The Hunger Games - Australian Cover Art!

Everyone has been raving about The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins! I've had so many people tell me to read it, and I really want to! Published by Scholastic, it's finally out in Australia, with a totally different cover design.

I'm going to go and get myself a copy ASAP! :)

What do you think of the Australian cover art?

Top Teen Books Meme

I've seen lots of other bloggers putting this up on their blogs and thought I'd steal it for myself and join in the fun :)

The following list of books teens love, books teens should read, and books adults who serve teens should know about was compiled IN ABSOLUTELY NO SCIENTIFIC MANNER and should be taken with a very large grain of salt.

Instructions:
Put an “X” next to the books you’ve read
Put a “+” next to the books you LOVE
Put a “#” next to the books you plan on reading
Tally your “X”s at the bottom
Share with your friends!

1. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy / Douglas Adams
2. Kit’s Wilderness / David Almond
3. Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian / Sherman Alexie #
4. Speak / Laurie Halse Anderson #
5. Feed / M.T. Anderson #
6. Flowers in the Attic / V.C. Andrews
7. 13 Reasons Why / Jay Asher #
8. Am I Blue? / Marion Dane Bauer (editor)
9. Audrey Wait! / Robin Benway #
10. Weetzie Bat / Francesca Lia Block X+
11. Tangerine / Edward Bloor
12. Forever / Judy Blume #
13. What I Saw and How I Lied / Judy Blundell #
14. Tyrell / Coe Booth
15. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants / Ann Brashares X+
16. A Great and Terrible Beauty / Libba Bray X
17. The Princess Diaries / Meg Cabot X
18. The Stranger / Albert Camus
19. Ender’s Game / Orson Scott Card
20. Postcards from No Man’s Land / Aidan Chambers
21. Perks of Being a Wallflower / Stephen Chbosky #
22. And Then There Were None / Agatha Christie
23. Gingerbread / Rachel Cohn X
24. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist / Rachel Cohn and David Levithan X+
25. Artemis Fowl (series) / Eoin Colfer X
26. The Hunger Games / Suzanne Collins #
27. The Midwife’s Apprentice / Karen Cushman
28. The Truth About Forever / Sarah Dessen X
29. Little Brother / Cory Doctorow
30. A Northern Light / Jennifer Donnelly
31. Tears of a Tiger / Sharon Draper
32. The House of the Scorpion / Nancy Farmer
33. Breathing Underwater / Alex Flinn
34. Stardust / Neil Gaiman X+
35. Annie on My Mind / Nancy Garden
36. What Happened to Cass McBride / Gail Giles
37. Fat Kid Rules the World / K.L. Going
38. Lord of the Flies / William Golding X
39. Looking for Alaska / John Green #
40. Bronx Masquerade / Nikki Grimes
41. Out of the Dust / Karen Hesse
42. Hoot / Carl Hiaasen
43. The Outsiders / S.E. Hinton
44. Crank / Ellen Hopkins
45 The First Part Last / Angela Johnson
46. Blood and Chocolate / Annette Curtis Klause
47. Arrow’s Flight / Mercedes Lackey
48. Hattie Big Sky / Kirby Larson
49. To Kill a Mockingbird / Harper Lee
50. Boy Meets Boy / David Levithan X
51. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks / E. Lockhart #
52. The Giver / Lois Lowry
53. Number the Stars / Lois Lowry
54. Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie / David Lubar
55. Inexcusable / Chris Lynch
56. The Earth, My Butt and Other Big, Round Things / Carolyn Mackler #
57. Dragonsong / Anne McCaffrey
58. White Darkness / Geraldine McCaughrean
59. Sold / Patricia McCormick
60. Jellicoe Road / Melina Marchetta#
61. Wicked Lovely / Melissa Marr #
62. Twilight / Stephenie Meyer X
63. Dairy Queen / Catherine Murdock
64. Fallen Angels / Walter Dean Myers
65. Monster / Walter Dean Myers
66. Step From Heaven / An Na
67. Mama Day / Gloria Naylor
68. The Keys to the Kingdom (series) / Garth Nix
69. Sabriel / Garth Nix
70. Airborn / Kenneth Oppel
71. Eragon / Christopher Paolini
72. Hatchet / Gary Paulsen
73. Life As We Knew It / Susan Beth Pfeffer
74. The Golden Compass / Phillip Pullman X+
75. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging / Louise Rennison X+
76. The Lightning Thief / Rick Riordan
77. Always Running: La Vida Loca / Luis Rodriguez
78. how i live now / Meg Rosoff #
79. Harry Potter (series) / J.K. Rowling X+
80. Holes / Louis Sachar X
81. Catcher in the Rye / J. D. Salinger X
82. Push / Sapphire
83. Persepolis / Marjane Satrapi #
84. Unwind / Neil Shusterman
85. Coldest Winter Ever / Sister Souljah
86. Stargirl / Jerry Spinelli X
87. Chanda’s Secrets / Allan Stratton
88. Tale of One Bad Rat / Brian Talbot
89. Rats Saw God / Rob Thomas
90. Lord of the Rings / J.R.R. Tolkien X
91. Stuck in Neutral / Terry Trueman
92. Gossip Girl / Cecily Von Ziegesar X
93. Uglies / Scott Westerfeld X
94. Every Time a Rainbow Dies / Rita Williams-Garcia
95. Pedro and Me / Judd Winick
96. Hard Love / Ellen Wittlinger
97. American Born Chinese / Gene Luen Yang
98. Elsewhere / Gabrielle Zevin #
99. I am the Messenger / Markus Zusak #
100. The Book Thief / Markus Zusak X+

Read: 22

There's a HUGE chunk of books on this list that I haven't even heard of... I think I'll go update my wishlist now! :)

How many have you read?
And also, which ones that I haven't I read, should I read?

A Lovely Quote From Inkheart

First of all, I'm sorry I haven't been around much this week! I've been so busy :) I'll make it up to everyone with a super fun-filled week of posts next week!

So, I've just started reading Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. It's translated from German and I don't know how much of the beauty of the original writing might have been lost in translation but there was something about this sentence that made me stop and savour it...

"It was early dawn when Meggie woke up. Night was fading over the fields as if the rain had washed the darkness out of the hem of it's garment."

Now isn't that just a great mental image?!

A Guest Post From Debut YA Author, Jillian Cantor

Today at Look At That Book HQ we've been honoured with a guest post by newly published author, Jillian Cantor who is the author of The September Sisters. You can find out more about Jillian and her book The September Sisters over at her blog - http://www.jilliancantor.blogspot.com/ Read on...

My “Glamorous” Life as a Newly Publisher Author

I’ve been waiting most of my life to be able to call myself a published author. Well, since I was nine, anyway, so it’s been about 21 years. And since my first book, The September Sisters, was officially released last Tuesday, I am finally able to call myself one. Exciting? Absolutely! Nerve-wracking? Yes. Glamorous? Not so much.

You see, it took me a long time to get to this place. I wrote another book before The September Sisters, that I could never get an agent for. And then even with The September Sisters – it took me a long time and a lot of rejection – 5 ½ years worth – to go from the first draft to the day of publication.

A friend of mine, whose second book just came out, told me that the publication day for your first book is a funny thing. You anticipate it, and it feels like such a momentous event, that when you wake up that morning, you expect everything will be different. Only, it’s not.

And she was right! I woke up Tuesday morning feeling exactly the same as I did the day before. I updated my Facebook status to announce that I was now officially published, and after a fleeting moment of excitement, I went downstairs to make breakfast. I should add that I was dressed in my oh-so-glamorous sweatpants, toting a box of Kleenex and two kids (All three of us had horrible colds).

I spent most of the morning wiping runny noses, and answering e-mails and phone calls from my well-wishing and awesome friends. And then, since it was a nice day outside, and I felt I had to do something, I changed out of my sweatpants and took the kids to the bakery to get celebratory cookies (my son’s idea). When my husband got home, all four of us went out to dinner, where I tried to keep my youngest son from throwing his rice instead of eating it.

After my kids went to bed, I spent my normal few hours at the computer, working on revising my next book, stressing out about whether or not it was any good or whether it would ever sell. And then I stopped and looked The September Sisters up on Amazon. It had reviews! And a sales rank! People were buying it and reading it, and I realized that everything was different, even though nothing really was. I was now a published author, and no matter what else would happen from this day forward, I would always be a published author. I felt utterly overwhelmed and amazed and proud. . .and then I went downstairs to do the dishes!

Thankyou so much for guest posting today, Jillian! The September Sisters is out now :)

Happy 105th Birthday, Dr. Suess!

Today would have been Dr. Suess' 105th Birthday.. he's the Google picture of the day. Mr. Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Suess, was a personal favourite of mine as a kid, and still is today. I love the rhymes and the nonsense words and the fun little characters.

My all-time favourite Dr Suess book is The Lorax. Though it's actually quite sad, I'm not entirely sure what appealed to me about it when I was a kid! There is a bit of hope in the end, though :)

'Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.'
- The Lorax

Some parting words from the doctor:

'I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!'

I was never a big fan of The Cat in the Hat. What's your favourite Dr Suess book?