Spring 2011 Scholastic Librarian Preview

On Tuesday I watched the Spring 2011 Scholastic Librarian Preview webcast. Live! It's OK if you missed it, because you can watch the whole thing (unlive) at Scholastic's web site. The editors of various trade imprints of Scholastic talked about what's going to be coming soon. A few authors spoke as well. While the webcast itself was a little clunky, there are some books I'm going to be keeping a watch for.

As I'd previously written, Dear America is coming out with some new books (as well as reprinting some of the past ones) and one of them is going to be written by Lois Lowry! That's pretty cool. It's called Like the Willow Tree, and takes place in Maine during 1918. It will be about a girl who is not only dealing with WWI, but who also looses her parents to the Spanish flu. It will be available January 1st.

The Lovely Shoes by Susan Shreve sounded interesting, and they said it was based on a true story, which has me intrigued. It's about a girl named Franny whose right foot curls from a birth defect and she always has to wear ugly, orthopedic shoes. Also, like any teenager, she's totally embarrassed by her mother. Then her mother decides they are traveling to Italy to have a pair of beautiful shoes made for Franny, and this experience has a huge impact on her life. Also available in January.

Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy captured my interest because Trent Reedy was a solider in Afghanistan. While there, he and some other soldiers meet a girl with a cleft palette, and helped her to get the surgery she needed to repair it. This experience inspired Words in the Dust (it's fiction, not an actual retelling of his experiences). Also available in January.

I was excited to see that there is another historical mystery coming from Judy Blundell (author of What I Saw and How I Lied) called Strings Attached. It's the story of Kit Corrigan, who has moved to New York with dreams of being a star, during the time of the Korean War. After meeting a guy who turns out is involved with mobsters, Kit realizes she's in over her head. Available March 1st.

What looks to be a fun, light read is Prom and Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulberg. Yes, of course it's another interpretation of Pride and Prejudice, which has been done a million times, but it looks to be a fairly straightforward modern interpretation of it. Like Clueless did for Emma. It could be funny. Or not. They sold it well enough for me to want to find out. Available in January.

Libba Bray will be giving us another no doubt totally weird, slightly crazy story, this time called Beauty Queens, about a plane full of beauty queens that crashes on a deserted island. And now they must survive. Together. I wasn't a fan of Going Bovine, but this sounds like it could be fun. Available May 24th.

David Levithan was doing the presentations for Scholastic Press, and after telling me how great I was looking (thanks David) proceeded to talk about a number of books, several that I'm interested to follow up with. One was Recovery Road by Blake Nelson about two people meeting and falling in love in a recovery facility. After they leave the facility, they have to figure out if they can be together out in the real world. Available in March.

While I'm not interested in reading it, I was surprised to hear that the Animorphs series is being re released. People my age and a little younger will no doubt remember Animorphs. They were wicked popular in the 90s. It's a series about a secret alien invasion and a group of kids who are given the powers to morph into animals to fight the aliens. My little brother had tons of them. And, guilty secret, I totally snuck them and read them all. I am a little ashamed. But only a little. I wonder if they'll get popular again? I think they could still have the appeal; alien invasion and superhero kids don't really go out of style. David Levithan then amused us by explaining how the covers of the books were "lenticular" as in, holographic; it looks like the kid on it is morphing into an animal. He then demonstrated this by using a moose mask. Worth watching the webcast for this moment.

Garth Nix and Sean Williams talked about how they came up with the idea for their new book Troubletwister. They are adorable. I will read your book because you made me feel happy. But it's not out until May.

Finally, there will be a new Meg Cabot book April 26th called Abandon with is based on the myth of Persephone. I love Greek mythology; I'd like to see what she does with this.

If you don't have time to watch the webcast, which runs about 45 minutes, you can also check out their catalog here. It gives summaries of all the books mentioned in the webcast.