No new titles on the top 10 this week, but Veronica Roth's debut dystopian Divergent (and our Book of the Month) is in its third week on the list, along with Rick Riordan's The Throne of Fire. This Week Children's Chapter Books Weeks on List 1 THE THRONE OF FIRE, by Rick Riordan. (Disney-Hyperion,... Continue Reading →
It's been a week for graphic treatment! First, Warner Brothers released a new poster for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II: Then, the cover for Goddess Interrupted by Aimee Carter (the sequel to The Goddess Test) was spotted at BEA: Carter then tweeted the tagline for Goddess Interrupted: "What if immortality isn't forever?" And... Continue Reading →
Most books have multiple influences, whether the author is conscious of them or not. In Divergent, a number of them jumped out at us here at Novel Novice. Here are the main ones: "The Matrix": In Divergent, each faction member must take an aptitude test. Here's how Beatrice describes the apparatus: In the center of... Continue Reading →
Dystopian books give us so much to work with, it's almost too easy to use them in the classroom! Below are some essay prompts to get you thinking, and project ideas to keep you busy! Essay prompts: In our post on the dystopian genre, we mentioned that many books contain elements of both dystopia and... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: In 1897 England, sixteen-year-old Finley Jayne has no one…except the "thing" inside her. When a young lord tries to take advantage of Finley, she fights back. And wins. But no normal Victorian girl has a darker side that makes her capable of knocking out a full-grown man with one punch…. Only Griffin King sees... Continue Reading →
With the success of The Hunger Games series, it's no surprise that fans are hungry for more dystopian books, like Veronica Roth's Divergent. What are the hallmarks of dystopian, and why is it so poular right now? "Dystopia" is defined as a society characterized by poverty, squalor, or oppression; dystopian books, then, are set in... Continue Reading →
Congratulations to Sarah Dessen, whose latest, What Happened to Goodbye, debuted in the no. 2 spot this week. Another debut with a curious title, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente, landed in the no. 8 spot. This Week Children's Chapter Books Weeks on List... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: When Anna was little, she and her mother used to search for sea glass, but since they looked at night, they called it moonglass. Now, ten years after her mother's mysterious death, her father is working as head lifeguard on the same beach where her mother grew up and her parents first met and... Continue Reading →
Stephenie Meyer's Official Illustrated Guide has been bumped from the top spot by Rick Riordon's latest, The Throne of Fire. And we're happy to report that debut author Veronica Roth's Divergent, our current Book of the Month, is at no. 6. This Week Children's Chapter Books Weeks on List 1 THE THRONE OF FIRE,... Continue Reading →
Synopsis: Just when seventeen-year-old Cullen Witter thinks he understands everything about his small and painfully dull Arkansas town, it all disappears. . . . In the summer before Cullen's senior year, a nominally-depressed birdwatcher named John Barling thinks he spots a species of woodpecker thought to be extinct since the 1940s in Lily, Arkansas.... Continue Reading →
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