Ticket sales start today for OLA raffle sponsored by OYAN

Greetings Oregon librarians and people who love libraries!

It’s time to buy your tickets for the annual OLA raffle sponsored by the Oregon Young Adult Network (OYAN).  Online ticket sales start April 17th at 10 AM online at http://bit.ly/152p91l .  The price is $5 for 1 ticket or $20 for 5 and sales are limited to 600 tickets total.  After online sales end on Tuesday the 23^rd at 8 PM, in-person sales will continue April 24-26 during the OLA/WLA joint conference.  Winners will be announced on Friday, April 26^th at the conference. 

The raffle is open to the public and being advertised statewide in the Oregonian this year, so we recommend buying early.  We have numerous great prizes including a 2-night stay at the Sylvia Beach Hotel, great tickets to the Literary Arts festival, a voucher to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, an amazing Astoria package that includes a hotel stay, kayak rental and more along with many other prizes.  The raffle benefits teen service in Oregon’s public libraries.  OYAN is a part of the Oregon Library Association.  Get your tickets soon!

Thank you,

Mark Richardson
OYAN Vice-chair/ Chair elect
Young Adult Librarian
Cedar Mill Library
markr@wccls.org

Book Rave Contender 2012 – Dark City

Catherine Fisher released several books in the Relic Master series in 2011.  Dark City was the first. Does it match the popularity of her Incarceron novels?  Add your comments to this blog post and get ready to vote for your favorites by January 15th.  Just select the “Book Rave” category to find links to all of the nominees.  Here’s a blurb for Dark City:

Sixteen-year-old Raffi, Master Galen, and a mysterious traveler, Carys, enter the ruined city of Tasceron seeking a relic that may save the world, while evading the Watch, a brutal organization opposed to the Order to which Raffi and Galen belong.

Book Rave Contender 2012 – Michael Vey: Prisoner of Cell 25

Teens with strange electrical powers unite to find out how they got their powers as they struggle to master them while others try to control them.  Adult author Richard Paul Evans takes his shot at YA lit.  Did he succeed?  Were you hooked?  Let us know in the comments.

To everyone at Meridian High School, fourteen-year-old Michael Vey is nothing special, just the kid who has Tourette’s syndrome. But in truth, Michael is extremely special–he has electric powers. Michael thinks he is unique until he discovers that a cheerleader named Taylor has the same mysterious powers. With the help of Michael’s friend, Ostin, the three of them set out to discover how Michael and Taylor ended up with their abilities, and their investigation soon brings them to the attention of a powerful group who wants to control the electric teens–and through them, the world.

Book Rave Contender 2012 – Drink Slay Love

Playing off the popular adult novel, Eat, Pray, Love – Sarah Beth Durst creates an appealing book about teen vampires that has a little humor in it as well.  Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

After sixteen-year-old vampire Pearl Sange is stabbed through the heart by a were-unicorn, she develops non-vampire-like traits that lead her to save her high school classmates from the Vampire King of New England.     

Book Rave Contender 2012 – Matched

Ally Condie has hit upon another successful dystopian idea in Matched, a story about a society where marriage and relationships are determined by the state.  It’s been extremely popular this year, but is it rave worthy?  Blurb below:

All her life, Cassia has never had a choice. The Society dictates everything: when and how to play, where to work, where to live, what to eat and wear, when to die, and most importantly to Cassia as she turns 17, whom to marry. When she is Matched with her best friend Xander, things couldn’t be more perfect. But why did her neighbor Ky’s face show up on her match disk as well?

Book Rave Contender 2012 – Clockwork Angel

Cassandra Clare continues to build her fanbase with this crowdpleasing prequel to her Mortal Instruments series.  Set in Victorian era London, we learn more about Shadowhunters and Downworlders as Tessa struggles to help her brother.

When sixteen-year-old orphan Tessa Fell’s older brother suddenly vanishes, her search for him leads her into Victorian-era London’s dangerous supernatural underworld, and when she discovers that she herself is a Downworlder, she must learn to trust the demon-killing Shadowhunters if she ever wants to learn to control her powers and find her brother.

Book Rave Contender 2012 – Girl of Fire and Thorns

A princess in trouble, a kingdom in jeopardy and dark magic across the land.  Rae Carson creates a high fantasy adventure in The Girl of Fire and Thorns.  Here’s the blurb:

A fearful sixteen-year-old princess discovers her heroic destiny after being married off to the king of a neighboring country in turmoil and pursued by enemies seething with dark magic.

Book Rave 2012 Contender – Eve

This is another post-apocalyptic offering in the mold of Matched.  Anna Carey’s latest sets up a mystery as to what’s going on in this dystopian future earth.  The inevitable trilogy is coming, but it’s up to us to decide if the opening chapter is “rave worthy” or not.

The year is 2032, sixteen years after a deadly virus—and the vaccine intended to protect against it—wiped out most of the earth’s population. The night before eighteen-year-old Eve’s graduation from her all-girls school she discovers what really happens to new graduates, and the horrifying fate that awaits her.

Book Rave Contender – Anya’s Ghost

This graphic novel touches on issues of young second generation immigrants in the form of Anya as she navigates the perils of high school while trying to fit in.  Will the ghost that she discovers help her in the quest or bring her misery?

Anya, embarrassed by her Russian immigrant family and self-conscious about her body, has given up on fitting in at school but falling down a well and making friends with the ghost there just may be worse.

Book Rave Contender 2012 – Beauty Queens

You can just about count on Libba Bray being in the running for the Book Rave list every year.  Her strong contender this year is Beauty Queens – a mix between Lost, an MTV reality TV show and Lord of the Flies.  When a plane full of beauty pageant contestants from around the country goes down on a deserted island, hilarity and danger follow.  Bray is at the top of her game here.  Most people have a strong reaction to this book.  What was yours?

When a plane crash strands thirteen teen beauty contestants on a mysterious island, they struggle to survive, to get along with one another, to combat the island’s other diabolical occupants, and to learn their dance numbers in case they are rescued in time for the competition.