Adventures with Bookblasters

Our Bialik book club adventures continue this year with stories of war, genius, fellowship, mystery and of course, plenty of dystopia.  Our Junior Bookblasters began with The Hunger Games  which is among everyone's favorite new series.  These readers don't miss a detail, so when we played 'The Hunger Games Jeopardy Game' on the ipad, they scored high in every category.  The latest fat title in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance fantasy series came out last week, and our many diehard fans have ploughed through it already.  If you haven't already done so, true-blue dragon fans should read the wonderful Patricia Wrede series 'Dealing With Dragons', which is on the lighter, more ironic side. Junior Bookblasters agree their favorite fantasy series include  His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass) by Philip Pullman and of course the marvelous mythology fantasy Heroes of Olympus (The Lightning Thief) by Rick Riordan .  Senior Bookblasters began the year with Art Spiegelman's Maus, the classic graphic novel/memoir about his father's survival during the Holocaust.  Maus is celebrating its 25th year of publication with a new edition called 'MetaMaus' which includes includes a full transcript of Spiegelman’s taped interviews with his father and a DVD containing hours of original audio recordings, along with more family photos and early drafts of Maus. A completely different title, which we just finished reading is The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night Time by Mark Haddon, which introduces quirky Christopher who has Asperger's Syndrome and is one of the most unique characters our readers have ever met - part genius, part social misfit.  Christopher's story is an unforgettable, illustrated, coming-of-age adventure.  Readalikes include Jonathan Lethem's 'Motherless Brooklyn' and Gwyn Rubio's 'Icy Sparks', novels highlighting characters with Tourette's Syndrome, as well as Temple Grondin's memoir about autism 'Animals In Translation'. The seniors are also huge 'Hunger Games' fans and are eagerly awaiting the film version.  At the same time several recommended George Orwell's '1984' while I am supplying copies of that along with Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenhei 451' as our next read.