NEW BOOKS!!!

I know I've been sloooooow to post to this blog this fall, but I've been really busy processing great new books into the library and it's just this moment that I have been able to sit back and take stock of everything that occurred in September.

Every English/Humanities class came in for a visit. I talked about many of the books purchased over the summer and they went - woosh- out the door! Over 1100 books were borrowed in September! To all of you who are now waiting for books to return, I've got many more books that have arrived since and more that should appear this coming week. Drop in frequently to check out the new books display.

Here's a shout-out to the dedicated Library Club students who are back to help out again this year.  Some of these students have already created two new and outstanding displays - tributes to fairy tales and Sherlock Holmes. They are also responsible for the new books display and the all-important, ongoing shelving, which we have a lot of due to the impressive volume of books being borrowed .  They, along with our fabulous custodians, keep the library neat and organized and a pleasant place to be. Thank you!

We've also got one book club going for October. Several senior students are reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. We'll have our first meeting this coming Friday after school to talk about the first half of the book. Once again,  Laurel Bieber from the Mission Public Library is cohosting all of our book clubs. Grade 7/8 students will be invited to join a noon break book club in November.

Now, let's talk NEW BOOKS. Since school started, students have been asking for creepy, eerie, scary books. Here's a few titles that may keep you up at night.

Beyond: A Ghost Story by Graham McNamee

Jane is not your typical teen. She and her best friend Lexi call themselves the Creep Sisters. Only Lexi knows why Jane is different from anyone else: Her own shadow seems to pull her into near-fatal accidents. Jane is determined to find out why these terrifying things happen, and to overcome her shadow enemy. Her sleuthing with Lexi connects her own horrors to the secret history of a serial killer.




Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

 Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.
(We've got the sequel coming in!)

Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn't want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash, but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.

(We will have the entire series.)



This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live. But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside. When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?

Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne

Fourteen kids. One superstore. A million things that go wrong.

 

In Emmy Laybourne’s action-packed debut novel, six high school kids (some popular, some not), two eighth graders (one a tech genius), and six little kids trapped together in a chain superstore build a refuge for themselves inside. While outside, a series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a chemical weapons spill, seems to be tearing the world—as they know it—apart.

Don't Turn Around by Michelle Gagnon

Sixteen-year-old Noa has been a victim of the system ever since her parents died. Now living off the grid and trusting no one, she uses her computer-hacking skills to stay safely anonymous and alone. But when she wakes up on a table in an empty warehouse with an IV in her arm and no memory of how she got there, Noa starts to wish she had someone on her side.

Enter Peter Gregory. A rich kid and the leader of a hacker alliance, Peter needs people with Noa's talents on his team. Especially after a shady corporation called AMRF threatens his life in no uncertain terms.

But what Noa and Peter don't realize is that Noa holds the key to a terrible secret, and there are those who'd stop at nothing to silence her for good.

Fans of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" will devour the story of Noa, a teen soul mate to Lisbeth Salander.

Blink and Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones

Two street kids get tangled in a plot over their heads—and risk an unexpected connection—in this heart-pounding thriller by Tim Wynne-Jones.

Boy, did Blink get off on the wrong floor. All he wanted was to steal some breakfast for his empty belly, but instead he stumbled upon a fake kidnapping and a cell phone dropped by an "abducted" CEO, giving Blink a link to his perfect blonde daughter. Now Blink is on the run, but it’s OK as long as he’s smart enough to stay in the game and keep Captain Panic locked in his hold. Enter a girl named Caution. As in "Caution: Toxic." As in "Caution: Watch Your Step." She’s also on the run, from a skeezy drug-dealer boyfriend and from a nightmare in her past that won’t let her go. When she spies Blink at the train station, Caution can see he’s an easy mark. But there’s something about this naïve, skinny street punk, whom she only wanted to rob, that tugs at her heart, a heart she thought deserved not to feel. Charged with suspense and intrigue, this taut novel trails two deeply compelling characters as they forge a blackmail scheme that is foolhardy at best, disastrous at worst—along with a fated, tender partnership that will offer them each a rare chance for redemption.

Next week, we'll be setting up a Halloween display, a tribute to the master of horror, Stephen King. In his honour, I've purchased some of his books that we don't have in the library, such as Misery, Pet Sematary, and Cycle of the Werewolf.

Hope you're reading a terrific book.