Oh, I’ve thought about blogging. I had a great post prepared last Friday and it disappeared when I clicked ‘publish’. Twice it did. I hope this one saves!!

It’s crunch time with BFYA and that is my #1 priority over the next few months. Well, that and the Indiana Council of Social Students and ALAN/NCTE presentations I’m doing this month. And laundry, grocery shopping and keeping up with General Hospital.

I’ve got a few great posts in mind. I won’t be completely gone, but I will be posting even less than I have been. I’ve got a few good interviews that I’m working on. I’m enjoying doing interviews, giving a little more exposure to authors and their works. I’m always looking for new authors to interview. I’m also working on a post about how librarians contribute to diversity as it applies to literature for young adult readers. I was reading a very interesting piece which Jason Low published interviewing literary agents

on the issue of the ethnic diversity gap in children’s books and it caused me to look inward. I have to ask what librarians can and should be doing.

In the meantime, it’s November  Movember and I have new books to post!

As I was leaving my apartment this morning, I picked up a package that contained The Servant by Fatima Sharafeddine (Groundwood/House of Anansi). Sharafeddine was born in Lebanon and raised in Sierra Leona. In the past 10 years, she’s written over 95 books. The Servant was released in April, 2013.

I also managed to miss Sarwat Chadda’s City of Death  (Arthur A. Levine) which was released in October. This is book #2 in Chadda’s Ash Mistry series and it is on the current BFYA list.

And what about November, you ask? Here they are. All FIVE of them.

Angel de la luna and the 5th glorious mystery by M. Evelina Galang; Coffee House Press, Nov. As a baby in her mother’s womb, as a schoolgirl in Manilla, and as a reluctant immigrant to Chicago at age sixteen, Angel burns with a desire to be an activist, but learning truths about her mother and grandmother help her find peace.
True Story by NiNi Simone; KTeen/Dafina, 26 Nov. That’s the plight of eighteen-year-old Seven McKnight. Her freshman year at Stiles University turned out to be a tug of war for her heart and her sophomore year promised more of the same. Just when she’d sworn off her ex-boyfriend, Josiah Whitaker, and thought she’d never love him again, he boldly stepped back into her life, with no regard that she’d moved on with Zaire St. James, her new boyfriend.
Champion by Marie Lu; Putnam Juvenile, 5 Nov. June and Day have sacrificed so much for the people of the Republic—and each other—and now their country is on the brink of a new existence. June is back in the good graces of the Republic, working within the government’s elite circles as Princeps Elect while Day has been assigned a high level military position. But neither could have predicted the circumstances that will reunite them once again. Just when a peace treaty is imminent, a plague outbreak causes panic in the Colonies, and war threatens the Republic’s border cities. This new strain of plague is deadlier than ever, and June is the only one who knows the key to her country’s defense. But saving the lives of thousands will mean asking the one she loves to give up everything he has. With heart-pounding action and suspense, Marie Lu’s bestselling trilogy draws to a stunning conclusion.
The Trap by Andrew Fukuda; St. Martin’s Griffin; 5 Nov. After barely escaping the Mission alive, Gene and Sissy face an impossible task: staying alive long enough to stop an entire world bent on their destruction. Bound on a train heading into the unknown with the surviving Mission girls, Gene, Sissy, David, and Epap must stick together and use everything they have to protect each other and their only hope: the cure that will turn the blood-thirsty creatures around them into humans again. Now that they know how to reverse the virus, Gene and Sissy have one final chance to save those they love and create a better life for themselves. But as they struggle to get there, Gene’s mission sets him on a crash course with Ashley June, his first love . . . and his deadliest enemy.
He Said, She Said by Kwame Alexander; Amistad, 19 Nov. Sparks will fly in this hip-hop-hot teen novel that mixes social protest and star-crossed romance! He Said, She Said is perfect for fans of Walter Dean Myers and Rachel Vail alike.

He says: Omar “T-Diddy” Smalls has got it made—a full football ride to UMiami, hero-worship status at school, and pick of any girl at West Charleston High.

She says: Football, shmootball. Here’s what Claudia Clarke cares about: Harvard, the poor, the disenfranchised, the hungry, the staggering teen pregnancy rate, investigative journalism . . . the list goes on. She does not have a minute to waste on Mr. T-Diddy Smalls and his harem of bimbos.

He Said, She Said is a fun and fresh novel from Kwame Alexander that throws these two high school seniors together when they unexpectedly end up leading the biggest social protest this side of the Mississippi—with a lot of help from Facebook and Twitter.

World After (Penryn and the End of Days #2) by Sandra Ee; Skyscrape, 19 Nov In this sequel to the bestselling fantasy thriller, Angelfall, the survivors of the angel apocalypse begin to scrape back together what’s left of the modern world. When a group of people capture Penryn’s sister Paige, thinking she’s a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken.

Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels’ secret plans, where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go.

Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can’t rejoin the angels, can’t take his rightful place as one of their leaders. When faced with recapturing his wings or helping Penryn survive, which will he choose?