Ally Condie concludes Matched series with 'Reached'

The final book in the Matched trilogy, Reached, is finally out today! If you've already read Matched and Crossed, don't forget to place a hold on a copy of Reached.

"Divergent" tops 2012 Teens' Top 10!

From August 15 to September 15, teens across the country voted for the best books of the year from the nominated titles. These are the books they selected for the 2012 Teens' Top 10:

1. Divergent by Veronica Roth
2. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
3. Legend by Marie Lu
4. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
5. What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen
6. Across the Universe by Beth Revis
7. Cinder by Marissa Meyer
8. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
9. Where She Went by Gayle Forman
10. Abandon by Meg Cabot

I was not surprised by the results at all, because the books on this list are checked out more often than they are on the shelves at Dundee! Have you read any of the Top 10? Did any of your favorites not make the list?

Competitive Gaming tournament photos

Twenty teens attended last Tuesday's dual tournament meeting of Competitive Gaming Club! Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (PS3) were the two games played in the tournament. We also had a third game system set up for people who just wanted to play for fun.

First place in each tournament received a $15 gift card to GameStop. Second and third place winners picked out a game poster of their choice. Photos of the winners:

Clockwise from left: Competitive Gaming Club president Jake congratulates Marko (1st place finishers in Tekken) and Roger (1st place in Smash Bros.); top 3 finishers in Tekken tournament; top 3 finishers in Smash Bros. tournament

After both tournaments concluded the gamers continued to play Brawl, PS3, and Wii games. And there also were a few Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh games going on as well!

Please join us for our next meeting of the Competitive Gaming Club on Thursday, November 29 at 6:30 pm!

Sign up now for the WrestleMania Reading Challenge!

Are you a WWE fan? Do you want to win a trip to New Jersey to attend WrestleMania 29? If you are in grades 5-12 you are eligible to enter the WrestleMania Reading Challenge.

All you have to do is 1) write a letter to your favorite WWE superstar convincing him or her to read your favorite book and 2) pledge to read 5 books. You may read the 5 books anytime from now through April 7, 2013 (the date of WrestleMania 29).

Sign up at the Dundee Library's Information Desk and receive your entry forms. You may also download and print the forms from home:

Competitive Project Form
Pledge Form

Both forms and your letter are due to the Information Desk by Monday, November 15.

One finalist from each age group (grades 5-6, 7-8, and 9-12) at the Dundee Library will move on to the next round of judging. In January, 18 finalists from across the country will be selected to win a trip to East Rutherford, NJ, to WrestleMania 29.

Last year, the Dundee Library's own Sleepy Hollow teen Kenyan Gustafson was a winner and traveled to Miami to attend WrestleMania 28!

In November, I will also hold a drawing for a Target gift card and other prizes from all entry forms received.

Call the Information Desk or email Danielle (dpacini@dundeelibrary.info) with any questions.

October programs for teens

If you are interested in attending any of these programs, you can click on the link to register, or call 847-428-3661 x 5876.

Teen Gaming Club
TONIGHT! at 6:30 pm (in the Meeting Room)
Come hang out with your friends and have fun playing Wii and PS3 games! Bring along your DS and battle each other! Play Yu-Gi-Oh! Feel free to bring in your own games and controllers. Snacks and refreshments provided

Competitive Gaming
Tuesday, October 9 at 6:30 pm (in the Meeting Room)
Come participate in our 2nd tournament! The games are Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

TAG Meeting
Wednesday, October 10 at 6:30 pm (in the Craft Room)
The library is looking for new TAG members to help plan teen programs and share what they would like to do at the library. At this meeting we'll also work on fun autumn decorations for the teen area!

Anime Club
Tuesday, October 23 at 7 pm (in the Meeting Room)
We're having a Halloween Party with games, fun snacks, and a raffle for prizes! Costumes are encouraged!

New from Neal Shusterman, Julie Kagawa, Melissa Marr, & more!

Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction edited by Carrie Ryan Fourteen stories that delve into the obsession with life's unknowns and the prospect of altering the future, by such authors as Meg Cabot, Diana Peterfreund, and Michael Grant.
	UnWholly by Neal Shusterman Thanks to Connor, Lev, and Risa, and their high-profile revolt at Happy Jack Harvest Camp, people can no longer turn a blind eye to unwinding. Ridding society of troublesome teens and, in the same stroke, providing much-needed tissues for transplant might be convenient, but its morality has finally been brought into question. However, unwinding has become big business, and there are powerful political and corporate interests that want to see it not only continue, but expand, allowing the unwinding of prisoners and the impoverished. Cam is a teen who does not exist. He is made entirely out of the parts of other unwinds. Cam, a 21st century Frankenstein, struggles with a search for identity and meaning, as well as the concept of his own soul, if indeed a rewound being can have one.
The Iron Legends by Julie Kagawa Three Iron Fey novellas for the first time in print!
	Outpost by Ann Aguirre Deuce struggles for respect in a new topside town where she is treated like a child and avoided by Fade, a situation that compels her to volunteer for patrol duty and protect topside citizens from an unexpected upsurge in Freak activity. #2 in the Razorlands series.
Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr A centuries-long war between daimons and witches sets the stage for three teens caught up in a deadly struggle for power and autonomy in the exotic and otherworldly Carnival of Souls, the mercantile center of the daimon dimension.
	Origin by Jessica Khoury Pia has grown up in a secret laboratory hidden deep in the Amazon rain forest. She was raised by a team of scientists who have created her to be the start of a new immortal race. But on the night of her seventeenth birthday, Pia discovers a hole in the electric fence that surrounds her sterile home--and sneaks outside the compound for the first time in her life. Free in the jungle, Pia meets Eio, a boy from a nearby village. Together, they embark on a race against time to discover the truth about Pia's origin--a truth with deadly consequences that will change their lives forever.
Such Wicked Intent by Kenneth Oppel When his grieving father orders the destruction of the Dark Library, Victor retrieves a book in which he finds the promise of not just communicating with the dead, but entering their realm, and soon he, Elizabeth, and Henry are in the spirit world of Chateau Frankenstein, creating and growing a body.

New from Maggie Stiefvater, Libba Bray, and more

The Diviners by Libba Bray Seventeen-year-old Evie O'Neill is thrilled when she is exiled from small-town Ohio to New York City in 1926, even when a rash of occult-based murders thrusts Evie and her uncle, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, into the thick of the investigation.
	Seconds Away: A Mickey Bolitar Novel by Harlan Coben When tragedy strikes close to home, Mickey Bolitar and his new friends find themselves at the center of a murder mystery. This book is the second in a series that began with last year's Shelter.
Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian Three teenaged girls living on Jar Island band together to enact revenge on the people that have hurt them
	The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive. Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them--not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble. But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can't entirely explain. He has it all--family money, good looks, devoted friends--but he's looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little. For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

Tilt by Ellen Hopkins out today!

Ellen Hopkins is known for her popular novels in verse about issues affecting teens, including Crank, Impulse, and last year's Perfect. I like her style of writing and how she often tells a story from the points of view of several characters. Whenever I read an Ellen Hopkins book, I really feel and understand what a character is going through, which, at times, can be very painful.

Tilt is another book in which the reader hears the story from several characters. In this case, teenangers Shane, Mikayla, and Harley talk about their relationships and love.

Tilt by Ellen Hopkins

New books just released!

The Rise of Nine by Pittacus Lore

#3 in the Lorien Legacies series

Over You by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

The Raft by S.A. Bodeen

New books out today, 8/14

Michael Vey: Rise of the Elgen by Richard Paul Evans
#2 in the Michael Vey series

The Kill Order by James Dashner
Prequel to the Maze Runner series

New to the shelves this week

Nevermore by James Patterson

Final book in the popular Maximum Ride series!

Rift by Andrea Cremer

The prequel to the Nightshade series

Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

The second book in the series, following Anna Dressed in Blood

Wake by Amanda Hocking

1st book in the new Watersong series

"The Rise of Nine" book trailer

You've read I Am Number Four and The Power of Six. Now get ready for the third book in the Lorien Legacies series, The Rise of Nine, which hits bookshelves August 21:

Don't forget to place The Rise of Nine on hold if you haven't already!

The rest of the summer reading weekly winners!

Summer reading came to a close on Saturday. At the end of weeks 3-8 we pulled winners from the Recommended Read entries that had been received up to that point. Each winner received a $10 Target gift card. Thank you to everyone who participated in summer reading, filled out reading logs, and submitted Recommended Read entries!

Week 6 winners:

Samantha, who recommended What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones:
"It's a very sweet book and I like it so much that I don't see why anybody couldn't like it. It is now my fav. book." 

Glorielly, who recommended Smile by Raina Telgemeier:
"It's REALLY REALLY funny! And it's a comic book so it's a quick read but I love it cause it's realistic. All the things are believable and real. There are twists and turns but it's all real."

Week 7 winners:

Bailey, who recommended The Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan:
"There was lots of action and had a good ending."

Amanda, who recommended Tall Cool One by Zoey Dean:
"It was very intriguing. It's so interesting to see how the super rich and famous live. I loved how outrageously glamorous the hotel, Las Casitas, in Mexico was."

Week 8 winners:

Jackie, who recommended New Moon by Stephenie Meyer:
"It was very exciting, you can really feel everything going on in the story. I really enjoyed reading this book and cannot wait to read the next one!"

Alexis, who recommended Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles:
"Simone Elkeles is a great author because she writes like teenagers talk. That is what catches teens' attention someone that talks how they talk especially an author so they get more interested in reading more books." 

Alyssa, who recommended The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart:
"It is an easy read for older kids, but if you're looking for adventure, it's the book for. Kids are put through a system of tests to save the world. How can you beat that?"

The next book in the Lying Game series is out today

The latest book in The Lying Game series is Hide and Seek:

This is the fourth book in the series. Catch up with previous installments: The Lying Game, Never Have I Ever, and Two Truths and a Lie.

Teens recommend books by Rick Riordan

Summer reading ended on Saturday. Teens turned in over 100 Recommended Read slips with their picks on what to read over the summer. Rick Riordan is one author whose books continued to pop up on the Recommended Read entries. He is the author of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Heroes of Olympus, and Kane Chronicles series. Here teens explain why his books are so great:

The Lightning Thief: "It puts a whole different spin on the Greek Gods and myths." -- Kenyan "I'm sure almost everyone has read this book but this recommendation is for those who haven't! This book itself is a great book and so are the books that follow in the series. It's also historical!" -- Glorielly
	The Serpent's Shadow: "It corporates Egyptian mythology into a modern culture, which causes some very interesting scenarios. The characters are well formed, and described aptly enough so that one can feel for their trials and troubles." -- Hannah
The Battle of the Labyrinth: "Rick Riordan does an excellent job continuing his story. He also has some very well-placed sarcasm and very 'teen' remarks." -- Kenyan
	The Son of Neptune: "Every chapter makes you want to read more and more." - Stephanie
The Titan's Curse "I love Greek mythology. The book includes some of the actual Greek myths and Gods and Goddesses." -- Bailey

Summer reading weekly winners so far!

Throughout summer reading teens have been filling out Recommended Read entries about books they've read. At the end of each week I draw winners from the entries for $10 Target gift cards. Here are our winners so far, along with the books they recommend:

Week 3 winner:
Nathan, who recommended Ultimate Spider-Man: Ultimate Collection by Brian Michael Bendis:  "It was a great read and unlike most Spider-Man stories I understood the pop culture references."

Week 4 winner:
Hannah, who recommended Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas by Maya Angelou: "Maya Angelou is a fascinating person. This, her third autobiography, describes just more of her adventures. She is a fantastic author, and makes you rejoice in her triumphs and cringe over her mistakes. It is an exciting book: for how can you not be excited about someone who's lived their lives to the fullest?"

Week 5 winners:
Abigail, who recommended The Council of Mirrors by Michael Buckley: "It is full of magic and adventure. It has partial romance and partial pranks. BEST BOOK I'VE EVER READ!"

Deniz, who recommended A Beautiful Dark by Jocelyn Davies: "It's a book where nothing is obvious and predictable. You will keep reading to find out what suspenseful surprise pops up next."

Keep checking the blog for more Recommended Reads!