Stilettos in the Stacks

Found

nobody@vox.com(librariann) — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:48:26 -0700

Margaret Peterson Haddix

★★★★★

"How did they know I was adopted - when I didn't even know?" Chip asked, his voice breaking. He bent his head down over the mail again.

"Missing doesn't necessarily mean 'adopted'" Jonah argued. "Or maybe there's some list in the school office of which kids are adopted, and somebody hacked into the computer system, and they think it's really funny to..."

He stopped because Chip didn't seem to be listening anymore. Chip's face had suddenly gone deathly pale. Slowly, he held up three letters, all of them plain envelopes without return addresses. All of them were addressed to Chip, two of the letters had yellow forwarding labels. One of the labels was peeled back a little, and Jonah could see the words "Winnetka, Illinois" below.

Winnetka was where Chip used to live.

"You open them," Chip said. "I can't."

Jonah took a deep breath and took the letters from Chip. He ripped them open quickly, the same way he took off bandaids.

"You are one of the missing" he read from the first letter." Then, "Beware! They're coming back to get you." And the next one, again, "Beware, they're coming back to get you."

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Death Note: Booktalk

nobody@vox.com(librariann) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:07:23 -0700

Death Note, Volume 1

Tsugumi Ohba

Some Death Note rules:

The Human whose name is written in this note shall die
this note will not take effect unless the writer has the person’s face in their mind when writing his/her name therefore people sharing the same name will not be effected
if the cause of death is written within forty seconds of writing the person’s name it will happen
if the cause of death is not specified the person will simply die of a heart attack
After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next six minutes and forty seconds.

What if you found a notebook that gave you the power to kill anyone you wanted with just the stroke of a pen? Would you take advantage of this ability? How would you use it? Would you use your power for good – or for your own benefit?

This is exactly the dilemma that Light Yagami, a Japanese high school student, faces when he finds a death note that has been dropped into the world by a Shinigami – a death god.

Light decides to use his power to make the world better and kill criminals. But soon, people start suspecting that someone who they call Kira is behind the mysterious deaths of criminals.

Can Light keep his identity as Kira a secret when the world’s greatest detective gets on the case? What if the world’s greatest detective is another teenage boy?

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime: Booktalk

nobody@vox.com(librariann) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:04:21 -0700

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon

Christopher is a whiz at numbers. He can name all the prime numbers up to 7.057 and multiply 251 x 684 in his head (171,684) and win the Expert version of Minesweeper in 99 seconds.

He also has behavioral problems.

Here are some of his behavioral problems:

- not talking to people for a long time (once, he didn’t talk to anyone for five weeks)

- not eating or drinking anything for a long time

- not liking to be touched

- screaming when he is angry or confused

- refusing to use his toothbrush if someone else has touched it

- not noticing that people are angry with him

- not smiling

- hating France

Christopher is autistic, which means he doesn’t look at the world in the same way as other people. For example, if you were standing in a field in the countryside, you might think:

- I am standing in a field that is full of grass

- There are some cows in the field

- There is a village in the distance

Christopher thinks:

- There are 19 cows in the field, 15 of which are black and white and 4 of which are brown and white.

- There is a village in the distance which has 31 visible houses and a church with a square tower and not a spire.

One night, he discovers his neighbor’s dog Wellington dead, with a garden fork sticking out from his body. He’s going to solve the mystery. He’ll write a book about solving the mystery. This is Christopher’s fabulous, unusual, CURIOUS book, told by a character that is unlike anyone you’ve ever met.

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being fifteen.

nobody@vox.com(librariann) — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 18:45:27 -0800

The Boyfriend List: (15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver)

E. Lockhart

"If you stopped to think for one second, wouldn't you guess that telling me about Kim and Jackson would make me insane? That it would poison my whole day and possibly my entire future life with horrible nude bodies and penises that I don't want to think about?"

Katarina sighed. "Don't jump all over me 'cause Jackson broke up with you," she said. "It's not my fault."

"It's your fault that I have to think about the two of them naked," I yelled. "Just leave me off your penis information list from now on."

(143)

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hilarity.

nobody@vox.com(librariann) — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 13:22:35 -0800

An Abundance of Katherines

John Green

When he exited the bathroom, his parents were sitting together on his bed. It was never a good sign when both his parents were in his room at the same time. Over the years it had meant:

1. Your grandmother/grandfather/Aunt

-Suzie-whom-you-never-met-but-trust-me-she-was-nice-and-it's-a-shame is dead
2. You're letting a girl named Katherine distract you from your studies
3. Babies are made through an act that you will eventually find intriguing but for right now will just sort of horrify you, and also sometimes people do stuff that involves baby-making parts that does not exactly involve making babies, like for instance kiss each other in places that are not on the face.

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the book that launched several cabal emails

nobody@vox.com(librariann) — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 11:58:30 -0700

The Man of My Dreams: A Novel

Curtis Sittenfeld

Back in the intern cubicle, the walls look like they're shifting. She sits at her desk and grasps the mouse to the right of her computer monitor, checking her e-mail. No new messages, she sees, and shuts the account again quickly, before she mass-mails some incriminating message to the entire office - I have never in my life seen so much mediocrity amassed under one roof, or perhaps, Working with all of you is like dying a very slow death - or, even worse, before she dashes off a declaration of love to Henry.

- p. 103

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charming quotes.

nobody@vox.com(librariann) — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:21:48 -0700

Charmed Thirds: A Novel

Megan Mccafferty

"Hope Weaver belonged to more than a dozen nonsensical-sounding groups including Super Totally Awesome Chick & Dudes, Mary-Kate is better than Ashley, Gnomes are Gneat, and I Hate the Word Panties." (168)

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