Today's the Day that Sparks Will Fly!

After months of waiting, it's finally arrived....the release of Catching Fire!

To celebrate, I will wear my mockingjay pin and order the book for my middle school library.

I personally loved it and couldn't put it down....the twists, the turns, the revolution is at hand! The reviewer at Time agrees with me, but the reviewer at Entertainment Weekly has her own thoughts on the Hunger Games sequel (including a few errors about the chronology of events, and the like). Different strokes for different folks, I guess, but I'll now anxiously await the third volume!

And now I will leave you with this video...

And the winner of the Catching Fire ARC is...

San!

With a record 212 comments from friends who evidently ALL plan to borrow your prize, you are the winner! Congratulations!*

I have no idea who you are or how you found out about my contest, San, but you clearly love The Hunger Games and are very deserving of the ARC. In order to redeem your prize, I'm going to have to get your address, so please send me an e-mail (check my profile for my info.) with your address, and then begin making the daily run back and forth to the mailbox in nervous and joyful anticipation of your prize.

In all, the contest received 445 comments, which is way more than I ever thought could possibly occur. I was hoping for 10. Ha! I just hope that y'all stick around and continue to read and comment, since that was really my goal.

And in that vain, I'll let it drop here that I'll be at ALA in July and plan to come back armed with another ARC of Catching Fire which I also plan to raffle off through the blog. Next time, however, the rules will be different: no anonymous comments will be accepted and there'll be a quality component (i.e. you will win because I like your story and want you to get the prize, not because you got hundreds of people to post on my blog).

Stay tuned...

* I would also like to note that both Charlotte and Lola also gave really strong showings.

LibrariYAn's First Contest: The Catching Fire Giveaway!

As you may recall, I've been plotting since January on how to acquire an ARC of Catching Fire Suzanne Collins' sequel to the SLJ Battle of the Books-winning The Hunger Games.. The actual book won't be released until September 1st, and I knew that that was just too long to wait for greatness. So there I was at BEA today, and what do you know, I was able to acquire not one, but TWO copies of the ARC! Of course, I don't need two copies. I only need one, so I'm giving one away!

Have I piqued your interest? If so, read on for the details on whatcha need to do to win. If not, what is wrong with you that you don't want an ARC of Catching Fire? You clearly have your priorities in disarray! But I digress...

The Prize: Advanced Reader's Copy (ARC) of Suzanne Collins' novel Catching Fire (sequel to The Hunger Games) AND a mocking jay button*

The Winner: The person who gets the most *new* people to comment on my blog by midnight on Monday, June 1st. Tell everyone you know about LibrariYAn and get them to leave a comment on this post. Make sure you get credit for the comment by also having them include your name as the person who did the referral. (Sample comment might be "Love your blog! Stacy told me how much she loves your posts and that I just *had* to pop over and start reading. I'm so glad I did, and will keep coming back. I too loved The Hunger Games!"). I get new readers, and the person with the most referrals wins a cool prize. Sound fair? Good!

Looking forward to a few new readers!

* similar to the one Katniss wears, but obvi not as cool, since it's just a round black and yellow button and not a classy gold pin.

Long Time, No Blog

So I've been travelling (first to Italy on my belated honeymoon and then to Denver for a friend's wedding) and haven't posted a new blog in about two weeks. I'm back in the world of interweb connections, and it turns out that life hasn't stopped while I was away.

And now it's time for a recap:

The Hunger Games wins! Theeeeeee Hunger Games wins...SLJ's Battle of the Books

YALSA contemplates the virtues of extending the definition of "young adult" to include actual young adults. LibrariYAn is intrigued (I've talked about this before). Librarilly Blonde disagrees.

Rutgers SCILS minted a batch of new librarians, including Librarian Boredom's Sara, Purple Polka's Kristi(e) (who also unveiled a saucy new blog look) and, of course, yours truly! Congratulations to all the new librarians!

Summit Entertainment releases the "official" New Moon posters, which actually feature Jacob! (Thanks to Best Week Ever for the link.)

In a case of "is it real or is it not?," a "teen" is running a banned book library (sans Twilight) from his/her locker. Cue librarians arguing over whether a possible fake teen with a fake banned book locker library helps or hurts the library profession and the cause of banned books. Really?

And coming up this week, Alicia goes to BEA with the sole intent and purpose of getting an ARC of Catching Fire. I'm sure I'll get a slew more ARCs that I'll love and devour, and yes, I'm meeting up with several friends, and that's great and all, but let's be honest: Katniss is my real reason for attending.

'Catching Fire' Buzz is Heating Up!

If you loved Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games even half as much as I did, you're anxiously awaiting the September 8 release of its sequel, Catching Fire. Publisher's Weekly has thrown us a bone, unveiling the cover design (see above), AND making it known that Scholastic will be giving out ARCs at BEA this spring. I'm so excited...and I just can't hide it.

Now the question is, how do I get my hands on one of those puppies?

Thanks to Bookshelves of Doom for the link.