Demons, compost, prize winners, yearbooks, Y.A.

We got lots of great books in over the past couple of days. This time around, they’re mainly of the Y.A. variety, so share the news! We hope to see some new faces in soon!

– “Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book” by Johanna Basford
Tumble down the rabbit hole and find yourself in an inky black-and-white wonderland.
This interactive activity book takes you on a ramble through a secret garden created in beautifully detailed pen-and-ink illustrations—all waiting to be brought to life through coloring, but each also sheltering all kinds of tiny creatures just waiting to be found. And there are also bits of the garden that still need to be completed by you.
Appealing to all ages, the intricately-realized world of the Secret Garden is both beautiful and inspirational.

– “Compost: A Family Guide to Making Soil from Scraps” by Ben Raskin
Set your family on the path to a planet-friendly lifestyle with this fun guide to compost–what it is, how to make it, how to maintain it.  Includes games, stickers, and more!

Teach your kids that composting is fun with this funky guide that takes you from the nitty-gritty of compost composition and care to Worms and Ladders, a fresh take on a traditional board game. Find out the rules for setting up your very own Worm Lovers’ Society, learn all about the garden-to-plate cycle together, and get your family’s feet firmly set on the road to a planet-friendly lifestyle. Includes information on both kitchen and garden composting.

– “12 Years a Slave” by Solomon Northrup
Solomon Northup was born a free man in New York State. At the age of 33 he was kidnapped in Washington D.C. and placed in an underground slave pen. Northup was transported by ship to New Orleans where he was sold into slavery. He spent the next 12 years working as a carpenter, driver, and cotton picker. This narrative reveals how Northup survived the harsh conditions of slavery, including smallpox, lashings, and an attempted hanging. Solomon Northup was among a select few who were freed from slavery. His account describes the daily life of slaves in Louisiana, their diet and living conditions, the relationship between master and slave, and how slave catchers used to recapture runaways. Northup’s first person account published in 1853, was a dramatic story in the national debate over slavery that took place in the nine years leading up to the start of the American Civil War.

– “The Light Between Oceans” by M.L. Stedman
After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

M. L. Stedman’s mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel’s decision to keep this “gift from God.” And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another’s tragic loss.

The Light Between Oceans is exquisite and unforgettable, a deeply moving novel.

– “The Demonologist” by Andrew Pyper
Professor David Ullman’s expertise in the literature of the demonic—notably Milton’s Paradise Lost—has won him wide acclaim. But David is not a believer.

One afternoon he receives a visitor at his campus office, a strikingly thin woman who offers him an invitation: travel to Venice, Italy, witness a “phenomenon,” and offer his professional opinion, in return for an extravagant sum of money. Needing a fresh start, David accepts and heads to Italy with his beloved twelve-year-old daughter Tess.

What happens in Venice will send David on an unimaginable journey from skeptic to true believer, as he opens himself up to the possibility that demons really do exist. In a terrifying quest guided by symbols and riddles from the pages of Paradise Lost, David attempts to rescue his daughter from the Unnamed—a demonic entity that has chosen him as its messenger.

– “The Orenda” by Joseph Boyden
Winner of the CBC Canada Reads 2014 competition, this book is now available in paperback. To celebrate its win and to continue Backbeat’s tradition of promoting and celebrating Canadian literature, this title will be priced at 30% off the retail price until December 31, 2014!

– “Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children” by Ransom Riggs
The extraordinary journey that began in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children continues as Jacob Portman and his newfound friends journey to London the peculiar capital of the world. But in this war-torn city, hideous surprises lurk around every corner. Like its predecessor, this second novel in the Peculiar Children series blends thrilling fantasy with never-before-published vintage photography to create a one-of-a-kind reacting experience.

– “The Edge of Nowhere” by Elizabeth George
Whidbey Island may be only a ferry ride from Seattle, but it’s a world apart. When Becca King arrives there, she doesn’t suspect the island will become her home for the next four years. Put at risk by her ability to hear “whispers”–the thoughts of others–Becca is on the run from her stepfather, whose criminal activities she has discovered. Stranded and alone, Becca is soon befriended by Derric, a Ugandon orphan adopted by a local family; Seth, a kindhearted musician and high school dropout; Debbie, a recovering alcoholic who takes her in; and Diana, with whom Becca shares a mysterious psychic connection.

This compelling coming-of-age story, the first of an ongoing sequence of books set on Whidbey Island, has elements of mystery, the paranormal, and romance. Elizabeth George, bestselling author of the Inspector Lynley crime novels, brings her elegant style, intricate plotting, incisive characterization, and top-notch storytelling to her first book for teens.

– “An Abundance of Katherines” by John Green
(Michael L. Printz Honor Book and Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist)

Katherine V thought boys were gross
Katherine X just wanted to be friends
Katherine XVIII dumped him in an e-mail
K-19 broke his heart
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact.

On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun–but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl. Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.

– “Paper Towns” by John Green
Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows.

After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.

– “Ignite Me (Shatter Me #3)” by Tahereh Mafi
With Omega Point destroyed, Juliette doesn’t know if the rebels, her friends, or even Adam are alive. But that won’t keep her from trying to take down The Reestablishment once and for all. Now she must rely on Warner, the handsome commander of Sector 45. The one person she never thought she could trust. The same person who saved her life. He promises to help Juliette master her powers and save their dying world . . . but that’s not all he wants with her.

The Shatter Me series is perfect for fans who crave action-packed young adult novels with tantalizing romance like Divergent by Veronica Roth, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and Legend by Marie Lu. Tahereh Mafi has created a captivating and original story that combines the best of dystopian and paranormal, and was praised by Publishers Weekly as “a gripping read from an author who’s not afraid to take risks.” Now this final book brings the series to a shocking and satisfying end.

– “Rookie: Yearbook One” by Tavi Gevinson
Tavi Gevinson started the blog, Style Rookie, when she was 11 years old. From the confines of her bedroom in the suburbs, she wrote about personal style and chronicled the development of her own. Within two years, it averaged 50,000 hits per day and fashion designers from around the world invited Tavi to attend and write about fashion shows. Soon Tavi’s interests grew beyond fashion, into culture and art and, especially, feminism. Last year when Tavi was 15, she launched ROOKIE, a website for girls like her: teenagers who are interested in fashion and beauty but also in dissecting the culture around them through a uniquely teen-girl lens. ROOKIE broke 1 million page views within its first six days. Lady Gaga called her “the future of journalism.”

Tavi’s cool-headed intellect shines in ROOKIE, arguably the most intelligent magazine ever made for a teen-girl audience. She writes with a humble but keen authority on such serious topics as body image, self-esteem, and first encounters with street harassment. ROOKIE YEARBOOK ONE collects articles, interviews, photo editorials, and illustrations. Among its 50-plus regular contributors (many of whom are teenage girls themselves) are Lena Dunham, Miranda July, Jon Hamm, David Sedaris, Elle Fanning, Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, John Waters, Chloe Sevigny, JD Samson, Ira Glass, Aubrey Plaza, Carrie Brownstein, Paul Feig, Fred Armisen, and Winnie Holzman.

– “Rookie: Yearbook Two” by Tavi Gevinson
The second book in the Rookie Yearbook series.

Rookie is an independent online magazine made by and for teenage girls. It was created by Tavi Gevinson in 2011, when she was just fourteen years old; today, about a third of the magazine’s staff are teenage writers, photographers, and illustrators.

Rookie launched in September 2011; six days after its dbut the site hit one million page views. One year after that, the online publication reimagined itself in deluxe print form with Rookie Yearbook One, an anthology of the best features from the site’s first nine months, plus a sticker sheet, a flexidisc, and original artwork. Now, Rookie’s sophomore year is collected in Rookie Yearbook Two: a second anthology that’s just as visually stunning as the first, and filled with even more content. Exclusive Rookie Yearbook Two celebrity content will include contributions by Judy Blume, Grimes, Lena Dunham, Mindy Kaling among others, making it a truly special product.

Like the site itself, the Rookie yearbooks combine personal essays by young girls; advice about style, sex, friends, and school; fashion; gorgeous photo albums; humor and pathosin other words, everything a teenage girl thinks and cares about. Rookie Yearbook Two collects interviews and contributions from notable adults including Morrissey, Emma Watson, Molly Ringwald, Carrie Brownstein, the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, award-winning cartoonist Chris Ware, and Museum of Jurassic Technology founder David Wilson.

On its second birthday, Rookie averages more than 450,000 unique visitors, and 1.2 million visits per month (and counting) with 205,000 Tumblr followers. The Rookie yearbooks reach that audience and beyond, spanning a diverse group who may have found Rookie Yearbook One on the shelves of their local library or been given the book as a gift from an adult who laments not having Rookie around when they were a teenager.