Pottermore and More

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard of Pottermore, online home of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter. Pottermore hosts exclusive content from Rowling, including additional pages of Harry Potter storylines and the ability to interact with the text. So here's how it works: each chapter is split up into key scenes, which players can explore by collecting special items and meeting characters. Players can also connect with other users, presumably to geek out over how cool Pottermore is. Once they've got the hang of things, players can also brew potions, learn spells, and duel each other, although the exact purpose of those activities is a little vague for me. Essentially, Pottermore is a forum for extreme fans to get together and glory in the utter awesomeness of the Potter-verse.

Property of J. K. Rowling and Warner Brother Entertainment

Though it's the most widely-known of its kind, Pottermore certainly isn't the only website that accompanies a story and allows the reader to continue their experience even after leaving the pages of the book. Erin Morgenstern's Alex Award winning novel, The Night Circus has a similar web presence. At the Night Circus, users can go on quests and, again, connect with other users to discuss the story and their progress through the game. It functions a bit like an online version of Dungeons and Dragons, with a choose-your-own-adventure element and a points system. Though it's a bit simpler than Pottermore, fans of the understated magic and mystery of The Night Circus will love this ethereal online companion.

Image Property of Failbetter Games

Given its wild popularity, it was only a matter of time before The Hunger Games had its own site, too. The Capitol is quite a bit more commercial than Pottermore, which confines its large merchandise section to a different site. The Capitol focus on the movies and the spectacle of The Hunger Games rather than the storyline but players can register to be assigned to a district, learn about district tributes, and explore movie content (my favorite is Capitol Couture).

The last one I'll mention here, although by no means the end of the list, is the Gallagher Academy website, companion to Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series. The fictional Gallagher Academy is a school where characters in Carter's books learn to be international spies. At the website, users can look at courses like "History of Espionage" and "Advanced Encryption." They can also read about the history of the Academy, register as students, and learn more about characters.

Property of the Walt Disney Internet Group

There are, of course, lots of websites that allow users to interact with the text like this and I could write an entire series of posts about the book-related apps. But what's the purpose of this new crop of websites? Well if you're like me, you tear through books you like and are left wanting more. I always admire those people who have the self-restraint to read just a chapter at a time to preserve the book and make it last longer, kind of like those people who can eat a popsicle as it melts instead of biting off a big chunk and then suffering through a cold headache. But I'm not the sort to take things slowly and I have the self-restraint of a four-year-old, at least when it comes to books and food. 

Much like the new wave of ebooks I discussed eons ago, the technology here allows readers to interact with their stories and beloved fictional friends. Websites like Pottermore allow readers to slip away again into the beautiful and fantastical worlds they have loved and to become a part of the story, to experience new dimensions and depths of fiction. 

So is this the wave of the future? Will authors be paired with web designers instead of illustrators? I sincerely hope so. We live in a cyber-speed society, where a website that takes more than twenty seconds to load is considered "slow" and most of my students tweet multiple times a minute. We book people cannot expect to remain unchanged--reading is a slow, solitary pursuit in a time when "fast" and "connected" are the name of the proverbial game. Publishers and authors have to recognize this fact and to adapt to the changes--and opportunities--it creates. 

Personally, I think it's a great time to be a reader.

Review Time: A Tale Dark and Grimm

Movie poster property of Miramax

Have you ever read the original Grimm's Fairy Tales? They are seriously messed up. Take Cinderella as a for instance. One of the stepsisters cuts off part of her foot to fit into Cindy's dainty glass slipper (and seriously, the idea of shoes made of glass is a little gruesome when you stop to think about it, too). And then there's Hansel and Gretel. In A Tale Dark and Grimm, Adam Gidwitz retells the story of these two ill-fated siblings and he doesn't exactly soften it up.

Pretty much the first time we meet Hansel and Gretel, they're getting their heads chopped off by their father. When they come back to life (because it's magic, after all), they decide that they don't really fancy living with parents who were happy to decapitate them without a second thought. So Hansel and Gretel set off in search of better parents. That really shouldn't be such a task seeing as their original parental units murdered them but H&G have a harder time than you might imagine. That's because the world of the Grimms was inhabited by cannibalistic old women and wicked sorcerers.

Image courtesy of AdamGidwitz.com

One of the best (read: most horrifying) stories in this little volume tells of how Gretel falls a little in love with a dark, handsome stranger and sets off into the woods to visit him. When she gets to his house, she is warned off by his enslaved mother and hides behind some barrels or something where she watches him drag a girl in by the hair, shove his arm down her throat, pull out her soul, put that soul in a cage, and stew up her lifeless corpse for dinner. What a charmer. (That one comes from the Robber Bridegroom. Ick.)

Gidwitz tells all of these stories, which we have significantly Disney-ified, with a sort of gleeful humor. He interrupts the story regularly, sort of like William Golding with The Princess Bride, to warn us of the horrors to come and encourage little children to flee the room while they still can. These interruptions were cute at first but got just a little jarring towards the end. We get it, I thought, these stories are gruesome. And then Gretel would do something like cut off her finger and stick it into a keyhole to open a door. But while I didn't love the authorial asides, I can see how they would be invaluable to the intended audience of the book, which Amazon suggests is readers ages ten and up. Cutting in every page or so the way he does allows Gidwitz to create some distance between the reader and the hunters who are skinning Hansel alive.

Given the prevalence of shows like "Grimm" and "Once Upon A Time," I think this is a story that could get a pretty decent following among my students. It's a book for fans of horrific violence and fairy tales alike.

Final Grade: B+

The Zombie Apocalypse Is Here!

Oh my goodness. It's happening, people. This is not a drill. Proceed directly to your zombie-proofed shelters, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Get to a safe room with no windows, preferably with a steel reinforced door and solid brick walls. This is how it starts.

Okay, so I might be exaggerating slightly. I have a propensity to do that. So far, the only animals to actually turn into zombies have been ants but those little buggers (no pun intended) are absolutely everywhere. Turns out that colonies of ants have been infected with something that scientists have dubbed the "zombie-ant fungus." Okay, so it's scientific name is Ophiocordyceps unilateralis but "zombie-ant" says it all. So here's how it works.

The fungus, which is the big sticky thing poking out of the ants head over to the left there, shoots spores into the ant. The spores kill the insect and reanimate its body (because it's a zombie fungus, after all), after which the zombie ant shuffles off to a cool moist location, assumedly crying out for braaaaains the entire way, where it drops down dead. And after that its head explodes so that the spores eating away its brain can escape and infect more ants. How cool is that? It's only a matter of time before the fungus evolves to human compatibility, right? On the bright side, the human zombies will also have unicorn horns, which will not only be insanely cool (zombiecorns!!), it'll also make them easy to identify.

But lest the necrophobes and hypochondriacs begin a world wide panic, I should let you know that there is hope. There's another fungus called the anti-zombie-ant-fungus-fungus. (Turns out science people aren't really the best at naming things.) It's the creepy little bumpy thing on the sticky thing poking out of the ants head over to the right there. This new fungus attacks the zombie-fungus and essentially "castrates" it says David P. Hughes, researcher at the Millennium Science Complex. (Seriously, these guys either have the best or the worst sense of humor ever.) The good news is that it kills the majority of the spores and keeps the zombie epidemic in check. The bad news is that the ant is still dead.

Now you all know how much I love zombies but I don't particularly want to become one someday so I've been reading quite a bit to prepare myself for the inevitable onset of the shuffling hordes. If you want to keep your faculties when the ant fungus begins to infect humans and the undead rise up against us, you might want to do the same. (You might also want to consider Running For Your Life, just so you're in peak zombie-fighting condition.)

Start off with the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks because that guy really knows his stuff. Then you should probably pick up a copy of The Zombie Combat Manual by Roger Ma so you know how best to defend yourself and Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies by Matt Mogk so you know how to prepare yourself. If you suspect one of your loved ones is a zombie, you should probably put them out of their misery but make sure before cutting off their rotting heads by reading You Might Be a Zombie by the good people over at Cracked. And finally, if the worst should happen and you find yourself on of the recently undead, first run like crazy from your book-toting friends and then pick up some fresh brains and a copy of So Now You're a Zombie by John Austin so you can plan out the rest of your undeath. Just don't take it personally when I try to lop your head off.

(And here I thought the zombie apocalypse would be brought on my spoiled milk.)

A Sad Farewell to Maurice Sendak

My dear friends, it is with a heavy heart that I must inform those of you who don't yet know that Maurice Sendak passed away this morning after suffering a stroke. Sendak was the author of over a dozen children's books and the illustrator of scores more. Best known among his stories is the seminal Where the Wild Things Are (1977). 

The majority of Sendak's works were published in the 1970's but he has by no means been absent from the public eye since then. His most recent title, Bumble-Ardy, was published a mere eight months before his death. Sendak also forever endeared himself to me by appearing on the "Colbert Report" earlier this year. 

Sendak was not only the author of terrific and fantastical stories, he was also the creator of two of my most beloved childhood companions. I'm talking, of course, about my imaginary friends, Didi and Deed, who originated as illustrations in Sendak's Chicken Soup With Rice. As a child, I was never far from Didi and Deed, regardless of whether I was at the doctor's office or on family vacation at Lake Michigan. 

Sendak gave me, and children around the world, incredible characters who simply refused to stay on the page. For that, Mr. Sendak, I thank you. The world of children's literature would not have been the same without your contribution. God bless you, wherever you are, and let the wild rumpus start.

Prom Fever

This weekend, the majority of my students will be primped within an inch of their lives. The girls will wear enough hair spray to shellac an entire clapboard house. They will slip into shapewear and dresses that are tight enough to require shapewear. They will paint their faces and wear shoes that squeeze their feet like Chinese foot bindings. And the boys, well, actually they'll just wear vests and shiny shoes--and maybe a little hair gel if they're really ambitious. That's right, people, it's prom season. 

For me, prom was anticlimactic. I remember standing under the flowered arch with a very sweet boy with whom I imagined myself hopelessly in love, although he never knew it, posing for awkward and unnatural pictures and thinking, "This is it?" I remember the moment so vividly. My shoes were pinching my toes and my white rose corsage was too tight on my wrist. It wasn't exactly magical. That said, prom is a rite of passage in the United States. Prom has become the high school equivalent of the Kardashian marriage--dramatic, glamorous, and over quickly. It's just one night of dress-up and glitter and (let's be frank here) underaged drinking but for a lot of students, it's also the culmination of a twelve year school career. Can any of you think of a single high school movie that doesn't feature a dramatic prom showdown at its climax? 

And it's not just movies that are obsessed with prom, there are plenty of books about it, too. For example...

Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson: Ash and Nat are best friends but their attitudes towards prom couldn't be more different. But then a teacher is caught embezzling the money from the prom fund and Ash, who really couldn't care less, gets roped into helping Nat keep the prom from being a total disaster. Bonus: Nat's crazy grandma is almost as cool as my own grandma, and that's really saying something.

Prom and Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulberg: I love me some Austen so I'm always interested in a good adaptation. Prom and Prejudice is a pretty faithful adaptation, probably because Austen is still so relevant today that very little needs to be changed. Essentially it's Pride and Prejudice with cars and Homecoming Court.

Prom Nights from Hell by Meg Cabot and a whole bunch of YA heavyweights: For those of you who are a little darker, this is a can't miss. Grim reapers, secret superheros, angels, and demons all come together to truly make prom a night to remember. Yes please.

Art Geeks and Prom Queens by Alyson Noel: New girl Rio is stoked when she finds herself making friends with Kristi, the most popular girl in school. But as she gets to know her new friends better, she starts to wonder how much of herself she's willing to give up for the sake of popularity.

Cindy Ella by Robin Palmer: Don't be fooled by the title, this one's actually an anti-fairy tale. Instead of being a simpering sweet girl who just wants Prince Charming, Cindy is a smart young lady who writes a scathing editorial about just why prom is idiotic. Sounds like social suicide, right? You might be surprised, the right pair of heels can save a girl from all ills. This one relies a little too heavily on clever wordplay and obvious puns but that's a fault I can pardon.

So when you find yourself suffering the post-prom blues, pick up a book about prom. The fun never has to end.

The Two Towers Syndrome

So you all already know my feelings about the fact that just about every book these days is the "first in an exciting new series!" Now I want to talk about a specific type of series: the trilogy. The trilogy is by far the most common type of series. Really, other than the saga, there's no other type of series specifically known for its number of books. (A saga, by the way, is four books a la Twilight.) What I should say is that anecdotally, it seems like most of the series (serieses?) I've read lately have been trilogies.

The Hunger Games are the obvious example of this but Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Liani Taylor, Divergent by Veronica Roth, Wither by Lauren DeStefano, and Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater are all the first books in trilogies published in the last three or four years. And they're just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Trilogies are great. They set up an entire world without being too overwhelming because, after all, they're only three books long. But trilogies also have their downfall: the second book.

The second book in the trilogy is almost always the most boring book of the bunch. I say "almost" because I have students who will very vehemently inform you that Catching Fire, the second book of the Hunger Games trilogy, is the best book in the series rather than the worst. But usually, the second book is  really a struggle for even the most dedicated of readers. Love Tolkien though I do, I really had to push myself through The Two Towers. 

See, the thing is, the first book in the trilogy is almost always awesome. It has to be or it wouldn't get picked up for its second two installments. The first book is when the author sets up all of the action, usually including tons of details about they type of story the next two books are going to tell, introducing all the major players, and giving us loads of information that will undoubtedly come into play in subsequent books. The first book draws us in so that we actually care to pick up the next two. In Lord of the Rings, the first book is when Frodo acquires the Ring, when we meet the members of the Fellowship, and when we get a taste of just how dangerous Frodo's quest is going to be. 

The third book of the trilogy has to be equally thrilling. In the third book, the author gets to tie up all of the loose ends and bring the story to its natural, satisfactory conclusion (hopefully). Since it's the last book, it tends to be the most battle- and death-heavy book of the bunch. Everything that's been building for the last two volumes comes to a head and there are exciting chases or fights or revelations. All of the twisting threads of the story finally come into shape. We're given enough of the picture that we can step back and say, "Oh that's what it's supposed to look like." Plus, when you make it through a series, there's a feeling of accomplishment.

But what happens in the middle, between the intriguing set-up and the exhilarating resolution? Usually not much--or at least that's how it feels. While the first book in a trilogy paints the picture and the third brings everything together, the second book most often just maintains. It gives the reader the necessary boring details, the nitty gritty bits about whose country is at war with whose and which character is slowly-but-surely turning evil and will betray our faithful hero at the last. I've come across half a dozen readers (and viewers for that matter) who wanted to like Lord of the Rings but just couldn't make it through Two Towers and I can't entirely say I blame them. Frodo and Sam are tromping through swamps while Gandalf and Co. fight battle after indistinguishable battle. It's rough. 

And it's even harder for trilogies that are being published today. Some authors might pack the second book full of manufactured action and false-feeling emotion just to make it as exciting as the first but that doesn't exactly feel genuine, either. I recently read Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver, the highly anticipated sequel to Delirium (which I loved) and found myself underwhelmed. Originally, I thought I might not even bother with the third, Requiem (out February 2013) but on further consideration, I guess I'll give it a shot--that's what libraries are for, right? 

We've just got to face the facts: the second book of the trilogy is necessary but it probably can't be as fun as the first or the third. The lull in the middle just makes the final Return of the King-esque battle all the more exciting when it finally happens. Be patient, my good people, and hopefully your patience will be rewarded.

Free Books from Sync

I don't know about you guys but I really like free stuff. When I went to ALA Annual last year, I brought home dozens of free books--many of which I still haven't read--not to mention tote bags, water bottles, pens, pins, and magnets. The ride back was cramped and uncomfortable because I simply cannot pass up a free book anywhere. So if you like free stuff as much as I do (which is probably impossible), you'll be equally thrilled to find out that the wonderful people over at Sync are offering twenty free audiobooks this summer. Yes, my friends, twenty. An entire score of audiobooks... fo' free!

Each week, Sync will release a pairing of one classic and one YA audiobook that can be downloaded for free and the pairings are quite clever. For example, the week that listeners can get a free copy of Laini Taylor's supernatural war story, Daughter of Smoke and Bone is the week that listeners can also get a free copy of that classic war story, Charles Dickens's Tale of Two Cities. Similarly, Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake will be released with The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, two ghost stories at once. I'm really excited, there are quite a few titles on there that I've been meaning to read but haven't gotten around to.

If you're interested in the full calendar (titles will start being released June 14), look at Sync's website. Just one more reason that summer cannot get here fast enough. So if you're a reader, a listener, and a free-stuff-hoarder like me--or if you know someone who is--or if you're just looking for something more wholesome than the latest Jackie Collins to read at the beach this summer, get stoked and check it out!