Posts by Andrea Lipinski

Several months ago, I learned that there was a plaque in Central Park indicating that the old Kingsbridge Road had once run through that area. Up until that moment, the only current Kingsbridge markers I knew about were in the Bronx. So I decided to investigate, and that led to a long and bizarre adventure that didn’t end exactly the way I planned.

When a woman handed me a note that she found folded up inside one of our books and said, “I think you’ll want to read this,” I had no idea what to expect. I definitely didn’t expect to read a note that managed to be so simultaneously tragic and uplifting.

Many people who’ve known me for years don’t know that I had several big turning points and life-changing moments when I was young that started me on the path to becoming a librarian. But if you’ve ever seen one of my Career Day presentations, you know all about those turning points, because I always start by sharing those stories.

I recently finished reading Heartless by Marissa Meyer, and when I finished the book I didn’t want the story to be over. This novel about how a girl grew up to become the diabolical Red Queen made me want to take a deep dive back into the world of Wonderland.

Serving on a book committee can be hard work. One of the most challenging aspects for me of choosing books for the Best Books For Teens list wasn’t all the reading, but all the crying. Seriously, though, there were a LOT of heart-wrenching books for teens this year.

Several weeks ago, I fully intended to have the topic of our Teen Advisory Group meeting be Banned Books Week. But our conversation took a detour, and soon we were talking about bullying and cyberbullying in fiction and in real life. It wasn’t the way I expected the conversation to go, but I’m glad it did.

Some of my favorite YA novels are books that challenge me, that pull my brain in different directions, and make me think, “What the hell just happened?”. Sometimes, it’s because the narrators are choosing not to tell us the whole story, or because for some reason they can’t tell us the whole story. Sometimes, it’s because the author writes the story in such a way that it takes readers a while to figure out what’s going on. Here are thirteen YA novels that will take your brain in unexpected directions!

I sprayed myself with sunblock, dressed comfortably for walking, and packed water, an iPod for listening to podcasts, and an extra battery for my iPhone. Then I headed to Inwood Hill Park to see if I could catch ‘em all. Or, at least, I’d see if I could catch more than usual …

There are several advantages to cleaning out your desk periodically (or, in my case, every few years). First, there’s the immediate benefit of … Hey! Clean desk! But then there’s also the benefit of finding lots of cool old stuff you didn’t realize you still had.

Missing memories in fantasy and science fiction: in these books the characters’ minds are wiped with drugs, surgery, rays, or mysterious techniques that we can’t even imagine.

When I was a kid, Judy Blume was one of the most important people I had never met. I enjoyed many books she’d written, but it was Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret that I read more times than any other book. By the time I got a little older and started reading Deenie, she’d become my unofficial guide for what I should expect in the milestones of my life.

The New York City Department of Education recently released a series of recommended reading lists for Pre-K through 12th grade that include books of all different genres, subjects, and formats. Our Teen Advisory Group checked out the 7th-12th grade reading lists, and wanted to highlight the titles they enjoyed the most!

Over the last few years while I’ve been reading young adult books for our Best Books For Teens committee, I noticed many books featuring twins as characters. Sometimes they had a strong emotional or spiritual connection, sometimes their personalities were total opposites of each other, and sometimes they could even impersonate each other. Here are ten YA novels featuring twins—sometimes as friends, sometimes as enemies, but always as family.

Imagine being trapped somewhere with little to no chance for escape. Maybe you can’t get out of your school during an intense snowstorm. Maybe you’re locked inside a windowless room. Maybe you’re trapped in a coffin. Maybe you’re stuck in what FEELS like a coffin, but you can’t tell because it’s so dark that you can’t see anything. You can only hear the sound of someone walking back and forth somewhere above you… someone who’s been waiting for you to wake up.

During our last Teen Advisory Group meetings, we looked over the books on the 2015 teen summer reading lists for middle school and high school students. Then we discussed which ones we liked the best and which ones we were looking forward to reading. Check out the titles we picked, and see if you agree with us!

If I told you that we had diverse books at the library, what kinds of books do you think I mean? Would they have multicultural characters from different parts of the world? Who speak different languages? Who have different sexual orientations? Who have disabilities? YES to any or all of the above!

Members of our Teen Advisory Group have been reviewing lots of books and movies this year! Here are some highlights of the reviews we've been sharing in our Teen Review Tuesday posts on Tumblr:

Reading nonfiction books can open your eyes to different subjects and make you see them in a new light, and I’m not just saying that because I haven’t eaten a burger from McDonald’s since I read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. Reading nonfiction books can change your perspective in both small and profound ways.

I spent a huge portion of the last several months cramming my head full of teen books for several committees. You can see the results of my work with my NYPL colleagues in our Best Books For Teens 2014 list. But there were a few books that didn’t make the cut for that list and a few books I read after that committee was over that really deserve some love and attention, so I wanted to share some of those titles with you.