The Blue Girl

by Charles de Lint

When I first started reading this book I suspected it to be one of those funky-new-girl-meets-the-class-nerd-and-turns-her-into-
a-beauty kind of stories with a fairy or two thrown in. What I found was an interesting, imaginative, if rather weird, book that I could hardly put down!
When Imogene begins her first day at a new school she stands out more than the usual new kid does because of her strange fashion sense, making her a target for the most popular girl and head cheerleader, Valerie Clarke, and her quarterback boyfriend Brent Calder. Imogene is not a wimp, however, and stands up to Brent when he teases her and her new friend Maxine, which causes the school ghost, Adrian, to fall in love with her. When Imogene finally meets Adrian (she’s seeing him out of the corner of her eye for a while), she is not freaked out in the least, and Adrian feels that Imogene is the first true friend he’s had. His other friends (if they can be called that) are the fairies, who also reside in the school. Imogene does not believe Adrian when he tells her about the fairies, so Adrian asks the fairies to come to her in her dreams. The last thing Imogene needs, while trying to balance school, having a boyfriend, and trying to hook her brother Jared up with Maxine, is fairies popping into her dreams. A human girl walking around with fairies and a ghost attracts the attention of the anamithim, the soul-eaters, who almost never give up in their hunt for souls once they’ve latched onto one person. With the help of Maxine, her imaginary childhood friend Pelly (who has come to life again with the fairies), and Adrian, Imogene has to fight for her life against the anamithim. But will she win?
The Blue Girl is an amazing mixture of normality, fantasy, and sci-fi.

Novels into Movies

Recently it seems that many novels are being adapted into scripts for the big screen. Maybe movie companies are running out of good ideas, who knows. Anyway, below is a list of all the literature-into-movies being made in the future—all the ones I know about, anyway.
Note: this is an updated version of a previous post. In the future this post will be edited with new information.

A

Airborn (Kenneth Oppel)
Airman (Eoin Colfer)
Alchemyst, The (Michael Scott)
Amulet of Samarkand, The (Jonathan Stroud
An Abundance of Katherines (John Green)

B
Beastly (Alex Flinn)
Boggart, The (Susan Cooper)
Book Thief, The (Marcus Zusak)
Burning Time, The (Carol Matas)

C
Certain Slant of Light, A (Laura Whitcomb)
Chasing Vermeer (Blue Balliett
City of the Beasts (Isabel Allende)
Cry of the Icemark, The (Stuart Hill)

D
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Jeff Kinney)
Dragonfire (Donita K. Paul)
Dragonriders of Pern (Anne McCaffrey)

E
Eddie Dickens and the Awful End (Phillip Ardagh)
Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
Everlost (Neal Shusterman)
Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp, The (Rick Yancey)
Flipped (Wendelin Van Draanen)
Flyy Girl (Omar Tyree)

G
Giver, The (Lois Lowry)
Great and Terrible Beauty, A (Libba Bray)
Great Gilly Hopkins, The (Katherine Paterson)
Guardians of Ga'Hoole (Kathryn Lasky)

H
Here Be Monsters (Alan Snow)
Here, There Be Dragons (James A. Owen)
Highest Tide, The (Jim Lynch)
Hobbit, The (J.R.R. Tolkien)
House of the Scorpion, The (Nancy Farmer)
Hunger Games, The (Suzanne Collins)

I
Inkspell (Cornelia Funke)
Interworld (Neil Gaiman and Michael Reeves)

K
Killing Sea, The (Richard Lewis)
King Dork (Frank Portman)
Larklight (Philip Reeve
Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
Little Girl Lost (Charles de Lint)
Looking Glass Wars, The (Frank Beddor)
Looking for Alaska (John Green)
Lost Years of Merlin, The (T.A. Barron)
Lovely Bones, The (Alice Seabold)

M
Magyk (Angie Sage)
Maximum Ride (James Patterson)
Monster Blood Tattoo (D.M. Cornish)
My Sister's Keeper (Jodi Picoult
Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List (Rachel Cohn and David Levithan)

N
New Moon (Stephenie Meyer)

P
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan)
Peter and the Starcatchers (Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson)
Peter Pan in Scarlet (Geraldine McCaughrean)
Princess and the Pauper, The (Kate Brian)

R
Ramona and Beezus (Beverly Cleary)

S
Sisters Grimm, The (Michael Buckley)
Skellig (David Almond)
Spook's Apprentice, The (Joseph Delaney)
Stargirl (Jerry Spinelli)
Stoneheart (Charlie Fletcher)
Subtle Knife, The (Phillip Pullman)

T
Teen Idol (Meg Cabot)
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale (Holly Black)
Tomorrow, When the War Began (John Marsden)
True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, The (Avi)
Tunnels (Roderick Gordon)

U
Uglies (Scott Westerfeld)

V
Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie (Holly Black)
Varjak Paw (S.F. Said)

W
Wee Free Men, The (Terry Prachet)
When the Wind Blows (James Patterson)
Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak)
Wicked Lovely (Melissa Marr)

Terrier

by Tamora Pierce

Since she was very young, Rebakah Cooper has shown an unusual amount of determination to bring justice on those who do wrong. When the Lord Provost hears of this, her family to live in his house until she is old enough to become a Dog, one of the crime-fighters of the city. Now Beka is sixteen years old and a Puppy—a Dog in training—paired with Clara Goodwin and Matthias Tunstall, two of the best Dogs in the Lower City. Once the three have gotten used to each other they work well as a team, which is something they will need. The Shadow Snake is on the prowl, taking children from their families and demanding payment or else the child dies, men are leaving to find work, but never returning, and the Lower City is becoming more dangerous by the day. Even with the help of her violet-eyed cat, Pounce, members of the Court of the Rogue, and her Birdies (both human and feathered), can Beka prove that she’s a true Terrier and not a Fishpuppy before more lives are lost?

Taking place some two hundred years before the popular Song of the Lioness Quartet begins, and narrated through Beka’s journal, Terrier explores a side of Tortall that is only glimpsed in Ms. Pierce’s previous series, introduces us to a new “shero” who is resolute and realistic, and unfolds an exciting plot. Beka’s adventures continue in the next books in the Provost’s Dog Trilogy, Bloodhound and Elkhound.

Chasing Redbird

by Sharon Creech

Thirteen-year-old Zinnia “Zinny” Taylor’s life is tangled like a bowl of spaghetti; she’s still figuring herself out and she’s not much like any of her five siblings. She’s not moody like Gretchen, boy crazy like May, or noisy like her younger brothers. Zinny’s only refuge from is her Aunt Jessie and Uncle Nate’s house, until she finds a weed-covered trail in the woods behind the house. Zinnia Taylor: explorer! Suddenly Zinny knows she has to uncover this trail—from beginning to end—do something significant so she might be known as more than “the strangest and stingiest dirt-daubing doodlebug.” Along the way Zinny remembers things about her cousin Rose’s tragic death, discovers her family’s secrets, and gets to know handsome Jake Boone.

Chasing Redbird is a great book for pre-teen girls (although I’m sure older readers will also enjoy it!), as Zinny’s quirky thoughts are very real, and she doesn’t just hang around waiting for a boy to notice her. Sharon Creech was one of my favorite authors when I was younger, and I still enjoy coming back to her funny and touching stories today. If you enjoy Chasing Redbird, look for the Newbery Medal-winning companion, Walk Two Moons.