Staff Picks

When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop by Laban Carrick Hill; pictures by Theodore Taylor III [Book]

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In his introduction to Jeff Chang’s book Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation, DJ Kool Herc says, “Hip-hop is the voice of this generation.” This picture book tells the story of the beginning of hip hop in the Bronx. Clive wanted to be a DJ since he was young. He grew up in Kingston, Jamaica and looked up to a DJ named King George. Clive moved to New York to live with his mama when he was 13 years old. He started going by the name Kool Herc and became DJ Kool Herc when he was able to rewire his father’s sound system to get a really big sound! He was the first person to use two turntables to extend the break so people could really dance to the music. DJ Kool Herc was in high demand for house parties and street parties. He would plug his sound system into the lampposts to get power. The music was just one part of the budding hip hop culture in the Bronx. Hip hop has its own music (rap and beats), its own dance (break dancing) and its own visual art (graffiti). DJ Kool Herc loved music and his contribution to hip hop is something kids should be reading about!

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell [Book]

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Fangirl is about a young woman named Cath who leaves for her freshman year of college with her twin sister Wren. Both of them are obsessed with Simon Snow (think Harry Potter) and Cath writes fan fiction obsessively. Although Cath and Wren were extremely close, their new college lives get in the way of their relationship with each other, their father, and her fanfiction.

Stuffology 101 by Brenda Avadian, MA, and Eric Riddle [Book]

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I was going to have a photo taken of me reading this in front of a pile of boxes we haven’t unpacked since the last move, but I couldn’t find the camera.
Stuffology is a refreshing contrast to The life-changing magic of tidying up even though it promises similar benefits to getting rid of excess stuff. They’re serious about their subject but light-hearted in their approach. Get rid of the accumulated objects that are weighing your life down and you’ll be better able to focus, function and live fully in the present. Plus they coined the acronyms CHAOS (Can’t Have Anybody Over Syndrome) and POOP (Piles Of Overwhelming Paperwork).

Blue on Blue by by Dianne White; illustrations by Beth Krommes [Book]

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This poetic book is beautifully illustrated with scratchboard and watercolor. Set on a family farm in New England, Blue on Blue is the story of a rain storm from dark skies to mud everywhere.

When I Knew by Robert Trachtenberg [Book]

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These stories of queer moments, crushes, fantasies, and coming out will make you smile, cringe, and maybe even tear up. Trachtenberg arranges the stories to oscillate between the quippy and the emotionally charged and highlights something amusing from each story with a provocative illustration. Although I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I would have loved seeing a broader representation of queerness and more stories from POC. Check out more of our LGBT Teen staff picks!

Chasing Fire by Nora Roberts [Book]

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Rowan Tripp has been fighting fires since she was 18, and is the daughter of a retired forest fire fighting legend. We meet the new crop of rookies, and get to see the intense ways they train, as well as meet the surviving crew from the previous season when they lost one of their own. The fire season is difficult enough on its own, but we find that someone hasn’t let go of last year’s tragedy. The suspense is more in the people vs. fire, with a lot of details including training, equipment and on the line fire fighting. Although this definitely qualifies as a romance, I didn’t find it too over the top, and felt the steam came more from the water vs. fire than the relationships. There is a secondary romance that adds an interesting element.

Raven and the Red Ball by Sarah Drummond [Book]

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This is a beautiful wordless picture book with woodcut illustrations. A dog finds a red ball and begins to play until a raven appears. With eyes red like the ball, the raven takes the ball from the dog. Defeated and exhausted after chasing the raven, the dog stops to rest only to be pleasantly surprised by the red ball falling from above.

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips [Book]

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The immortal Greek gods are in reduced circumstances in the 21st century, living in a dilapidated house in London and pretty tired of each other’s company by now. Their relationships among themselves and their interactions with the modern world are perfectly in character, smart and very funny. Now that the gods have had to get day jobs, Aphrodite does phone sex, Artemis is a dog walker, and Apollo is still chasing mortal women. It’s an ingenious concept and Phillips carries it through cleverly, unpredictably and hilariously. This is Phillips’s debut novel and I can’t wait for the next.

The Last Days of Disco by Whit Stillman [DVD]

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Whit Stillman’s third feature, The Last Days of Disco, is set in New York City the early 1980’s. Here we find a group of young professionals who are all, whether they are aware or not, in a period of transition. This moment of change also mirrors the current stage of the popular music (please see the title!).

Alice (Chloë Sevigny) and Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale), somewhat recent graduates of Hampshire College, are working in the lower echelons of the publishing industry. Despite having not much in common (and they can readily admit that they may not be ideal candidates for friendship), the duo decides to share a railroad style apartment with another young woman.

The tight living quarters teamed with Charlotte’s persistent insensitivity create a great deal of tension and bickering. Furthermore, there’s also tussling over potential/previous love interests. An escape from this turmoil is the local hot spot; it’s a fashionable discotheque possibly modeled in Stillman’s memory from his days hanging out at the famed Studio 54. Chris Eigeman, a Stillman mainstay, is cast as Des McGrath. McGrath is a sardonic manager at the said Manhattan club and he ultimately realizes that the owner has some sort of a shady operation going on.

When viewing The Last Days of Disco, one can’t help appreciating the dedication in creating such memorable characters and the overall writing in general. The film is filled with quick and witty dialog… most of which you cannot imagine being spoken by actual people. In one instance, Eigeman’s character begs the question, “do yuppies even exist? No one says, ‘I am a yuppie,’ it’s always the other guy who’s a yuppie. I think for a group to exist, somebody has to admit to be part of it.”

The struggle of social identity and finding one’s general placement in society underlie this brilliant comedic drama.

P.S. After a viewing, one may discover that disco does not suck!

Last Picture Show by Peter Bogdanovich [DVD]

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In keeping with the “New Hollywood” theme, I thought we’d take a look at another Roger Corman student and another film in the Criterion Collection’s America Lost & Found series. Following his directorial debut Targets (a brilliant “Frankensteining” of Corman stock footage of Boris Karloff and a completely new script about a local assassin), Peter Bogdanovich adapted Last Picture Show with the book’s author Larry McMurthy.

The film is set in a transitional period, both for the landscape and members of the graduating high school class, in a rural north Texas town in the early 1950’s. Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shephard and Randy Quaid play the local teenagers who are thinking about their futures outside of their small home town. Relationships, the military, money and taking care of family members all play important roles on these characters’ decisions. Two adult figures, Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson, both won Oscars for their performances in supporting roles.

Robert Surtees’s soft black and white cinematography over the dusty roads and old shop signs hang a general feeling of loneliness over Last Picture Show. Bogdanvoich’s subtle humor, rich character drama and calculated pace, earn him comparison to the French master François Truffaut. He would also continue to look to the past, mostly filming in black and white, in years to come with films like Paper Moon, What’s Up Doc? and Nickelodeon.

In The Last Picture Show, we can feel that change will come in this part of Texas and that Red River shall inevitably have its final curtain.

Major Pettigrew’s last stand : a novel by Helen Simonson [Book]

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Debut author, Simonson, has written a delightful and surprising love story that takes place in the beautiful English country town of Edgecombe St. Mary. Retired Major Pettigrew is a proper English widower who falls in love with kindhearted Pakistani widow, Mrs. Ali, much to the chagrin of the community. Drama and humor ensue.

Zombie by Fela Kuti [Music CD]

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