WELCOME TO OUR BLOG!

Thank you for visiting our new blog. Mia and I will be listing a few items from different areas of the youthroom collection that are recent additions. Our goal is to give you a monthly update of some of our new materials, "hot off the presses," so to speak. We'll archive past months so you can look back at some of the new things we've received. Please feel free to comment on any book or video that you've had a chance to view. Let us and everyone else know if you liked it or even if you didn't. Please keep your posts appropriate for the audience and stay on topic.

YA DVD'S

At Mr. Rad's Warehouse, the best hip-hop crews in Los Angeles compete for money and respect. But a crew from the suburbs moves in and crashes the party, stealing their dancers, and their moves.









Old school meets the cool with the hottest new moves in urban dance, starting with a warmup and three dance routines taught step-by-step.









A young woman of the 16th century stands up to her scheming stepmother and works miracles on the lives of everyone around her, including the crown prince of France.








Seasons 1 - 4. Follows the antics and adventures of six high school friends.

JUVENILE NON-FICTION DVD'S

We've received some new titles in this award-winning, kid friendly series.


Explores the world's oceans and is the definitive exploration of the marine world, chronicling the mysteries the deep. Discusses concepts such as evolution, the food chain, survival of the fittest, and the future of that omnipresent non-sea creature known as Man.




Friends Jack and Skye learn to deal with fears, ranging from spiders and heights to taking tests and not fitting in with other people





Students K - 4 can practice thier math skills with this wonderful series by one of our favorite non-fiction video production companies, Schlessinger Media. Titles include "Decimals and Percents," "Multiplication," "Division" and "Fractions."




An adorable video featuring the cutest canines around, as well as an audio CD full of dog-themed ditties. With the help of this title, kids can learn how to take care of man's best friend as they become Certified Puppytown Wranglers.

JUVENILE DVD'S

This adventure, set in a fantastical Asian-influenced world, follows the story of Aang, a reluctant hero who must restore balance in his war-torn world. The story arc moves forward with each book of chapters.

Ash is one Pokémon down in the Victory Tournament of the Hoenn League! Will he make it into the final four?

Review from Entertainment Weekly:

In Word World, set in a lush landscape filled with funny barnyard animals, the messages are clearer: because each animal is graphically spelled out, kids can watch as the letters P-I-G form that porcine creature. Even the scenery gets in on the act- a barn, a tree, a splash in the lake. When animals take time to build a word (always a moment of great expectation and jubilation), you can actually witness the little wheels working in the viewers' heads. After just one viewing, a 4-year-old who's always struggled with her letters volunteered to spell a new word: B-O-X. Presents don't get any better than that.

Mickey and his pals are planning the best springtime party ever - and you're invited! But the festivities are put on hold when Mickey's magical clubhouse mysteriously breaks into pieces and disappears with Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Daisy inside!

YA GRAPHIC NOVELS

The Arrival by Shaun Tan
If a picture is worth a thousand words, this amazing book is worth billions. Gorgeous pictures illustrate the universal story of a man leaving behind his family to make a better life in a new and strange world. Meeting friends and other immigrants along the way, we learn about struggle and triumph. When his family joins him, the new world truly becomes home. Told solely through images, this book allows you to write your own story into it. A remarkable book destined to become a classic. Go read it. Now. Seriously.


Life Sucks by Jessica Abel, Warren Pleece, and Gabe Soria
When you’re a teenage vampire working a dead-end job as the nocturnal clerk in a convenience store, life sucks. In more ways than one. And you’re stuck there forever. Because you’re the un-dead. And you don’t even have a girlfriend. And you miss being a vegetarian. And then to top it all off, you fall in love with a mortal goth girl. Twilight’s sarcastic cousin.






The Wall by Peter Sis
Growing up in Czechoslovakia, Peter Sis draws what he is told to draw. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, an “iron curtain” divides the world. Told through diary entries, his original artwork, and his trademark art style that simplifies big themes, Sis takes you behind the iron curtain to a time in recent history which is still being illuminated.








Castle Waiting by Linda Medley
Ah, fair maidens, who says comics are just for boys? This quirky graphic novel tells the story Sleeping Beauty, but if that story mated with The Princess Bride and Shrek. Hilarious. I mean, what’s funnier than a bald evil witch? When the curse finally lifts, the castle becomes a refuge for people in need, and then the real fun begins.

YA FICTION

Little Big by John Crowley

This is a story that unfolds across four generations and countless boundaries in an old house called Edgewood, where a young man named Smoky Barnable comes to fulfill his destiny and marry Daily Alice Drinkawater. However, their destinies are entwined with the faeries who also live on the border of Edgewood, and as the worlds combine and collide, an epic Tale is told. If you liked the Artemis Fowl series but are ready for a more challenging read, this epic book is for you. Powerful and beautifully written.




The Luxe by Anna Godbersen

Fan of the Gossip Girl series? Have a taste history, ball gowns, and mystery? The Luxe is the book for you. Set at the turn of the century (by which we mean 1899) this story unravels the events leading up to the suspicious death of Elizabeth Holland, a young and beautiful society woman recently drowned in the Hudson river. Betrayal, secrets, yearning across the great class divide between high society and low: everything you love, cinched into a corset and high button boots make this a fun summer page-turner.




Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson

If modern Manhattan is more your style, check out Suite Scarlett, the story of a small family-run hotel in the heart of the city…it should be a tourist destination that lives up to its Jazz-Age decoration, but the hotel and family have fallen on hard times. For Scarlett’s 15th birthday her family gives her the Empire Suite, and its eccentric inhabitant. Can former leading lady and constant diva Mrs. Amberson help reverse the family’s fortune? Can Scarlett keep up with Mrs. A., help her brother’s acting career take off, deal with her rebellious younger sister, and manage to fall in love all in a single summer? By the author of The Keys to the Golden Firebird and 13 Little Blue Envelopes.


Tunnels by Riderick Gordon and Brian Williams

Will Burrows doesn’t fit in with the rest of his family. But when his father disappears, Will embarks on an amazing adventure to find him using their shared passion for archeology as his guide. What Will discovers is an unbelievable and highly dangerous society that time forgot, trapped under ground. Will he be able to free his father? This dark book and suspenseful book with have you on the edge of your seat.


Zen and the Art of Faking It by Jordan Sonneblick

San Lee has moved so many times by eighth grade that when he gets to his newest school he decides he’s not going to bother to make friends. Then in a fateful World Zen class San answers a few too many questions, and suddenly everyone thinks he’s a Zen Master! But will everyone, including the girl San has a crush on, eventually figure out he’s a fake? And will San ever be Zen enough to forgive his father?

JUVENILE FICTION

In October, 1942, seventeen-year-old Helmuth Hübener, imprisoned for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, recalls his past life and how he came to dedicate himself to bring the truth about Hitler and the war to the German people.









In the 1970s, a girl comes of age struggling with the loss of two father figures in her life.










Daring adventurer-archaeologist Indiana Jones returns in an all new, action-packed saga, in the novelization of the fourth, long-anticipated Indiana Jones movie.










As Hollypaw, Lionpaw and Jaypaw, grandchildren of the legendary Firestar, continue their training to be warrior cats, each is haunted by a different internal struggle that could lead to trouble for all Clans.

PICTUREBOOKS

Mary takes her "bendy," gooseneck lamp wherever she goes, much to the dismay of her parents and classmates, but after leaving it at home during summer camp, Mary finds that she has outgrown her need for her odd companion.






When Bad Kitty won't play with him, Poor Puppy has to amuse himself with an alphabetical list of toys and dreams of playing in an alphabetical list of countries.






A young boy and his papa may speak both Spanish and English, but the most
important language they speak is the language of love. Here, Arthur Dorros
portrays the close bond between father and son, with lush paintings by Rudy Gutierrez.








Short, easy to read rhymes reveal what is unique about various animals, from ape to wolf.







As a cat navigates the perils of the outside world, it and its prey all find things to be thankful for.


If you have read any of the above titles, please feel free to comment on them.