We're Back! A Reviewer's Story

First off, we'd like to apologize for our absence these past weeks (besides weeks in YA of course). This summer has been surprisingly hectic seeing as no one seemed to be in one place for more than a week. But now with barely a week to the beginning of school, the YAthenaeum Team is back and ready to bring you even more contests, reviews, and everything you need to know about YA.

So, to slowly make our way back into the scene of YA, we'd like to show you this animated trailer of Maggie Stiefvater's upcoming novel Ballad. Maggie did a great job, didn't she? (On both the trailer and we're assuming the book.)

Also, while we're on the note of videos. Listening Library's Fantasy Road Trip Contest has come to an end, and while there are many great entries, we'd like to single out Lorena's entry because it's just too cute. We're rooting for her!

-The YAthenaeum Team

Libba Bray Contest Winner!

So, our Libba Bray Contest has ended and we have a winner to announce!

Please join us in congratulating the winner:

ARI

We hope you enjoy listening to A Great and Terrible Beauty! 

And if you want another chance to win an audio remember Listening Library is having a contest for signed audiobooks and an Ipod.

-The YAthenaeum Team

Libba Bray Q&A and a Contest!

This Contest is Closed
Remember the skype event with Libba we had? Well, we were able to ask her our questions and here's her amazing answers:

-Who pwns everything?

You do. (It should be noted that Erika asked the question. :P )

-If someone suddenly threw a wad of twenty thousand dollars at you, what would you do?

Hope I'd be very sticky. Though if it's an ethical question and I don't know if it's mine, I'd find out who's it is. If it's something on a game show where you have to eat and find the money in Jello, I'd put it towards my son's college fund and buy a new i-pod.

-If 'they' decided to make a movie of your life, which actress would you want to play you?

My friend Brenda likes to play this game where she picks an actor and actress that would play you in a movie. She decided that Bill Murray and Teri Garr would play me.

-What's the most random question you can think of? Answer it.

Do you have a laser eye?

Oui

-Can you do the Time Warp again? (Though we knew her answer having done it with her, we wanted to here her epic answer.)

It's tattooed into my brain matter. I would go almost every weekend between 8th and 10th grade to watch Rocky Horror.

And now to the contest!

So, would you like to win an audio of A Great and Terrible Beauty (which includes an interview with Libba Bray)?

.:Rules:.

• E-mail us at yathenaeum@yahoo.com.
• Include your name and address.
• Your entry must be received by June 26th.
• One entry per person.

.:Prize:.

• One lucky winner will receive a copy of the audiobook of A Great and Terrible Beauty from Listening Library.

Now, though ours isn't signed, the contest we mentioned earlier this week does have signed audiobooks, so you should enter both to have greater odds of winning one.

-The YAthenaeum Team

Fantasy Road Trip Contest!

We found out about this really cool contest with three of our favorite authors and just had to share it with you!

Listening Library is having a contest to win an iPod Touch and a collection of signed audiobooks!!! Hooked already? Here's the brief details, but you can find more on the contest site: 

Authors Involved:

• Libba Bray- The Gemma Doyle Trilogy
• Tamora Pierce-  the Beka Cooper series (though she's also written many others)
• Rick Riordan- the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series

Some of the details:

• You have to be between 13-18  years old. 
• In a video between 30 seconds and 5 minutes answer the question “If you could go on a road trip with a character from your favorite audio series, where would you go?  What would you do along the way?  How would you travel?” Though as a catch you have to include a reference to Florida, a reference to audiobooks, and a clip of dialogue from your chosen audio (from the above three authors) that can be downloaded on the contest site.
• Submit the video between June 1st and August 17th. 

 So visit www.fantasyroadtripcontest.com for more information and to submit your video! Good luck and have fun!

-The YAthenaeum Team

 

Libba Bray Saturday!

Well, she won't be physically in the store, but close enough! Libba Bray will be skyping (which is now a word...) with us at the store on Saturday.

It should be a ton of fun!

We decided instead of only choosing a few to come that we should invite everyone and hold it at the store.

So, Saturday come join us with Libba Bray on the big screen! Though since this isn't a movie, bring your questions you've always wanted to have answered those random and otherwise!

Books & Books

265 Aragon Ave.

Coral Gables, FL

Hope to see everyone there! This is our first skype event, so we want it to be great!

-The YAthenaeum Team

Libba Bray Contest!

We're giving away Libba Bray!

Not really, but as close to it as we can, which consists of your chance to virtually meet her with us!

Libba will be hosting "Dial Into Summer" live chats with select groups through Skype starting May 11th.

While we already have our spots reserved, we do believe that yes, "the more the merrier." Four lucky winners will get a chance to join in on this afternoon of comic relief and mad cow disease.

There are however a few catches. While we hate limiting our contests to locals, or anyone in the area, you will need to be in Miami on May 23rd to partake in this contest.

.:Rules:.

• In 2 sentences, tell us why you want to come to the chat. No more, no less.
• E-mail entry to yathenaeum@yahoo.com OR post in a comment below including name and e-mail address
• You must be in Miami on May 23rd
  
• Contestants are limited to 1 entry
  
• Deadline is Saturday, May 16th at 7:00 p.m. Eastern

.:Prizes:.
4 entrants will each receive:

• 1: Spot to sit in with The YAthenaeum Team at Libba Bray's "Dial Into Summer" live chat.

Winners will be chosen on Saturday, May 16th at 8:00 p.m. and announced shortly after.

Live chat will be held Saturday, May 23rd at 4:00 p.m. Winners will be given directions as to where to report after drawing has ended.

-The YAthenaeum Team

This Week in YA- October 11, 2008

The first of a weekly post discussing anything YA that happened or is happening.

Blogs, vlogs, and random things:

• John Green and his brother, Hank, after their pwning of Oprah on youtube, were punished to do brotherhood 2.0 style vlogging for a month. [Don't know what this was? In 2007, they decided to stop textual communication for a year and make a video every day to each other (one one day, the other the next, etc.) except weekends] Visit their youtube page to watch.
• Lauren Myracle is having a contest to come up with a contest... Sounds confusing, it isn't. She wants a contest idea that's spooky, promotes her new book (Bliss), and deals with All Hallow's Eve. Start brainstorming and you may win a really cool Bliss shirt! More info here.
• Justine Larbalestier's publisher is having a contest for her new book, How to Ditch Your Fairy, basically to write about what type of personal fairy would you want to have. All the information is here.
• This upcoming week (October 12-18, 2008) is YALSA's Teen Read Week! Go here to vote for the year's top ten young adult books, as well as next year's slogan!

Movie news:

• Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist based on the book by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan opened last week (Oct. 3). It debuted at #3 with $11.3 million and received 3.5 stars.
• Libba Bray stated in her blog that though the A Great and Terrible Beauty movie has progressed, no one has been cast. She'll post on her blog as soon as she finds out anything.

Books that came out recently:

• Let it Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle
• The Way We Work by David Macaulay
• Melting Stones by Tamora Pierce
• Graceling by Kristin Cashore
  

Books that are coming out in the next week:

• October 14: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves by M.T. Anderson
• October 14: Two to the Fifth by Piers Anthony
• October 15: The Twilight Saga Box Set by Stephenie Meyer
  
• October 16: Paper Towns by John Green
• October 16: Doomwyte: A Novel of Redwall by Brian Jacques
• October 16: Something Wicked by Alan M. Gratz

-The YAthenaeum Team

Libba Bray & Shannon Hale- RECAP

The next event in our week long series. On February 5, 2008, the following Epic day occurred:

It all began when I was stressed... lol I got out of school; got everything we needed from my house (my paranoia made me keep thinking I was forgetting things, this is a common occurrence). Finally my mom and I left, and went to pick up Julie's costume. But it took forever to get out of there! There were four people helping us... all could barely speak English...
(I need to add here that while this was going on I was sitting outside of Michael's making earrings, and getting asked by every other person that passed by how to get to JC Penny's.)

Then, we went to pick up Lorena from the metro rail station where she kind of had to wait for a couple hours... though at least at first there were people there with her. (I took the time to discover that Subway sells pizza.) Then, we went to pick up Julie from school. We sat most of the car ride looking through my jewelry box for the pure metal necklaces and bracelets. (Some were made of resign which just isn't as cool.)

Oh yeah...We're such nerdy fanatics that we ended up creating jewelry for the event. I sculpted Gemma Doyle's pendant. And in a struggle trying to figure out what to make, Erika and I created charm bracelets with key items from Hale's Book of a Thousand Days to hand out as prizes at the event. Select few got the kickass metal ones but we were short of suppiles so only about 6 of those were made. The rest were resign.

We went to Books & Books, parked, and went to eat a few blocks down. We went back to the bookstore and brought our load of stuff with us. We got dressed in our costumes and then my mom left at 4:30 because she had to go to a meeting.

We finished getting ready and then sat at this small table in the children's area and waited. Staff would walk near us and went into the door we were right next to, always looking at us questioningly. Julie said this one guy almost ran into the door. LOL

So, we waited and then it was about 5:30 and Emily came and we began setting up the room it was going to be in... pushing the bookshelves to the side and making rows of chairs.

Then, we put out the "Hello my name is..." tags I made to write anagrams on, along with the necklaces and bracelets we made...

We handed out raffle tickets as people entered... and just stood there looking funny in our costumes. (Sometime during this my parents arrived with Brigitte, whom I forced to help.)

A few of my friends came, and other people... and then Emily came and asked if we wanted to give up our duties for a few minutes because the authors had arrived... Um... Of course!

So, we went over to the kids area and saw Libba and Shannon, they LOVED our costumes and took pictures with us. Shannon asked if it would be okay to post the picture on her blog.

Then, they saw our necklaces and bracelets (Shannon took a picture of my hand next to my chest so she could get both...) Libba asked if I ever thought I would be a hand model. LOL Libba hugged us and that's as much as I can remember... It was amazing!

Then ,we went back to the room, sat in the first row since we were VIPs. :D And waited for it to begin. Emily introduced the authors, and they came out. They both had on a hand puppet they had found in the children's section and were playing with them. The cookiemonster was eaten by the ice cream carton.

They asked each other questions and were hilarious! Then, they asked the crowd to ask them a few questions and answered them. Brigitte eventually got the nerve to ask if she could do the Time Warp so Libba, Shannon, Brigitte, and I all started doing it together...my hat fell on more than one ocassion. Then tried to sing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and called up some of the crowd to be backup dancers. But there were alot of little girls that didn't know it so it sounded like something along the lines of, "Uhhh munble mumble I don't know the words".

Emily then introduced us, (Julie, Lorena, Brigitte, and me) We asked the trivia contest questions, giving out the bracelets and necklaces we made, then a raffle for books or necklaces and bracelets... People kept yelling at me to speak louder.

Then, we presented our stuffed animal cats to them, Mr. Bubbles Kitty (relating to her blog) for Libba and My Lord (a cat in her book) for Shannon. They adored them!

-Waiting scene for the line to quiet down-

Then, the line finally calmed down, and we got in and waited... We were trying to be last. They signed all our books, and they didn't just sign them, but wrote a paragraph in each (possibly an exaggeration, but it was quite long). lol And I had A LOT of books (I think we both had an average of 7-8 books)... Libba thanked us over and over, asked how we made the necklaces...Before we left I took it upon myself to make sure Libba and Shannon both had metal versions of the jewelery. Shannon did, but Libba had a resign one, so I gave up mine...I really liked it too.

Emily let me keep the event poster, so they both graffiti-ed the other's photo and signed the poster... I'm going to hang it in my room. Lol

And that's about it... we took photos with them again, and then left...

-Erika (with comments by Lorena in red)