Some Novel Ideas

Understanding the Semantic Web

I feel like I've just begun to conquer Web 2.0. I'm collaborating, creating, gathering, and using information like a madwoman. That's why I'm more than just a little aggravated that Web 3.0 is starting to shoulder its way into our consciousness. For a long time, I told myself that I didn't care what Web 3.0 is, that I'd be long gone before Web 3.0 became a reality. Then, when I realized Web 3.0 is actualy on its way- NOW- I decided I just couldn't understand what it is. The semantic web? What the heck?

Well, now I, and you, have no excuse for pretending that Web 3.0 is too difficult to understand. Click on one of the links above and you'll go to a great article from HowStuffWorks about how Web 3.0 will work. And below is a wonderful video created by Manu Sporny, President and CEO of Digital Bazaar, Inc., which explains the Semantic Web in very easy-to-understand terminology. 

No more excuses. This is important. Just watch:

 

Best Books of 2011

I have never done a Best Books list, mainly because although I absolutely love to read these types of lists, I generally have a hard time choosing ten favorites from a given year.  I read so much, but for me to put a book on a BEST list, it had better be damn good. And some years, as much as I read, I don't read ten great books. Let's see if I make it to ten for 2011. My favorites, in no particular order:

Marie Lu's smart, fast-paced addition to the dystopia coterie begs for a sequel. Violent and bloody, Legend is an in-your-face commentary on how the chasm between the haves and the have-nots in our society continues to expand.

 

 

 

 

Not a YA novel, but I'm pretty sure The Magician King, the sequel to Grossman's The Magicians will show up on a lot of high school reading lists. It's Harry Potter for grown-ups, wizardry with humor and intellect. Completely unpredictable and totally original. I loved it.

 

 

 

Of the spate of dystopian novels from this post- Hunger Games YA literary landscape, Delirium stands out. Sure, it's set up for a sequel, but that won't interfere with your enjoyment of this story. Is a life without love a life at all? Delirium is a perfect read for those who grew up reading The Giver and now want a YA experience.

 

 

 

 

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is a creepy, weird, atmospheric book. I love the harsh and hearty Welsh island setting.  The odd, quirky characters remind me of a kids' version of Twin Peaks. I think the use of the old photographs is a little gimicky, and sometimes, author Ransom Rigg seems more enamored of the photos than how they actually fit into the story. But, Miss Peregrine is s curl-up in a blanket with the lights low kind of read.

 

 

 

Gothic and steampunky in a really cool way, Kenneth Oppel's This Dark Endeavor tells the story of how a teenage Victor Frankenstein became the grown-up mad scientist we all know and love. What I liked most about the book is that Victor reveals every flaw in his own character, laying bare his jealousies and weaknesses.

 

 

 

 

By far my favorite book of the year. Not a YA book originally, but it's now being marketed as one. Two magicians are unknowingly pitted against one another in a strange contest;  of course, they fall in love. I was so sorry to get to the last page, I read it twice. The Night Circus is magical. Really.

 

 

 

Rae Carson's The Girl of Fire and Thorns is one of the most unusual books I've read recently. Take a reluctant princess, marry her off to a weak but kind king, sprinkle in war, palace intrigue, a vulnerable stepson, and some newfound pluck, and you've got this coming-into-her-own novel. There are a few dead spots in the plot, but the writing is beautiful and the sequel is certainly coming!

 

 

 

There! I got to seven! Now, there are a bunch of other books that I enjoyed this year, books that I sped through and thought were pretty interesting reads. But they aren't quite "Best Books" material: Divergent, Supernaturally, Variant, Glow, iBoy. Read any of these and you won't be disappointed. I'm hoping to be a bit more openminded in 2012, not so harsh in my criticism of most of the stuff I read. we'll see. We'll also see if I get my book written...

iLike iBoy

Kevin Brooks's new novel iBoy is built on a completely preposterous premise. That's why I didn't want to read the book at first. Well, that and the silly title as well as the laughable line just below the title: Search. Shock. Destroy. Really? Really?

Well, I'm glad I got over all of that and started reading because iBoy was, in the end, a totally unexpected, very powerful book. I still think the title is goofy and that "Search-Shock-Destroy" thing is ridiculous, but I hope other readers will overlook these details just enough to give iBoy a try.

Tom Harvey lives with his grandmother in an apartment tower in the lower middle class London projects of Crow Town. He hates life in Crow Town, the violence of the gangs, the drug deals, the hopelessness that permeates each day there. So when his childhood friend Lucy asks him to come up to her apartment after school one day, Tom almost allows himself to feel happy at the prospect of reconnecting with her. But that moment of brightness is shattered when, as Tom approaches the building, someone throws an iPhone at him from the very top floor, smashing his skull and embedding pieces of the phone in his brain.

As Tom recovers from that incident, a terrifying and unimaginable realization dawns on him: he is no longer just Tom, a very average British teenager. The chips from the iPhone that have fused with his brain have given him extraordinary powers- powers to search for, find, and manipulate information; powers to influence and control; powers to make him practically invincible.

Now Tom has a choice to make. Should he use these abilities to exact revenge on the gang of boys that assaulted and horrifically violated Lucy? Tom knows the gangs have ruled by violence, so should they now die in the same way? But if he destroys them with his rage and inconceivable powers, what does that make him?

Brooks does not make the experience of iBoy an easy one for his readers. The level of violence in the novel is jarring and sickening, and it is rendered so realistically that it takes one's breath away.  The bad guys here are about as bad as humans can be, just soulless, hollow people living in futile circumstances. What makes the reader push forward is Tom, a boy who knows he's not special but who has somehow become inexplicably special. While the fights flare in Crow Town, the real battle is within Tom's own psyche, and the reader feels every one of Tom's wrenching emotions and strains with every one of Tom's impossible choices. Brooks gives Tom incredible humanity even as part of him has become inhuman.

Forgive Brooks the absurd premise of iBoy and read it. The book is both thrilling and heartbreaking in equal measure, and Tom, the haunting, haunted hero, is beautiful and tragic in equal measure, too.

 

Internet Librarian: Digital Footprint Resources

Helping Students Create and Maintain a Positive Digital Footprint

 

Stacy Nockowitz

Head Librarian

Reinberger Middle School Library

The Columbus Academy

Gahanna, Ohio 43230

 

(614) 509-2266

stacy_nockowitz@columbusacademy.org

http://somenovelideas.typepad.com

 

Electronic Resources

 

KidSMART: Digital Footprint

http://www.kidsmart.org.uk/digitalfootprints/

 

Digital Citizenship : Using Technology Appropriately

http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/

 

Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship – Page from previous website

http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html

 

“Digital Citizenship : Addressing Appropriate Technology Behavior” (Article by Mike Ribble, Gerard Bailey, and Tweed Ross from Learning & Leading with Technology

http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/uploads/1stLL.pdf

 

Common Sense Media : Media and Technology Resources for Educators

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators

 

Digital Citizenship : Rights, Roles, and Responsibilities in a Digital Society (Northside Independent School District – San Antonio, TX)

http://www.nisd.net/digitalcitizen/

 

Digital Citizenship and Creative Content

http://digitalcitizenshiped.com/

 

Digital Citizenship (California School Library Association)

http://ecitizenship.csla.net/

 

Digital Citizenship (Cable in the Classroom)

http://www.ciconline.org/DigitalCitizenship

 

 

Print Resources

 

Fodeman, Doug, and Marje Monroe. Safe Practices for Life Online : A Guide for Middle and

            High School. Eugene: International Society for Technology in Education, 2009. Print.Ribble, Mike. Raising a Digital Child : A Digital Citizenship Handbook for Parents. Eugene:

            International Society for Technology in Education, 2009. Print.Ribble, Mike, and Gerald Bailey. Digital Citizenship in Schools. Eugene: International Society for Technology in

            Education, 2007. Print.

Richardson, Will, and Rob Mancabelli. Personal Learning Networks : Using the Power of

            Connections to Transform Education. Bloomington: Solution Tree, 2011. Print.

Sherman, Josepha. Internet Safety. New York: Watts, 2003. Print. Young Adult Nonfiction

            Discusses identity theft, email problems, chat rooms, shopping, and the rules of                         “netiquette”.

Wolinsky, Art. Safe Surfing on the Internet. Berkeley Heights: Enslow, 2003. Print. Young Adult

            Nonfiction - Discusses acceptable use policies, email use and abuse, etiquette, and                         misuse of intellectual property of others.

 

Bibliography created effortlessly in NoodleTools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EReading: Is this really what we want?

I just received an email from Overdrive, a huge ebook distributor, for an ebook webinar that they're holding. The text in the email says this:

"How do you engage students who spend more time reading from a screen—on their cell phones or computers—than they do from the printed page? With eBook and audiobook downloads.

OverDrive, the leading distributor of eBooks and more for libraries and schools, invites you to learn how to make reading cool with the devices students use every day."

Reading this made me squint pensively at the screen of my laptop. Are ebooks the only way we can "make reading cool"?

My husband and I were just commenting last night to one another about the fact that our kids, who are both teenagers, spend most of their day engaged with their phones. They do everything- literally everything- with their iPhones. They communicate with people, watch TV and movies, listen to music, surf the web, read, and more, all on their phones. Does that mean that doing these things in other ways, like reading from a printed book, is NOT cool?

When did we have to start pandering to kids to get them to read or to get them to start thinking that reading was cool? Is this the message we really want to send to kids? That we want them to engage with their screens even more?

Obviously, Overdrive has an agenda here.  They want to sell ebooks, so they're making it sound like that's the way to go. I don't blame them for that. But, is it what we (teachers, librarians, parents) want? I am not at all convinced that ebooks make reading cool. Reading makes reading cool.  It's just a cool thing to do. I think Overdrive is sending the wrong message, albeit one that is to their advantage, when they say that ebooks are what's going to make reading appealing. Shouldn't the stories be doing that? And do we want to lose our kids to their screens even more?

I'm not signing up for Overdrive's webinars.

Goliath: The Final Book in a Trilogy of Hugeness

    Scott Westerfeld is going to have to start writing another gargantuan book series pretty soon.  I just finished Goliath, the third book in the Leviathan series, and I am going to go into Westerfeld withdrawal by November. Also, between this series and Cassandra Clare's Infernal Devices series, I've become a tad crazy for the steampunk stuff. Someone pointed out to me that the Leviathan books are not technically steampunk, as the engines described in the book don't run on steam. I don't care. So, don't tell me again that I'm mislabeling the series. At Powell's Books, they put Behemoth on the shelf in their steampunk display, so hah!

    Goliath begins right where Behemoth left off: World War I rages on across Europe and Asia. It's Clankers vs. Darwinists in this revisionist version of the Great War. Aleksander, the heir to the Austrian throne, has just helped lead a revolution in Turkey and is back on the British airship Leviathan with his best pal, Dylan Sharp. By now, Dylan's secret- that he is, in fact, Deryn Sharp, a girl in disguise- is no longer quite so secret. People seem to be finding out or figuring it out left and right.  But as long as the crew of the Leviathan doesn't know, Deryn is fairly certain she can stay on and continue to fly, which has always been her dream. It's when Alek finds out she's not who she says she is and worse, that she's in love with him, that things get a bit wonky.

    In the meantime, the Leviathan is on a mission to Siberia to rescue the brilliant scientist Nicolas Tesla, who claims to have built a weapon so powerful that merely showing it to the world will stop the war. Anxious for peace, Alek falls in beside Mr. Tesla, against the better judgement of his advisors and friends. Alek feels that ending this war is his destiny, his great legacy, and no one can talk him out of going along with Tesla's plans.  What Alek refuses to acknowledge is that Tesla is a bit of a madman, and his motives may not be as peaceful as Alek thinks.

    As the Leviathan crisscrosses the world from Tokyo to Mexico to New York, Alek and Deryn meet a host of historical figures: Tesla, William Randolph Hearst, even Pancho Villa. How far will Tesla go with his weapon Goliath? Is he, and in turn, is Alek, willing to raze an entire city to show the weapon's power? And how can Alek, a royal heir fall for Deryn, a commoner?

    Goliath is a fit ending to Westerfeld's action-packed series.The plot zooms along, as was the case with the first two books, though the characters take more time for quiet contemplation in Goliath than in the previous volumes. His descriptions of air battles and the inner workings of the Leviathan are phenomenal. When Deryn and Alek fight to stay atop the airbeast in a driving rainstorm, the tension is palpable. The final battle scene along Long Island Sound leaves the reader breathless as the Clanker water walkers clash with Mr. Tesla's "ultimate weapon."  Keith Thompson's gorgeous illustrations put the reader right in the center of the action, too. As far as characterization, it is Alek who is really in the spotlight in Goliath. Deryn's presence is crucial, but in this book, she's more the girl waiting for her prince while Alek wrestles with his destiny. For those who loved Leviathan and Behemoth, as I did, Goliath does not disappoint. Boys may snicker at the awkward romance, but Westerfeld doesn't dwell on the kissing for too long. There's plenty of swashbuckling, steampunk-tough combat for all.

 

 

 

Disclaimer: I was not given any compensation, monetary or otherwise, by the publishers of Goliath for this review.

Legend: Same Dystopia, Different Day

    Absolutely everyone has noticed the rash of dystopian YA novels kicking around the bookstore these days. I was recently in the wonderland that is Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, and their YA room had a great "I'm Dystopian!" display. Author Philip Reeve wrote about the phenomenon in this month's School Library Journal. And you can't escape the promotions for the upcoming movie version of The Hunger Games. I'm guilty of being quietly obsessed with the genre ever since I started teaching Lois Lowry's classic The Giver twenty or so years ago.

    Well, in the past few years, I've read: The Hunger Games series, The Maze Runner series, the Chaos Walking series, the Gone series, the Uglies series, Incarceron, Divergent, Matched, Delerium, Enclave, Shipbreaker, The Roar, etc., etc., etc. Lots and lots of 'em. Some of them are great (Shipbreaker, Delerium, Chaos Walking series); some are very good (Maze Runner, Uglies, Gone, Incarceron). All of them are addictively readable.  For some reason I cannot fathom, we are fascinated with our own inevitable, horrific future. What we know for sure: Earth will suffer many cataclysmic disasters which will (probably) be our fault; the new government of what is left of the U.S. will be oppressive and totalitarian; the poor will be really poor and the rich will be really rich. And one last thing: Some plucky teenager with mad fighting and survival skills will soon see it all for what it is and will fight back.

    So what is different about Marie Lu's Legend, which will be published later this year and has already been optioned for the screen? Truthfully, not much. When I received the galley of Legend and read the back cover, I actually groaned. Aloud, not inwardly. My obsession was in danger of spilling over into compulsion: Yet another dystopian novel I must read. No, really, I just can't do it again. Please make it stop!

    Still, I cracked Legend open and began. Original it ain't, but, I gotta tell you, I liked it.  I liked it a lot. Despite being able to predict almost everything that was going to happen, I couldn't put Legend down. And if it's done right, it could make an awesome film. At the very least, it would be a great video game.

    June is a war-ready prodigy in the future Republic of America, a perfect soldier-to-be, who grew up in the golden light of Los Angeles's richest district. Day is a prodigy of another kind. He is from one of the city's poorest districts, and he's also the country's most wanted terrorist/criminal.  June and Day could not have come from more contrasting origins, but their worlds are about to collide in a big way.

    When Day's family is quarantined because of a breakout of the newest strain of plague to run through the L.A. slum areas, he needs to steal some plague cure quick. June's brother Matias, who seems to be the ultimate Republic soldier, is murdered at the hospital on the night that Day tries to swipe a few vials of the cure. Now, Day is the number-one suspect in the crime, and June is out to exact her revenge.

    Soon, however, June and Day cross paths in a most unlikely way.  An uneasy alliance, even a touch of romance develops, and June and Day start to uncover some horrifying truths about the Republic. Everyone, it seems, is a pawn in the Republic's game, from the poor dying of plague each season to the most loyal soldiers defending the land. Both June and Day have trust issues, and it's easy to see why considering the ever-shifting circumstances of their lives. They are opposite sides of the same coin, simultaneously the user and the used, in a society that believes they're both expendable.

    Legend is terrifically violent. It's remarkable that Day lives through half of the torture and injury he endures. And the brutally creepy people surrounding June will make your skin crawl. Legend walks a very thin line between making its point and being gratuitous. But Day is so likable, somehow, a tough but essentially vulnerable boy who just wants to save his family, that the reader forgives the over-the-top moments of gore just to cheer for the upstart hero. June's loyalties are more wavering, so we're not sure what to make of her. Ultimately, she is also a victim of the government's cruelty, but you don't start to root for her until the very end of the book.

    Legend is narrated by June and Day in alternating chapters. It's a well-managed device that gives the reader a look into what each is thinking without any encroaching sentimentality. Lu offers a few well-timed plot twists and an exciting climax that will leave the reader both sorry and satisfied. I figure there's a sequel around the corner, too. Which I will most likely read in one sitting, on the day of its release. Sad, aren't I?

 

Paranormalcy: Don't Judge This Book By Its Cover

    The title of this post presents you with a sort of impossibility when it comes to actual books. Sure, when you're talking about people, you're not supposed to judge someone just based on his or her looks, but the cover is the first thing you judge a book by, isn't it? I know in these days of ereaders and ebooks, we don't linger over the covers of books the way we would in a book store.  And I'm saying that as a person who reads almost everything on my iPad at this point. But I still tend to be attracted to a book based on its cover, even if I'm just browsing through the Kindle store on Amazon.

    Which is why I really had no interest in Kiersten White's Paranormalcy at first.  I mean, look at that cover!  What distinguishes this book from all the other Starcrossed-Entwined-Abandoned-Withered-Everlasting teen paranormal fantasies out there? Nothing, if all you did was check out the cover. Pretty girl, pink gown, dark sky, wind sweeping through her hair, blah, blah, blah.  That could easily be a Bella, Grace, or Nora, or any other so-called heroine of today's YA fiction standing there.

But it's not.

It's Evie.  And Evie is nothing like those other girls.  Sure, she's a teenager longing for family and love and acceptance. But Evie is also genuine and funny and awkward, and she stumbles over herself, and she says the wrong things sometimes, and she just wants to be normal. She's your BFF, your "Let's watch trashy TV and eat popcorn" pal. Oh, and she kicks ass. Evie is a heroine you can really root for.

Ever since she was a little girl, Evie has lived at and worked for the IPCA, the International Paranormal Containment Agency. She has a pretty special power that makes her incredibly valuable to the agency: she can see through any paranormal's glamour, that facade that most people see instead of the actual vampire or hag or whatever.  Armed with her taser, Evie can tag and bag just about any wayward paranormal out there. So what if her best friend is a mermaid and the only thing close to a mother that she has is her boss?  So what if she doesn't get to go to high school with real kids or get a driver's license or other normal teenage stuff?  Evie is comfortable, independent, and good at her job.

But things begin to change rapidly for Evie after a cute teenage shape-shifter named Lend breaks into the IPCA, looking for intel. And someone is out there killing paranormals, too. What does all of this have to do with Evie?  She's wondering the same thing. Just as Evie's falling for Lend and trying desperately to stay away from former boyfriend Reth, a seductive, gorgeous faerie, things at the IPCA start to crumble around her.  Are the people and creatures of the IPCA, the only family Evie has ever known, really the good guys? How does Lend fit into what's happening around her?  And why is Reth stalking her more closely than ever before?

Following Evie through this adventure is like communicating with a friend through Facebook.  Her voice, that of a modern teenager struggling to understand herself and her world, is spot-on. Evie's "normal day" may not mirror those of a typical teen, but her self-conscious angst and her "I am totally falling for this guy" innocence make her someone you'd totally want to hang around with. In addition to a terrific narrator, Paranormalcy also offers a terrific cast of unusual yet relatable characters. I see that the sides are already lining up for Team Lend and Team Reth online. But it's the humor that makes this book so special and so different from most of the YA lit that's out there today. When you read most of these paranormal romances, you get the feeling that no one ever smiles or laughs or enjoys life.  I laughed out loud more than once while reading Paranormalcy, and I love that Evie doesn't turn sour even in the midst of the worst personal crises she faces. Kiersten White is my new author-hero, a bright light in the dark world of teen lit today.  The sequel to Paranormalcy, Supernaturally, comes out at the end of July. If Evie were a real girl, she'd be waiting right next to me in line at the bookstore, totally psyched and squealing excitedly about what adventures await.  

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

Divergent: I've seen it all before

As I write this, I am watching "The Matrix" on AMC.  This is my absolute favorite movie of all time.  They just "woke" Neo from the dreamworld of the Matrix, and he's about to find out what the real world actually is.  This movie is visually stunning in so many ways.  I've used it to teach about viewing movies with a critical eye.  It's just a delight for a film junkie like me to watch, even if this is the fiftieth time I've seen it (at least).  In addition to its visual appeal, "The Matrix" is a wonderful story about being the master of your own destiny, fate versus free will, and the dangerous reach of technology. It is wholly original.

Which brings me to Veronica Roth's Divergent, a dystopian novel set in a futuristic Chicago.  What does Divergent have to do with "The Matrix?" Nothing, and that's my point. Where "The Matrix" is a highly inventive, groundbreaking movie, Divergent is  a remix of The Hunger Games trilogy with a bit of The Giver thrown in for good measure.

Observe:

As much as her name resembles that of a character out of The Crucible, Beatrice Prior lives not in pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts,  but in post-apocalyptic Chicago. The city (The country? The world? Roth never reveals what lies beyond Lake Shore Drive) has been divided into five factions, each inhabited by people who embody that faction's virtue: Amity, Dauntless, Erudite, Candor, and Abnegation (SAT word alert! Couldn't Roth have just used Selfless?).  At age 16, kids choose the faction in which they will spend the rest of their lives. Generally, that means staying in the faction you're born into.  But not for Beatrice. Never feeling like she wholly belongs in the selfless realm of Abnegation, Beatrice chooses Dauntless. She doesn't know if she's right for Dauntless either, but at least she won't be bored.

As she goes through the miserable, tortuous, often gratuitous initiation process in Dauntless, "Tris" makes a few friends and a few enemies, falls for her initiation trainer (whose name is Four, by the way, which tripped me up occassionally because it wasn't always immediately obvious whether "Four" was referring to the number or the person), leaps from the roof of a skyscraper more than once, and saves her city (world?) from the evil Erudites. Along the way, Tris's narrative treats us to buckets of blood-soaked violence and the usual teenage sexual longing. 

So? You're thinking that Divergent doesn't sound too much like The Hunger Games, except for the choosing ceremony, the training, the smarter-and-braver-than-she-thinks-she-is heroine, and the civil war. What's my beef with this book exactly?  I don't think Veronica Roth gives us a new and interesting heroine here, at least not yet.  Tris is Katniss with tattoos.  The cadence of her speech, her temperament, her gritty vulnerability- they all mimic Katniss, leaving Tris without an original voice.  My hope is that as the trilogy develops, Tris will find her own authentic voice. I also hope that Roth develops some of the other characters into rounder, fuller individuals. The bad guys in Divergent are so bad, just through and through evil with no redeeming qualities, they seem like characatures. And a couple of the more interesting characters got themselves killed already, so I assume they won't be around for books two and three. 

I have one other issue with Divergent: Since when does covering your body in tattoos and piercings equal bravery? How does erudition equate with greed? And why can't children in Abnegation ask questions at the dinner table or look in a mirror? I get what Roth was going for here.  In order to have conflict big enough for war, she wanted the groups to show the extremes of their factions' qualities.  But, it's too much.  What is so brilliant about Lois Lowry's The Giver is the delicacy of its characters.  All of them, from Jonas to Asher to the Giver are so finely drawn. Real people aren't so brutally evil or so utterly selfless. Real people are a messy amalgam of goodness and immorality, nobility and ambivalence; extremes, but also in-betweens.  I didn't get that from Divergent, and that was disappointing.

I'm sure that Divergent will find an audience.  Kids who are lost without Katniss but who feel a bit too old for Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles will enjoy Roth's series.  At least, they'll enjoy the first book.  If, by the third, she has not fleshed these characters out into whole people, patience may run thin. 

Haven: Here We Go Again

Let's play Guess the Book.  I'll tell you some plot tidbits from the book I just read, and you tell me what book it is.  No peeking at the book cover to the left.  It's just there for show, anyway.

A teenage girl moves to a new city and enters a new school.  She is immediately fascinated with one of her classmates.  He's pale and beautiful, and all of her new friends tell her to forget about him. Apparently, he doesn't pay much attention to anyone at school, and he keeps to himself. But, of course, their attraction is supernatural.  The guy our heroine has fallen for is-(gasp!)-a vampire! So, against her better judgment (but right in line with her hormones) she gets involved with the bloodsucker, helps him fight the enemy vampires, yadda, yadda, yadda.

So, what book did I just read? Of course! It was Twilight! Oh, wait...Let me just look at the cover again here...Huh? I wasn't reading a Stephanie Meyer book? Really?  'Cause I could have sworn that...Oh, okay, this one's actually called Haven, and it was written by Kristi Cook.  Let's stroll on over to Miss Cook's website and see what she has to say for herself. Well, what do you know!  Right here in the second paragraph on her homepage, she says of Haven: "Think X-Men meets Twilight." More about my take on this statement later.  For now, my review:

Violet McKenna is a self-proclaimed "freak" who, due to family circumstances, is forced to move from Atlanta to New York with her stepmother. Once in the Empire State, Violet enters Winterhaven School, a boarding school in the Hudson Valley, that she was "drawn to" in a way she cannot explain.  As soon as she settles into her new life, Violet finds out the school's big secret: everyone at Winterhaven has some kind of supernatural power, whether it's telekenesis, clairsentience, astral projection, or, in Violet's case, precognition. For Violet, learning of her school's special students is somewhat comforting.  Now, she doesn't have to be a freak who can see the future.  She's just another student who happens to have a special power.

But all is not perfect for Violet at Winterhaven. She is immediately spellbound by Aidan Gray, a mysterious and beautiful classmate who spends most of his spare time in the school's chemistry lab, working on a secret experiment.  He rarely gives his fellow classmates the time of day, so everyone is surprised that Aidan is just as bewitched by Violet as she is by him. But Aidan harbors a very dark secret, one that puts his life in constant danger, and Violet is drawn into his world despite her own misgivings and her ever more powerful visions of Aidan's death.

Haven is indeed a pageturner. It's highly readable. It is the first book in a planned trilogy, and Miss Cook certainly leaves enough loose ends to justify a sequel. Haven will fit comfortably into Barnes and Noble's "Teen Paranormal Romance" section. Fans of Twilight will find Haven, if not original, then at least satisfying.

But every detail of this book is a cliche, and this brings me back to my earlier point.  I have a problem with books like Haven. By the author's own admission, this book is a combination of plots and characters from other stories. If the X-Men have supernatural powers and Twilight has the vampire romance, why would you write a book that completely rides on the backs of these other stories?  Time after time as I was reading Haven I found myself groaning at yet another hackneyed character or plot point. Girl leaving her old life behind to start over? Check. Mysterious and gorgeous guy she falls for? Check. Vampires? Check. Teenage sexual longing? Check. Initially frightened girl transforms from damsel in distress to plucky heroine? Check. Books like Haven are the reason why I don't read books like Haven!

So, come on, YA novelists! I know these books sell, and that's why they're all out there. But another threadbare plot with the predicatbility of a movie about the Titanic (Yep, it's gonna hit the iceberg again, folks!)? Please, you can do better.  There are a number of wonderful YA authors out there who are pushing the envelope and expanding readers' imaginations: Neal Shusterman, Catherine Fisher, Patrick Ness, Cassandra Clare, Carrie Ryan, James Dashner, Scott Westerfeld, just to name a few of the current authors I respect greatly. Before the second novel in this series comes out, Kristi Cook would do well to take in some of the best new writing for teens.  I think she'd discover that her writing talent could be put to much better use.