Teens Wanna Know: Extraordinary Stories

Hey, sci-fi/fantasy fans - I have another batch of book recommendations for you! Read my brand-new guest blog at Teens Wanna Know.

Today, I've recommended The Jenna Fox Chronicles by Mary E. Pearson, His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass, et al) by Philip Pullman, The Cold Awakening trilogy (aka Skinned trilogy) by Robin Wasserman, The Gemma Doyle trilogy (A Great and Terrible Beauty, et al) by Libba Bray, and The Young Wizards series by Diane Duane. These books are packed with magic, mystery, action, and romance.

Which of these series do you like best? Drop by my Extraordinary Stories post at Teens Wanna Know and leave a comment!  

March: What's your take-away from The Adoration of Jenna Fox?

Any final thoughts for Mary as her month concludes? What's your personal take-away from The Adoration of Jenna Fox?

And Mary, what should we watch for next?

The Adoration of Jenna Fox cover

I love the cover of The Adoration of Jenna Fox. Don't you? Not only is it eye-catching, but it fits the story - for reasons I won't disclose here, as I want to encourage those who have yet to read the book to do so and find out for themselves! :)



Upon realizing I had a little purple-and-blue plastic butterfly in my possession, I took a picture:



Mary E. Pearson joined in the fun, calling her picture of The Adoration of Rex and Spot:



In early April, I received a forwarded email filled with nature photographs. It included this beautiful image, which I promptly sent over to Mary:



Paradox posted a whole bunch of fan art book covers, including one for The Adoration of Jenna Fox. Click here to see them.

Want to recreate the cover yourself? Go for it! Put a link to your picture(s) in the comments below, and we'll showcase all of the covers in this blog post!

March: rgz LIVE! with Mary E. Pearson

Hey rgz!

Welcome to rgz LIVE! with Mary E. Pearson. We are PSYCHED to hold this live chat/LOVEfest in her honor tonight.

We know everyone will be patient as we try out this new software. Feel free to let us know if you dig it or don't. No hurt feelings! Really. This is just a shot, and Mary is so kind to be flexible with us. It seems like the free technology just isn't quite the perfect match with what we want to do. Let's see what we can figure out together.

This will be more like a free flowing party than what we are used to at the MySpace group forum. Mary may catch a few questions as she sees them stream by. No pressure on anyone though. Just enjoy the moment as we celebrate The Adoration of Jenna Fox. Let the party begin!

~the rgz divas

Reminder: rgz LIVE! is Thursday with Mary E. Pearson

Just a reminder! rgz LIVE! is Thursday, March 19th, at 6:00 pm, Pacific. We are still doing test runs of free chat software. Hopefully, the event will be right here in a new blog post. If we need to run it over at the MySpace group forum, we'll let you know!

There will be a test on Tuesday at 1:30 pm, Pacific, if anyone wants to help. More soon, rgz! Thanks for your patience.

~Lorie Ann

March: Do you want to live for 200 years?

Jenna faces living two hundred years or even more. Would you want to live forever?

~the rgz divas

March: Does the real you reside in your brain, heart, or gut?

Where does the you of you reside in your body? This is a question I return to often and it came to mind reading The Adoration of Jenna Fox. When you think, "Me," do you point to your heart? Or do you think of yourself dwelling up in your brain? Other cultures might point to their gut. What about you?

Maybe this is a question about your soul, if you believe you have one. Do you?

March: Has medicine saved your life?

I love this response from Mary that she dropped in the rgz MySpace group forum. Here it is for everyone to enjoy. Has medicine saved your life?

"Hi Dia! As you well know it takes a long time to write a book and Jenna Fox took me over two years to write so in the course of this time a lot of inspirations and ideas jump on board, but two of the triggering questions that got it going were "How far would a parent go to save their child?" and also, "How far will medicine advance in fifty years?"

I asked myself both of these questions when my daughter was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. We were very fortunate that medicine and technology had advanced far enough that her life was saved, but just fifty years earlier she would have died from it. So it was quite natural to wonder where medicine and technology might be in another fifty years.

And wondering is what drives most authors isn’t it? And then in the course of writing, I wondered more things! Like, will something like the soul which is so faith-based, ever be addressed by science? Or are there some things that will always be unexplainable?

I also wanted to explore "hyper-parenting" because now as we have more and more "miracle" children, I wondered about the pressures that might put on a child.

I like exploring gray areas in my writing--things that have no clear cut answers or present dilemmas--or at least for me they are! I am sure some people view these situations differently and that is what makes books and reading and opinions all so fascinating."

~Lorie Ann

March: How far would you go to save someone?

So after a writing retreat this past weekend, ideas were hopping like the divas were in a bingo ball hopper. I'm serious.

A massive new idea formed, and we are zooming through a test run. I'll give you the overview now, and then be sure to let us know your thoughts, rgz!

Here's the dealie-do:

* We are going to load discussion questions in this BLOG! *do a little dance*
* You can drop your comments here or in our FACEBOOK NOTES!
* We are going to TWITTER related topics to jive the exchange even more. Catch those and comment on Twitter or our rgz divas' Facebook.

What do you think?

So here's your first discussion question for Mary E. Pearson's The Adoration of Jenna Fox:

On the cover of The Adoration of Jenna Fox is the question, "How far would you go to save someone you love?" Did Jenna's parents go too far? How far would you go?