Remember what you went through, the unfairness of being young and perfect and not being understood by grown ups who were never young like you. Think about the challenges you faced, what you needed to get through those years

While the problems that young people may have changed and multiplied over the years their needs remain pretty much what they were when we were that age:

• Someone to listen or give advice
• A reliable adult figure
• Be a friend but remember that you are also a figure of authority
• Be encouraging and supportive but always be honest
• Sometimes just being there when you say you are going to be there is all that is needed, you may not be needed for a deep heart to heart – just your presence may be enough
• Be consistant – you are working with teens through choice or by nomination, do not blow hot and cold with them or you will alienate them and once that happens they are lost to you!

This list is not exhaustive, they are just some things that I have used over the years, if you have others please do not hesitate to share via the comments!

The website is older by a few months – but I do not recall when exactly it first went live. So if anyone is interested my official blog birthday is the 15th May – there will not be cake but there should be a new edition of TLm.

The original site is still floating around the web, I get a couple of referrals to the current site from it every month so I will not take it down (I have also lost the log in details). The original site looked like this:

If you have a need to visit the original site you can do so here: http://teenlibraryserviceuk.bravehost.com/

After a year of fiddling around with html, I thought that there had to be a better way and as I had a gmail account I moved on to Blogger:

This one is also still “alive” but only in the sense that it is a zombie site moving blindly through cyberspace, anyway take a look here: http://teenlibrarianuk.blogspot.co.uk/

At some point I migrated onto paid hosting with a dedicated URL and everything and apart from a few cosmetic changes it has remained the same.

Teen Librarian Monthly has come out on a roughly monthly schedule (with a few exceptions usually relating to work, life and the other things that get in the way of a labour of love).

If any librarians or users of the site and newsletter would like to submit an article for publication, please leave a comment on this post and I will get back to you. Articles can be about the work you are doing or have done in libraries with young people, ideas for future events or just what working with young people means to you and why you do it. Article submissions close on the 14th May (latest)

My copy of The Hunt was an early Christmas present from Simon and Schuster at their December blogger event. To be honest it was the book I was most excited about, but cruel and lovely people that they are, they waited until the very end of the talk and presentation about their upcoming books to give each of us a carefully wrapped package containing one copy each of The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda.

This book will grab you by the throat on the first page with the monstrousness that happens – I will not tell you what it is but it is heart-breaking and wonderful in its savagery. Chapter one will hook you and you will not want to put this book down until you have read every page. I can tell you this because I know it to be true as I started the book on the bus way back in December as I was going to meet friends for a movie and dinner, I can remember everything about that evening as the book was in my pocket, and desire to run home and read it was nigh irresistible! Fortunately I was able to resist this need.
In the world of the Hunt the vampires are humanity’s apeptites unleashed – all the things that make us human – restraint, consideration for others, overcoming the desire to have another morsel once our hunger is sated – all those controls are absent. No sparkly, tortured souls that exist in the night these vampires – they are hunger and desire for human blood and flesh unrestrained.

I have heard people I know describe The Hunt as The Hunger Games with fangs – and it is not an inaccurate description, but for me the closest novel that I can compare it to is my favourite vampire novel of all time. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Forget the movie versions starring Charlton Heston (The Omega man) and the newer flashier version with Will Smith, which up until the end was not too bad but they bowdlerised the ending – unforgiveable as I Am Legend is a timeless horror classic and now – in my mind at least it has a sequel.

A world where normal means fangs, an aversion to light and an unquenching thirst for the taste of Heper flesh and blood. A world where the few, uninfected that manage to live hidden amongst their predators must deny and hide their humanity to just survive.
For too long vampires have been the pop stars of the literary world, bright, beautiful and desirable. With The Hunt Andrew Fukuda takes them back to their bloody roots as hungry, monstrous beings – humanity’s apex predator! For that I thank him!

If I scored the books I read The Hunt would get a bloody 10 out of 10.

Buy it, read it and then tell your friends and like me you can wait, hungry for the sequel!

To enter leave a comment about what you enjoy or have enjoyed most about working with young people in your library!

Rules:

Hi! I’m Aimée, and I wrote the Goddess Test series.

The Goddess Test is not quite a retelling of Greek myth but rather extending the cycle in a new story that has echoes of the original (which I particularly enjoyed) was it tough to update the gods & goddesses

Thank you! One of my favourite things to do while writing The Goddess Test was updating the gods and goddesses. While in some ways it was difficult to fit them into our current culture, at the same time I believe they’re universal, which made it easier. I kept their original personalities from the myths as much as I could, and then I thought about how they would need to adapt to modern times.

Is the world you are building home to other classical pantheons or are your deities the same but reflected differently in other cultures?

I love this question. In my head, it’s the latter – they have different names throughout history and different cultures, but they’re more or less the same beings. Some of the minor gods in Greek mythology are considered almighty in others, and they’re reflected differently between, say, Roman and Norse mythology. But they’re more or less the same. This is just in the Goddess Test world, of course, but it’s interesting to study the different kinds of mythology in the world and see where they intersect.

I had a thought that the river that Kate & Ava crossed to get onto Henry’s property was the Styx – am I right and if yes are there any other mythological easter eggs scattered in your story that I may have missed?

You’re totally right! I believe Chapter 16 is called The River Styx, and while it’s not explicitly stated in the text, that was definitely my intention. There are several mythology Easter eggs scattered throughout the trilogy, little throwaway things that might not mean much to the casual reader, but someone more familiar with mythology might get a grin or a little piece of insight into the story.

Henry is described as dark, tortured and mesmerising (considering that he is Hades he has good reason to be) – do you think that emo boys are the new objects of attraction in YA lit?

To be honest, I never really intended for him to be considered emo. He’s really the opposite of emo – very unemotional, at least outwardly. Stoic, quiet, keeps his thoughts and feelings to himself. A lot of times, Kate is the one to hurl emotions at him to try to get something to stick, but Henry has a lot of trouble acknowledging how he feels. And with good reason, for sure.

I don’t think emo is anything too new on the scene, really, but there is definitely a variety of YA love interests who exhibit classic emo traits. And that’s what I love about YA – there’s something for everyone!