Hanukkah is in full swing, and Christmas is right around the corner. Thinking about getting a book for that teen or kid in your life? Or for the adult YA reader in your life (you are welcome in this no-judgement zone; we love YA too!). Don’t forget to include Tu Books in those plans! Here are a few examples of people you’re looking to find a gift for.
For the reader looking for comedy (sometimes light, sometimes a little morbid):
For the teen looking for something with an edge:
For the middle-grade reader or young teen looking for a “clean” read:
For fans of folklore and fairy tales:
For fans of science fiction, especially technology and space-related:
For fans of Twilight:
For fans of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Chicago:
Got any other kinds of readers in your life that need a Tu Book recommendation? Ask away in the comments!
Originally published at Stacy Whitman's Grimoire. You can comment here or there.
Below is Beverly Slapin's review of Joseph Bruchac's new book, Wolf Mark. It may not be reprinted elsewhere without her written permission. All rights reserved.
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Bruchac, Joseph,Wolf Mark. Lee & Low, 2011,grades 7-up
Joe Bruchac isnot yet known for his YA werewolf/vampire/espionage novels, but this talentedwriter can sure pull off the genre(s). Middle readers who have the ability tosuspend disbelief will relate to the teen protagonist, an Abenaki wolf-boy withmultiple challenges. Such as doing well in school and winning over the girl hereally likes. Such as keeping himself from ripping out someone’s throat whenhe’s annoyed or angry. Such as rescuing his father from a megalomaniacgene-blending scientist who’s plotting to take over the world.
In Wolf Mark, everything is extreme: theaction, the gore, the metaphors, the allusions to uncontrolled corporate greedthat threatens to devour us all. And amidst all of this, Bruchac takes everyopportunity to bust stereotypes: about American Indians, about women, aboutMuslims, about Russians, about werewolves and vampires.
In what may be a parody of badlywritten YA novels featuring Indian protagonists who abruptly break thenarrative in order to insert for young non-Indian readers the supposedlyrequired ethnographic expositions, our Abenaki wolf-boy hero breaks hisnarrative in order to posit a Freudian analysis of himself: “Was thatbloodthirsty, drooling monster a virtual manifestation of my own out-of-controlanimal nature? Or an archetype? Not a creature threatening me from outside butthe beast within?” Or maybe it’s a parody of such paragons of horror as H.P.Lovecraft.
Not dissimilarto what Thomas King did in Green Grass,Running Water, Bruchac places an allusion, covert or overt, on almost everypage. There are snippets from poems cleverly disguised as the narrator’s ownwords and not-so-hidden references to “Little Shop of Horrors” and “Rocky andBullwinkle.” There’s a nod to the wisdom of Pogo. There’s a melding of JackKerouac and Jack London, and of Lon Chaney and Dick Cheney. There are quotesfrom Shakespeare, Stephen King and Joe Friday; lyrics from “The Wizard of Oz,”Piledriver and Bob Dylan; and rewriting of some of the winning entrants fromthe Bulwer-Lytton bad prose contests (my favorite being “a constellation ofzits”). And, in homage to Thomas King, Bruchac gives his name to theprotagonist’s father.
This readerwildly careened between being breathlessly swept
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Nook readers, you can now find almost all of our books there. Tankborn and Wolf Mark are up now, and Galaxy Games: The Challengers will be up soon. Also, for those of you on iPads or other Apple devices, all three books are up (I linked Galaxy Games: The Challengers before).
Here are your links!
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iTunes/iBooks
Originally published at Stacy Whitman's Grimoire. Please leave any comments there.
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Galaxy Games gets cross town treatment
Let’s take a look at all the things happening online for the launch of Tu’s first three books. First of all, see what our publisher Jason Low would do if we had a million dollars to promote our first three books. Too bad we’re not millionaires!
The Challengers
First up, The Challengers, book 1 of the Galaxy Games series. To celebrate, author Greg Fishbone is currently on a month-long blog tour that includes a game that readers can play along, finding puzzle pieces to fit together and win prizes. To find out more on how to play the game, go to http://galaxygam.es/tour/ and find out what puzzle piece they’re on. Note that there’s also a giveaway—poke around on the site to find more ways to enter!
You can also follow Greg on Twitter, like the Galaxy Games series on Facebook, or like Greg on Facebook for more news as it happens.
Here’s what Publishers Weekly had to say about Galaxy Games:
Complemented by Beavers’s comic book style artwork, Fishbone’s narrative is ripe with kid-friendly humor—i.e., Earth’s radio and TV transmissions are picked up by the toilets on the Mrendarian ship—and many of the plot twists could be straight from the ‘what if’ imaginings of a fourth-grade classroom. Though Fishbone clearly sets up the next book, he gives Tyler enough of a victory to leave readers satisfied. —Publishers Weekly
Wolf Mark
Joseph Bruchac, author of Wolf Mark, recently shared a video on YouTube talking about why he wrote the book, his inspiration, and other thoughts on this exciting suspense-filled paranormal thriller. Check it out!
Here’s what Publishers Weekly and Kirkus have to say about Wolf Mark, too:
Bruchac (Dragon Castle) delivers a fun twist on werewolf stories mixed with some mad science and espionage. . . . Bruchac adeptly incorporates characters of various heritages: Luke is Native American; his best friend/crush, Meena, is Pakistani; and the Sunglass Mafia a group of students who are more than they seem are from eastern Russia. Luke also possesses a hefty amount of cultural and political awareness to go with his combat and espionage expertise, which serve him well. . . . [T]he action and Luke’s narration carry the book nicely. —Publishers Weekly
A loner teen finds himself caught up in a paranormal paramilitary threat but he has both untapped personal resources and some unlikely allies to help him out. Ever since his mother died, his father-a sometime Special Ops-type agent who happens to be of Native American descent-has been worse than useless. Lucas just concentrates on doing well in school and mooning over the beautiful daughter of one of the Pakistani scientists working at the new Romanian-owned top-secret facility in town. He goes out of his way to avoid the Sunglass Mafia, a bunch of unusually pale Russian students. But when his father is kidnapped and gives him a coded message by
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Tu’s books are now also available on Google Books! These seem to be optimized for iPads/tablets.
Originally published at Stacy Whitman's Grimoire. Please leave any comments there.
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For those of you who prefer your books in e-book form: we have some exciting news for Kindle people. Nook and iPad people, your day is coming soon in e-pub form. I’ll let you know as soon as I know!
Here are the Kindle versions!
Read them right away! And then let me know what you think. 
Originally published at Stacy Whitman's Grimoire. Please leave any comments there.
Look what I just saw, right at eye level, at the Union Square B&N!
It’s a bit early still—these are September releases—but it still makes me giddy to see them!
Now it’s your turn! Go look for them! Go buy them! (And if your preferred bookseller doesn’t yet have them or Galaxy Games: The Challengers on sale yet, let them know you’re highly anticipating them and ask them to be sure to order them in.)
Originally published at Stacy Whitman's Grimoire. Please leave any comments there.
