Tahereh’s Favorite Things Giveaway! #Furthermore #TaherehMafi

In celebration of the release of Furthermore tomorrow, Penguin asked for a little creativity from bloggers, in addition to providing an awesome prize pack full of Tahereh Mafi's favorite things. I chose the following content:

BOOK-LOOK: Alice lives in a world of color. Born without pigment, she loves to dress in colorful skirts and bangles of every shade – take a style-cue from Alice and share a photo of a brightly-colored outfit inspired by both Furthermore and the ever-stylish Tahereh Mafi.

I've never done a book-look before, but I thought I'd give it a try...

Of course, I had to include fabulous shoes because we're talking about Tahereh Mafi here. But I also wanted to incorporate a fox somehow because a) I love foxes and b) there's one on the cover so it must be pretty important. And I couldn't pass on that adorable elephant coin purse. So. Cute.

I haven't read the book yet, though I do have both the ARC and audio in my possession, so it shouldn't take me long to get through it. :) But it seems like the kind of thing Katie would love, so I'm waiting on her.

Here's a little more about the book:

Title: Furthermore
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Series: stand-alone
Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: August 30, 2016
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Audible

The bestselling author of the Shatter Me series takes readers beyond the limits of their imagination in this captivating new middle grade adventure where color is currency, adventure is inevitable, and friendship is found in the most unexpected places.

There are only three things that matter to twelve-year-old Alice Alexis Queensmeadow: Mother, who wouldn't miss her; magic and color, which seem to elude her; and Father, who always loved her. The day Father disappears from Ferenwood he takes nothing but a ruler with him. But it's been almost three years since then, and Alice is determined to find him. She loves her father even more than she loves adventure, and she's about to embark on one to find the other.

But bringing Father home is no small matter. In order to find him she'll have to travel through the mythical, dangerous land of Furthermore, where down can be up, paper is alive, and left can be both right and very, very wrong. Her only companion is a boy named Oliver whose own magical ability is based in lies and deceit--and with a liar by her side in a land where nothing is as it seems, it will take all of Alice's wits (and every limb she's got) to find Father and return home to Ferenwood in one piece. On her quest to find Father, Alice must first find herself--and hold fast to the magic of love in the face of loss.

And thanks to Penguin Random House, not only did I receive a copy for review purposes, but I've been given the opportunity to give away the following prize pack:

One (1) winner will receive the following:

· a copy of Furthermore

· an Egg Cream Mask

· an Advanced Brightening Sleeping Facial

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway open to US addresses only.
Prizing and samples provided by Penguin Random House.

About the author:

Tahereh Mafi is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Shatter Me series. She can usually be found over-caffeinated and stuck in a book.

She was born in a small city somewhere in Connecticut and currently resides in Santa Monica, California, where she drinks too much caffeine and finds the weather to be just a little too perfect for her taste.

When unable to find a book, she can be found reading candy wrappers, coupons, and old receipts.

Find Tahereh:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Tumblr | Instagram

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Labels: book look, furthermore, giveaways, middle-grade, penguin, promotions, tahereh mafi

{Blog Tour} Overboard by Elizabeth Fama: Review & Giveaway

Welcome to my stop on the Overboard Blog Tour, hosted by Dianne of Oops! I Read a Book Again. I've got a review and giveaway for you, but be sure to check out the rest of the tour for more awesome content, including reviews from other bloggers and excerpts from the book!

Title: Overboard
Author: Elizabeth Fama
Series: stand-alone
Publisher: CreateSpace
Publication Date: June 9, 2015 (first published January 1, 2002)
Source: PB provided by author for review
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

She swam up for what seemed like an eternity, with her chest so achingly empty it felt as if it had collapsed, seeing only white bubbles in front of her face until she broke the surface.

One moment of rashness, and fourteen-year-old Emily Slake finds herself amid hundreds of panicked and drowning people in the dark ocean waters off Sumatra. Miles from shore without a life vest, she resolves to survive. But in facing the dangers of the ocean, the desperation of her fellow survivors, and her own growing exhaustion, Emily must summon wits and endurance she's not sure she has.

Striking out on her own, Emily encounters Isman, a frightened young Muslim boy, floating in a life vest. Together they swim for their lives, relying on Emily's physical strength and Isman's quiet faith.

Based on a true story, Overboard is both a riveting tale of survival and a sensitive portrayal of cross-cultural understanding in a time of crisis.

I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Fama's after reading her dark and haunting Monstrous Beauty, and I was even further overcome by her beautiful words in Plus One. Plus, she's just an all-around awesome individual. So I was beyond excited to be given the opportunity to read her first book now that it's gone to print again.

I'm not always the biggest fan of survival accounts, but Emily's story had my heart in my throat the entire time. Initially, I found her character a tad immature and more than a little whiney, but then I remembered how I behaved at fourteen, and yeah, I would have loathed having my parents drag me to some developing country where I had no friends and little chance at a more conventional life. Plus, Emily really grows up over the course of the narrative and proves to be much more intelligent and quick-thinking than I ever was at that age.

Emily encounters a lot of situations that require her to pull from her life experience thus far, and it's her ability to think on her feet that ensures she survives to meet the next problem head-on. First and foremost, she has to make it off the sinking ferry, which is no small feat, but then she's thrown into a series of surreal episodes that would change any adult, let alone a kid of fourteen. I think her experience in the sea left her reevaluating everything, and she'll be quite a different person coming out the other side of such a tragedy.

This is not just a book about survival but also one of friendship. When we meet Emily, she feels rather desolate and longs for home. I think Beth so beautifully portrays what Emily's life is like as an American girl in a developing foreign country. After two years, she's learned the language and the customs, but she still feels like an outsider, as if she'll never fit into this life. And yet she does, without even realizing it. It's never more evident than when she meets British tourists on holiday in Sumatra, with their lack of knowledge of the local culture and the fact that they don't seem to care to know. It so obviously rubs Emily the wrong way, but she doesn't mention it.

Despite all of that, friendship presents itself in the most unlikely of scenarios, with Emily tying her life to that of a nine-year-old boy who needs her as much as she needs him to make it out of this situation alive. The fact that there is no language barrier makes it that much easier for Emily to convince Isman to let her help him. I wholeheartedly believe that if Emily was truly as unhappy in Indonesia as she believes she is in the beginning, she never would have made the effort to learn the language and she would have been much less successful out in the open sea -- much less dry land -- especially when it came to communicating with the other survivors.

I had planned to read this with my seven-year-old daughter because it sounded like such an inspirational story, and one with wonderfully diverse characters at that, but after much discussion with the author and after reading through it myself first, I decided that I'd wait a few years before letting Katie experience this fantastic book. Beth believes that this book reads younger, like a middle grade, and I'm inclined to agree, but there are still some situations that would likely give younger children nightmares, or at the very least, have them asking questions that they're maybe not quite ready for the answers to yet. But I have no doubt that when she's ready, my daughter will absolutely love this story of a heroic girl in a strange land as much as I did.

GIF it to me straight:

About the author:

Plus One was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in April, 2014. A 2015 RITA award finalist, Plus One was also a highlighted book in VOYA magazine, and was listed among the "Top 12 Young Adult Books of 2014" in the Huffington Post.

Monstrous Beauty, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in September, 2012. It won won the 2013 Odyssey Honor Award, and was included on the 2013 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults list and the 2013 YALSA Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults list.

My first novel, Overboard (Cricket Books, 2002), was named a 2003 Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association (one of only eleven books selected unanimously by the committee that year). It received the 2002-2003 honor award from the Society of Midland Authors, and it was nominated for five state readers' choice awards (New Hampshire, Texas, Illinois, Utah, and Florida).

Find Elizabeth:

Website | Twitter | Tumblr | Goodreads

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to follow the rest of the tour here! Thanks for stopping by & happy reading!

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Labels: amazon children's publishing, blog tour, diversity, elizabeth fama, favorite authors, giveaways, middle-grade, overboard, tough subject

{Guest Post} Finding the Worm by Mark Goldblatt

I don't read nearly as much Middle Grade fiction as I'd like to, but when the publicist for Finding the Worm contacted me about the title, I was admittedly intrigued. This book is a companion/stand-alone sequel to Twerp by Mark Goldblatt, and both novels sound like something I'd like my own kiddo to read. Katie's only in first grade right now, but I'm sure she experiences some of the same things Julian deals with in the sixth grade. I know I did. Here's a little more about the book:

FINDING THE WORM

By Mark Goldblatt

In stores now!!! 

Order Finding the Worm: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Here's the blurb:

Trouble always seems to find thirteen-year-old Julian Twerski. First it was a bullying incident, and now he’s been accused of vandalizing a painting. The principal doesn’t want to suspend him again, so instead, he asks Julian to write a 200-word essay on good citizenship. Julian writes 200 no’s instead, and so begins an epic struggle between Julian and his principal.

Being falsely accused is bad enough, but outside of school, Julian’s dealing with even bigger issues. His friend Quentin has been really sick. How can life be fair when the nicest guy in your group has cancer? Julian’s faith and friendships are put to the test . . . and the stakes have never been higher.

Growing up is hard enough without adding all that to your plate...

by Mark Goldblatt

I’ve been touring for a few months now for Finding The Worm, the sequel to my 2013 novel Twerp, and I’m surprised how often I’m asked why Julian Twerski, the narrator of both books, is so clueless about girls. There’s a lot of highfalutin stuff going on in Julian’s 12-13 year old mind—in the first book, he’s wrestling against his own conscience, and in the second he’s struggling with the age old question of why bad things happen to good people. But readers seem to home in on the fact that’s he’s a total nitwit in matters of romance.

It’s embarrassing to confess, therefore, that the reason Julian is clueless about girls is that he’s based on me, and at that age I was pretty clueless about girls. (How much that’s changed in the intervening three-and-a-half decades is debatable.) One of the most painful memories of my childhood, for example, is the time love cost me my Bobby Murcer rookie baseball card….

Bobby Murcer, in case the name doesn't ring a bell, was a New York Yankee baseball player in the late 1960s. I idolized him. I lived and died with his every at bat. I cut out articles about him from the newspaper and pasted them into a spiral-bound scrapbook; I learned to convert fractions to decimals by calculating his batting average. Heck, I even liked his name. Murcer was a true Bobby. It was his actual first name. Not Robert. Not Rob. Not Bob. That tickled me: I mean, Bobby was something you were called, not something you were named! Bobby Kennedy was Robert Francis Kennedy. Bobby Darin was Walden Robert Cassotto. But Bobby Murcer was, well, Bobby Murcer. No Robert about it. That sealed the deal. My devotion to him was absolute.

My prize possession was his 1967 rookie baseball card. I can still see it in my mind’s eye: Bobby’s face was so round and lit up by a smile that his teammates would nickname him “Lemon.” When Murcer was hitting, life was good. Existential concerns were not to forget my clip-on tie on assembly-Thursdays and not to flinch when I got my booster shots. Thanksgiving dinners with grown up relatives were to be endured because aunts and uncles arrived with 10-packs of Topps baseball cards…always the old series, to be sure, but even these were useful to scale during recess and as trade-bait whenever a teacher left the room. Such were the Edenic days of card collecting, when the idea of resale would have been laughable, indeed incomprehensible, when “got it” and “need it” were the sole determinants of free-market worth. I kept my Bobby Murcer rookie card not in the sock drawer, with the rest of my cards, but on my desk, leaning against the base of my tensor lamp, where I could keep an eye on it. It was the first thing I saw when I woke up every morning. Puberty, that source of unending mischief and chagrin, was what cost me my Bobby Murcer card. In a moment of weakness, I gave the card to Heidi Rifkin, the first girl I ever got to like me. To consecrate our eternal union, she insisted we exchange our most precious possessions. Heidi gave me her 45 rpm single of Bobby Sherman (Robert Cabot Sherman!) singing “Little Woman.” I forked over Bobby Murcer. It was the sort of gesture only the nitwitted sincerity of a thirteen year old boy can produce; had I handed her Joe Pepitone instead of Bobby Murcer, she would've never known the difference….

You’ve probably guessed the ending by now. When Heidi and I broke up less than a month later, she flung the card back in my face. In two pieces. (Her Bobby Sherman record, I might add, was returned without a scratch.) She’d sheared the card in half, straight down the middle. The cut was precise, surgical. Scotch tape does no good in such situations. I didn’t even keep the halves.

So, yeah, I guess some of my naiveté and befuddlement with the opposite sex bleeds into the character of Julian. What can I say? Le twerp…c’est moi!

About the author:

MARK GOLDBLATT is a lot like Julian Twerski, only not as interesting. He is a widely published columnist, a novelist, and a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Twerp was his first book for younger readers. He lives in New York City.

Find Mark:

Website | Goodreads

OMG, that might be the cutest guest post I've ever had the pleasure of hosting on the blog. That period between being a child and a full-fledged adult is sometimes difficult and sometimes awful, but we wouldn't have stories like the one the author shared if it weren't for those trying times. =) It makes me want to read and share these books with my girl that much more.

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Labels: guest post, mark goldblatt, middle-grade, random house, twerp

#Tuck40th -- 40 Days for 40 Years: Tuck Everlasting Blog Tour

I didn't discover the magic of Tuck Everlasting until the movie's release was imminent back in 2002 or so, but I'm one of those people who can't see a movie until they've read the book, so I promptly devoured -- and fell in love with -- the story. I love a book that challenges its readers:  to challenge themselves, to think outside of the box, to think of the future, or to think about all the possibilities of a life really lived.

As part of the 40 Days for 40 Years:  Tuck Everlasting Blog Tour, each blogger on the tour has been asked the same question that Tuck Everlasting has been asking for 40 years:

"What if you could live forever?"

Duh, I'd read all the books ever.

Seriously, though, IF I could -- and I'm not saying I'd necessarily want to -- but if I could live forever, it'd need to be an immortal existence where my presence didn't cause humankind any great harm. Think more like The Doctor and less like blood-sucking vampires, and you'd have what I'm envisioning. I'd want to spend my eternity seeing anything and experiencing everything. I'd take risks, do all the things that I'm afraid to do now. When you know death is next-to impossible to achieve -- if at all -- the world is at your fingertips. I wouldn't say I'd traipse across the globe, acting as if my actions had no consequences. But I'd definitely let my inner adrenaline-junkie loose more often.

However, I don't know that I could take that path and drink from the fountain myself. It would be thrilling at first, I'm sure. To see so much change, so many technological advances...it would be a marvel. But it would also be a very lonely existence. It would be a life of loss and isolation, never blending in or being able to make close attachments. Not unless you had a fellow immortal to traverse time with.

Either way, the questions this book asked made me appreciate this one life I've been given all the more...the first time I read it and again, more than a decade later. Whether you're reading it for the first time or the fifth, I hope Tuck Everlasting gives you something to think about, too.

Title: Tuck Everlasting: 40th Anniversary Edition
Author: Natalie Babbitt
Series: stand-alone
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
Publication Date: January 20th, 2015 -- that's tomorrow!
Pre-order from Macmillan

Tuck Everlasting asks readers “What if you could live forever?” Doomed to, or blessed with, eternal life after drinking from a magic spring, the Tuck family wanders about trying to live as inconspicuously and comfortably as they can. When ten-year-old Winnie Foster stumbles on their secret, the Tucks take her home and explain why living forever at one age is less of a blessing than it might seem. Then complications arise when Winnie is followed by a stranger who wants to market the spring water for a fortune.

Upon the book’s publication in 1975, Natalie was greeted with concern from parents and educators who were stunned to read a book about death written for children. She is an author who challenges her readers and thinks the best questions are the ones without answers.

With a brand-new introduction from Gregory Maguire, the author of Wicked, and additional bonus materials, this 40th anniversary will introduce a whole new generation to this timeless classic. The book has sold over 3.5 million copies in the US alone, and has never been out of print since publication.

Image Source

About the author:

NATALIE BABBITT is the award-winning author of Tuck Everlasting, The Eyes of the Amaryllis, Knee-Knock Rise, and many other brilliantly original books for young people. She began her career in 1966 as the illustrator of The Forty-Ninth Magician, a collaboration with her husband. When her husband became a college president and no longer had time to collaborate, Babbitt tried her hand at writing. Her first novel, The Search for Delicious, established her gift for writing magical tales with profound meaning. Knee-Knock Rise earned her a Newbery Honor, and in 2002, Tuck Everlasting was adapted into a major motion picture. Natalie Babbitt lives in Connecticut, and is a grandmother of three.

Find Natalie:

Website | Goodreads | IMDb

So, this all begs the question:  What if you could live forever? Would you drink from the spring?

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Labels: anniversary, blog tour, favorites, historical fiction, immortals, macmillan, middle-grade, natalie babbitt, tuck everlasting, tuck40th

Review: Shipwreck Island by S.A. Bodeen

Title: Shipwreck Island
Author: S.A. Bodeen
Series: Shipwreck Island #1
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Publishing Group
Publication Date: June 29th, 2014
Source: From Publisher via NetGalley
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Sarah Robinson is deeply troubled in the wake of her dad’s second marriage. She now has to deal with a new stepmom and two stepbrothers, Marco, who is her age, and Nacho, who’s younger. Even though they’ve all moved from Texas to California to start life as a new, blended family, none of the kids seem remotely happy about it.

Sarah’s dad and stepmom then decide to take the whole family on a special vacation in order to break the ice and have everyone get to know one another. They’ll fly to Tahiti, charter a boat, and go sailing for a few days. It’ll be an adventure, right?

Wrong. Dead wrong. Shipwreck Island is the first installment in a series from S.A. Bodeen.

Shipwreck Island is short. Really short. It’s the first book in a series. I did not realize that until I had finished reading, but it is mentioned in the description. I don’t know how I missed that.

Anyway, I still would have requested and read it otherwise, but maybe I wouldn’t have been so surprised when it just stopped. I mean, it just stops. No real leading into the next book, just….

 *cricket sounds*

It’s told from two point of views. Marco and Sarah. Their parents have married and neither are happy about it. Sarah is a bit of a spoiled snot, honestly, and she was hard to stomach at times. I think by the end of the series she will grow up a lot.

Shipwreck Island was fun. I haven’t read middle grade in a while so I had to adjust to the main characters only being 12. No swoon scenes here. I was pretty sure from the description that this would be a survival story. You know, surviving on a deserted island. That’s interesting stuff. I was wrong though, this is not a normal island. There is definitely some survival stuff but weird things started happening and the story began to take on a paranormal feel.

And then… it stopped. Things just started to get crazy and interesting. I was sad in my heart. I guess I’ll have to wait for the next installment. What I read so far, I liked. It wasn’t blow me away amazing, but it was fast and interesting. I think I'll continue with this series. :)

About the author:


Also writes as Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen.

Stephanie is the award-winning author of the Elizabeti's Doll series of picture books, as well as several others. Her first young adult novel The Compound was released in 2008 and recently won the Maryland BlackEyedSusan Award, Nebraska Golden Sower Award, and the Indiana Young Hoosier Award. Her second YA The Gardener was featured on Good Morning America as a Best Summer Teen Read, and her third YA The Raft was recently named a 2013 Tayshas list title. The Fallout will be released September 2013 from Feiwel and Friends/MacMillan

Find Stephanie:

Website  | Facebook | Goodreads

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Labels: macmillan, middle-grade, reviews, S.A. Bodeen, shipwreck island

Judging a Book By Its Cover #17: A Kid's Perspective on Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Okay, so I totally stole this idea from Sara at Forever 17 Books, who got the idea from an article on Babble called Judging a Book by Its Cover: A 6-year-old Guesses What Classic Novels Are All About.  I just discovered her lovely segment, and I immediately requested forced my own four-year-old daughter Katie to provide me with some of her own cover art artwork and then asked her what she thought the book was about.



This week, Katie gave me her take on the following book:

"Her's going away from her old house because her wants to see her old mom and dad a lot more.  And sometimes, she sees ghosts by her bed."

Cover Art

Coraline as envisioned by Katiebug

Okay, so we own the movie, so she kinda already knew the storyline, but she got a tad confused when she was telling me about it.  Still, it's been awhile since she's seen it, and I don't think we've ever read the book together, so I'm pretty proud that she remembers that much of it.

Have you read this book or do you plan to?  What do you think of Katie's guess at the premise?  

Did your little darling create a work of art based on a book this week? If so, be sure to link up with Sara over at Forever 17 Books.

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Labels: coraline, cover art, cover redesigns, favorites, from book to screen, judging a book by its cover, katiebug, middle-grade, neil gaiman

Banned Books Week Giveaway Hop 2012

From the American Library Association's website: "Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.

The books featured during Banned Books Week have been targets of attempted bannings. Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections. Imagine how many more books might be challenged—and possibly banned or restricted—if librarians, teachers, and booksellers across the country did not use Banned Books Week each year to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society."

It's amazing to me just how many great literary works have been banned over the years (including To Kill a Mockingbird...one of the greatest books ever written) and the reasons listed for the bannings.  Even some more recent favorites have made the list, including Harry Potter and The Hunger Games.  One of my favorite series ever --His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman -- last made the list back in 2008 due to political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, and violence.

I disagree with the inclusion of any and all of the books on that list, but especially this series.  And so I'm going to give you guys the freedom to read it, to like it or hate it....just don't tell me if you hate it.  I'll be crushed.  :0(

Published in 40 countries, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy – The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass – has graced the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Book Sense, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists.

The Golden Compass forms the first part of a story in three volumes. The first volume is set in a world like ours, but different in many ways. The second volume is set partly in the world we know. The third moves between many worlds.

In The Golden Compass, readers meet 11-year-old Lyra Belacqua, a precocious orphan growing up within the precincts of Jordan College in Oxford, England. It quickly becomes clear that Lyra's Oxford is not precisely like our own—nor is her world. In Lyra's world, everyone has a personal dæmon, a lifelong animal familiar. This is a world in which science, theology and magic are closely intertwined.

The Subtle Knife is the second part of the trilogy that began with The Golden Compass. That first book was set in a world like ours, but different. This book begins in our own world.

In The Subtle Knife, readers are introduced to Will Parry, a young boy living in modern-day Oxford, England. Will is only twelve years old, but he bears the responsibilities of an adult. Following the disappearance of his explorer-father, John Parry, during an expedition in the North, Will became parent, provider and protector to his frail, confused mother. And it's in protecting her that he becomes a murderer, too: he accidentally kills a man who breaks into their home to steal valuable letters written by John Parry. After placing his mother in the care of a kind friend, Will takes those letters and sets off to discover the truth about his father.

The Amber Spyglass brings the intrigue of The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife to a heartstopping close, marking the third and final volume as the most powerful of the trilogy. Along with the return of Lyra, Will, Mrs. Coulter, Lord Asriel, Dr. Mary Malone, and Iorek Byrnison the armored bear, The Amber Spyglass introduces a host of new characters: the Mulefa, mysterious wheeled creatures with the power to see Dust; Gallivespian Lord Roke, a hand-high spy-master to Lord Asriel; and Metatron, a fierce and mighty angel. And this final volume brings startling revelations, too: the painful price Lyra must pay to walk through the land of the dead, the haunting power of Dr. Malone's amber spyglass, and the names of who will live—and who will die—for love. And all the while, war rages with the Kingdom of Heaven, a brutal battle that—in its shocking outcome—will reveal the secret of Dust.

These Yearling paperback editions each contain bonus material: the found papers, notes, and other archival material of Lord Asriel, Dr. Stanislaus Grumman, and Mary Malone. They also feature chapter-opening artwork by Philip Pullman.

And now I must find the time to fit in a re-read.  =D

Rules:

• US residents only, unless you can provide a US shipping address. 
• One entry per household.
• All entries will be verified.  Any entry found to be falsified will result in disqualification of all entries for that participant.
• Winner will be notified via email.  Winner will then have 48 hours to respond before another winner will be selected.  And, people, check your SPAM folders...I've had to reach out more than once to some winners because they "didn't get the first email."  I don't want to, but I'm going to have to start just picking new winners.  :C
• I am not responsible for lost packages.

And now on to the fun stuff!  You only have to follow my blog to enter, but all other entries/follows are appreciated!  :D

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now that you've entered here, be sure to check out the other 100+ giveaway stops on this blog hop:

 

Good luck & happy reading!

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Labels: banned books, boxed sets, favorites, giveaway hops, giveaways, his dark materials, middle-grade, must-read, philip pullman, random house

Vacation Reads Giveaway Hop

Seems like everyone's on vacation this week but me.  :0(  But I'm not gonna let it get me down.  Instead, I'm going to give another book away.  Sharing books makes my heart happy.  :D  The Vacation Reads Giveaway Hop is hosted by I am a Reader, Not a Writer and The Bookish Mama, and for my stop, I'm not giving away your typical vacation read.  No, I'm giving away a book that more likely resembles a vacation-from-hell:

Title:  Lost Girls
Author:  Ann Kelley
Series:  stand-alone
Publisher:  Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication Date:  July 10, 2012
Purchase:  Amazon | Barnes & Noble

No parents. No rules. No way home.

Fourteen-year-old Bonnie MacDonald couldn't be more excited for a camping trip on an island off the coast of Thailand with her fellow Amelia Earhart Cadets-the daughters of the men and women stationed there during the Vietnam War. But when a strong current deposits the girls on what their boatman calls the "forbidden island," things take a turn for the worse: A powerful storm comes to destroy their campsite, the smallest of the junior cadets is found dead, and their boatman never returns. What once seemed like a vacation in paradise has become a battle against the elements.

Peppered with short, frantic entries from Bonnie's journal, Lost Girls is a page-turning, heart-pounding adventure story about a group of teen girls fighting for their lives.

I haven't read this yet, but my sweet little friend Katertot did and she wanted to give it a billion stars!  I won't get to it for awhile, so I'm giving my ARC away to someone who will!

Rules:

• US residents only, sorry, unless you can provide a US shipping address.
• One entry per household.
• All entries will be verified.  Any entry found to be falsified will result in disqualification of all entries for that participant.
• Winner will be notified via email.  Winner will then have 48 hours to respond before another winner will be selected.
• I am not responsible for lost packages, but I do use delivery confirmation via USPS, so this should not be a problem.

And now on to the fun stuff!  You only have to follow my blog to enter, but all other entries/follows are appreciated!  (And they make me giddy and more likely to host another giveaway real soon!  :D)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And now that you've entered here, be sure to check out the other stops on this giveaway hop:

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Labels: giveaway hops, giveaways, hachette, middle-grade