closed

In celebration of the upcoming release of Rick Riordan's new series The Lost Hero, The Heroes of Olympus book #1, I'm holding a BIG FAT GIVEAWAY!

There will be 2 separate but Percy Jackson related giveaways. This post is for the US residence only giveaway of a pre-order copy of The Lost Hero, book 1 in Riordan's new The Heroes of Olympus series!

This contest runs from August 31st - October 5th. The winner will be announced on October 6th.

A little bit about the new series, The Heroes of Olympus (from Amazon):

After saving Olympus from the evil Titan lord, Kronos, Percy and friends have rebuilt their beloved Camp Half-Blood, where the next generation of demigods must now prepare for a chilling prophecy of their own:

Seven half-bloods shall answer the call,
To storm or fire the world must fall.
An oath to keep with a final breath,
And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death.

Now, in a brand-new series from blockbuster best-selling author Rick Riordan, fans return to the world of Camp Half-Blood. Here, a new group of heroes will inherit a quest. But to survive the journey, they’ll need the help of some familiar demigods.

My students and I are so excited about this new book! In the last two schools I've worked at, high school students were checking out the books even though they were Middle Grades level books.

Entry Form

Please fill out the form to enter. If you choose to make additional blog posts or tweets regarding this contest, an additional entry form can be found here.

Percy Jackson and The Olympians INTERNATIONAL Giveaway

This Contest Is Closed

In celebration of the upcoming release of Rick Riordan's new series The Lost Hero, The Heroes of Olympus book # 1, I'm holding a BIG FAT GIVEAWAY!

There will be 2 separate but Percy Jackson related giveaways. This post is for the INTERNATIONAL giveaway of the complete Percy Jackson series! That's right people, The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, and The Last Olympian could be yours!

This contest runs from August 31st - October 5th. The winner will be announced on October 6th.

A little bit about the world of the Percy Jackson series:

Mount Olympus can be found wherever the center of Western civilization is located - in this case, New York City. The major and minor Greek gods may have become the stuff of stories, but they still roam the world, doing what they've done for centuries: inspiring, causing trouble, and makin' time with the ladies. Or men in some cases. The resulting children of these affairs are called half bloods and would have been heroes in the past. Now they are dyslexic children with ADHD who are hunted by not so mythological monsters. The only safe place for them is Camp Half Blood, where they can be trained for battle, learn skills related to their Greek parent, and maybe make a place for themselves outside of the safety of Camp Half Blood. Unfortunately, the monsters always seem to find them.

Entry Form

Please fill out the form to enter. If you choose to make additional blog posts or tweets regarding this contest, an additional entry form can be found here.

Cover Love - Blameless (The Parasol Protectorate series, #3) by Gail Carriger

** Update** This is the video mentioned by ReadosaurusText that got her to buy the books, love them, and review was then retweeted by Gail Carriger.

Amazon and Barnes & Noble Release date: August 31, 2010

Releas date according to author's website: September 1, 2010

Paperback, Kindle, and ebook (B&N) versions available

Blameless is the third book in the Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger.

If you have not read Soulless and Changeless, the following summary contains spoilers.

Goodreads Summary:

Quitting her husband's house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season.

Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London's vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead.

While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately tries to hold the Woolsey werewolf pack together, Alexia flees England for Italy in search of the mysterious Templars. Only they know enough about the preternatural to explain her increasingly inconvenient condition, but they may be worse than the vampires -- and they're armed with pesto.

I'm just gonna say, that as soon as I finished Changeless, I yelled, "What?! What?!" and ran to the computer to see when the next book in the series was coming out. That was back in March, people, and I've been suffering for SIX MONTHS! I am so happy that Blameless is coming out tomorrow!

Now, on with the Cover Love...

As with the other covers in the series, the Alexia Tarabotti figure is the only bit of color. I love the way the rich red just pops out. Now I'm sure you've seen it on Amazon, but I've included the cover's "making of" YouTube video. I showed this to my husband who is a middle school IT teacher, he thought it was really cool and wants to show it to his students.

Tomorrow cannot get here fast enough!

Gail Carriger's website can be found here. (I like the Lemony Snicket-esk pictures she's put up of herself.)

Read-A-Thon Update

It's inexplicable, but this has been such a super busy week for me. I've finally finished my first book of the Read-A-Thon!

The Maze Runner was awesome, love it, woot!

So, now it's on to Captivate by Carrie Jones.

And can I say, I've really enjoyed the mini-challenges. I haven't participated in all of them (cool cover contest+ my total lack of PhotoShop skills= a strain on my marriage to the PhotoShop teacher).

I think it's possible to still sign up, but even if you can't, go to the different sites and check out whats been goin' on.

List of participating blogs can be found here.

One Lovely Blog Award!

I just recieved the One Lovely Blog Award from Elena's Book Cafe ! It's the first award that I've gotten and I'm floored, and really excited, and it's awesome!

There are a few rules with the giving and passing of the award and here they are ...

1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link. (Thank you again, Elena!)
2. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.
3. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Here are the 15 blogs I am giving it to:

I hope you check them out!

Percy Jackson Month and Big Fat Giveaway!!

Ok, so it's a little more than a month, it's six weeks...

But anywhoo...

Because I'm so excited (insert fangirl squee here) about Rick Riordan's new demigod book, The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, book 1), I'm dedicating the next 6 weeks, August 31st - October 5th, to the first Percy Jackson series!

I think that the Percy Jackson and The Olympians is fantastic series that some people have missed out on because it's a middle grades series. As a librarian, I can honestly say that I have never had a student, teacher, or parent tell me that they did not like these books. I also know that many people saw the "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief" movie before reading the books and it gave them the wrong impression. Most of my students agreed that the movie was fun but the book was much better. (In fact, most of the kids seemed a little confused that a book could be better than the movie.)

Anyway, because I'm wanting to spread the Percy Jackson love, I'm also holding TWO giveaways: the Percy Jackson and the Olympians complete set and a pre-order copy of the newest book The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, book 1). There will be an introductory post to each contest on August 31st. The Percy Jackson and the Olympians giveaway is INTERNATIONAL. The Lost Hero giveaway is only open to US residents (sorry guys). The contest ends October 5th and the winner for each giveaway will be announced on October 6th.

A little bit about the world of the Percy Jackson series:

Follow Friday

Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Parajunkee's View. It's a nice way for new people to find your blog. I especially like that Parajunkee has a new featured blog every week.

This week's featured blog is Book Ge3k!

Hello, All!

This is my first Friday Follow to participate in and I thank you for stopping by. My blog is still pretty new, it's only been up for 5 months. I'm currently an elementary school librarian at an American curriculum school in Dubai. I'd been thinking about creating a book review blog for about a year, and had no idea that there was a whole book blogger community out there. I'm really enjoying myself.

Question: What is the first book you remember reading?

Argh, this is kind of funny since I'm now a librarian...

I really struggled with learning how to read and hated reading in general. I remember the Dick and Jane books in kindergarten. In first grade my teacher was trying to help me (keeping me in during recess) and we were going through this old book, I think it was called "Bobby Bear Goes To The Moon", or something like that, but I remember the cover very clearly. I got so frustrated that I threw the book across the room. My mom bought a bunch of Hillert books and I hated them. This books are in every school library and to this day I cringe when I have to shelve them. But I remember really liking the pictures in "Come Play With Me" and "What Is It?"

I'd also like to tell you about the TWO giveaways I have coming up. I've got my kids at school all worked up about Rick Riordan's new book, The Lost Hero (set in the Percy Jackson universe), and I've decided to spread the excitement around. From August 31st - October 5th I'll be posting reviews and information on the five Percy Jackson and The Olympians books and holding to separate giveaways.

Giveaway #1 - the complete Percy Jackson and the Olympians series

(INTERNATIONAL)

Giveaway #2 - a pre-order copy of The Lost Hero, book #1 in the new

Heroes of Olympus series.

(Open to US residents only)

There will be two separate entry forms for each contest that will be posted on August 31st!

Thank you and I hope to see you then!!

Please make sure to stop by this week's featured blog:

Rules for Follow Friday:

To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Host, Parajunkee's View, and any one else you want to follow on the list
Follow the week's Featured Blogger, Book Ge3K
Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing.
Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments
Follow Follow Follow as many as you can
If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love...and the followers

Book Blogger Hop

The Book Blogger Hop is a weekly event hosted by Jennifer at Crazy for Books. The Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word! This weekly event is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read!

The Hop lasts Friday-Monday every week, so if you don't have time to Hop today, come back later and join the fun! This is a weekly event!

Check out the Book Blog Hop visited blog list on the right (and down a little). I update it each week as I visit new blogs through the Hop.

This week's question:

Do you use a rating system for your reviews and if so, what is it and why?

Oddly enough, I just started using a rating system. I was a bit torn as I sometimes find it hard to quantify a read to a specific point. The idea of a rating system rattled around in my head for about 2 months before I read this Book Blogger 101 post from Parajunkee. I felt that she and Emily from What Book Is That? had some very good points. So I created a rating system and have integrating it into my reviews. I really wanted to do a cute rater but that was waaay beyond my very limited PhotoShop skills. :)

A Little Something Extra:

Giveaway #1 - the complete Percy Jackson and the Olympians series

(INTERNATIONAL)

Giveaway #2 - a pre-order copy of The Lost Hero, book #1 in the new

Heroes of Olympus series.

(Open to US residents only)

There will be two separate entry forms for each contest that will be posted on August 31st!

Thank you and I hope to see you then!!

Read-A-Thon Challenge #1 from YA Addict

Jami from YA Addict's first challenge was simple- put up a picture of you reading your first book. Ok, Maze Runner by James Dashner on the Kindle. So I'm off to find the camer. I come back to the room to find that my 16 mo can now climb up our bed. And he had found the Kindle. He would hand it to me and as I reached for it, he would snatch it back.

So this is what I got:

I eventually got the Kindle back from him, though it was covered in Cheereo dust. I've happily continued on with my book.

I just thought this was interesting

I've not read any of Lilith Saintcrow's books, but I saw this on YouTube and thought it was interesting.

Dusk Till Dawn Read-a-thon

Like I need one more challenge... but this one sounded so cool. Jenn from Book Crazy and Jami from YA Addict came up with the idea, I found it through at Jenny at Supernatural Snark. Different blogs will be hosting different challenges on different days. The sign up list as well as the calendar can be found here.

I'm going to try to read:

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Blood, Smoke, and Mirrors by Robyn Bachar

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith (I have the deluxe edition - extra mayhem!)

Captivate by Carrie Jones

I most likely won't finish the list. School is normally busy, but since it's Ramadan, we have to fit everything into a shortened schedule.

This looks like a lot of fun, you should try it.

Tots to Teens & in beTween - The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall by Mary Downing Hahn

Title: The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall

Author: Mary Downing Hahn

Publisher: Clarion Books

Publication Date: September 6, 2010 (Hardcover, 160 pages)

Format: e-galley from NetGalley

Genre: Ghost Story, Juvenile Suspense

Goodreads Summary:

When twelve-year-old Florence boards the crowded horse-drawn coach in London, she looks forward to a new life with her great uncle and aunt at Crutchfield Hall, an old manor house in the English countryside. Anything will be better, she thinks, than the grim London orphanage where she has lived since her parents' death.

But Florence doesn't expect the ghost of her cousin Sophia, who haunts the cavernous rooms and dimly lit hallways of Crutchfield and concocts a plan to use Florence to help her achieve her murderous goals. Will Florence be able to convince the others in the household of the imminent danger and stop Sophia before it's too late?

Review:

This book is targeted to 9-12 year olds, and I think that's a good audience for the story.

Set in 19th century England, readers are introduced to Florence right away as she travels to Crutchfield Hall to live with a great aunt and uncle she never knew about. Florence had been living in a London orphanage since she was 5 years old, and was excited about having a family. She was sad to hear that of her two cousins, Sophia had died in an accident and her younger brother James was too sickly to play. Despite this disappointment, she was very happy to be getting away from the orphanage. The description of the coach ride and the her walk to the house was wonderful and gave a sense of how new and overwhelming the wide open spaces were for the London-bred Florence. Once at Crutchfield Hall, the book seems very similar to The Secret Garden: the uncle who is always away, the sickly cousin who doesn't want to be seen, and a gardener and young maid whom Florence befriends. Her great aunt is an angry old woman who is just terrible to Florence. She had loved the sour Sophia and sees Florence as trying to replace her. The book is pretty much filled with stock characters, but they were well written. Once Florence figures out that Sophia's ghost is haunting Crutchfield Hall, the book takes on a break-neak pace. As an older reader, I felt the story moved ridiculously fast, but I know that my third graders would appreciate the pace of the story.

I felt that the ending of the story was a bit...flat. And tidy. Sophia was such a mean and awful ghost, but when her original plan to come back to life failed, she just gave up. That didn't really seem like Sophia's style. And as I said above, the ending was very tidy. But again, when I think of my third grade students, I don't think they would mind a book that moved quickly and was nicely wrapped up at the end. The cover is also fantastic and will grab a lot of attention.

I did like the vocabulary and description in this book, and think it would be a good book to read out loud (to a class or to your own children). I think this is the type of ghost story that will suck in young readers. There were some references to older authors and books that some kids might not be familiar with, but I hope would spark their interests.

Verdict:

I have read better books for this age level, certainly, but this one wasn't bad. I think the quality of description, the vocabulary used, and the literary references are great for young readers. I didn't like the super fast pace or the super tidy ending, but I think the book's young target audience of 9-12 year olds will. I will be buying this book for the elementary library, and will definitely recommend it to teachers as a good read aloud book. I will admit that this is the first of Downing Hahn's books that I have read, even though I've got a few of her books in the library. I'm going to check those out as soon as I get back.

Other Reviews for The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall:

The Fourth Muskateer review

The Lost Entwife review

Insert Book Title Here review

Killin' Time Reading review

The author's website can be found here.