#RockTheDrop and Debut YA Book Birthdays

Before we get started with this week's debut YA book birthdays, I wanted to talk to you about Rock the Drop, sponsored by Reader Girlz.

On Thursday, take a YA book of your choice and leave it some where conspicuous in the wild for a lucky reader to find and enjoy.  ReaderGirls have a cool book plate for you to print out and place in the book to mark it as a donation.  Then, take a picture of the book and upload it to Facebook to keep the excitement going.  More details are here.

Last year, I left my book on the pool table (frequented by teens) at my local JCA.  Turns out, the cleaning staff got it before any kids could and it ended up in lost and found.  Boo!  So this year, I'm going to try a local teen lunch place and hopefully my donated book will find some new people to love it.  :)

As for the debut YA books this week, we've got 3 vastly different books:

TAKEN by Erin Bowman (this one gets the award for Best Cover)

There are no men in Claysoot.

There are boys--but every one of them vanishes at midnight on his eighteenth birthday. The ground shakes, the wind howls, a blinding light descends . . . and he's gone.

They call it the Heist.

Gray Weathersby's eighteenth birthday is mere months away, and he's prepared to meet his fate--until he finds a strange note from his mother and starts to question everything he's been raised to accept: the Council leaders and their obvious secrets, the Heist itself, and what lies beyond the Wall that surrounds Claysoot--a structure that no one can cross and survive.

Climbing the Wall is suicide, but what comes after the Heist could be worse. Should he sit back and wait to be taken--or risk everything on the hope of the other side?

THE MILK OF BIRDS by Silvia Whitman

This timely, heartrending novel tells the moving story of a friendship between two girls: one an American teen, one a victim of the crisis in Darfur.

Know that there are many words behind the few on this paper…

Fifteen-year-old Nawra lives in Darfur, Sudan, in a camp for refugees displaced by the Janjaweed’s trail of murder and destruction. Nawra cannot read or write, but when a nonprofit organization called Save the Girls pairs her with an American donor, Nawra dictates her thank-you letters. Putting her experiences into words begins to free her from her devastating past—and to brighten the path to her future.

K. C. is an American teenager from Richmond, Virginia, who hates reading and writing—or anything that smacks of school. But as Nawra pours grief and joy into her letters, she inspires K. C. to see beyond her own struggles. And as K. C. opens her heart in her responses to Nawra, she becomes both a dedicated friend and a passionate activist for Darfur.

In this poetic tale of unlikely sisterhood, debut author Sylvia Whitman captures the friendship between two girls who teach each other compassion and share a remarkable bond that bridges two continents.

THE SYMPTOMS OF MY INSANITY by Mindy Raf

For fans of Louise Rennison, Sarah Mlynowski, and Stephanie Perkins comes a laugh-out-loud, bittersweet debut full of wit, wisdom, heart, and a hilarious, unforgettable heroine.

It's kind of crazy how you can pay so much attention to yourself and still not see a thing.

Izzy is a hypochondriac with enormous boobs that won't stop growing, a mother with a rare disease who's hiding something, a best friend who appears to have undergone a personality transplant, and a date with an out-of-her-league athlete who just spilled Gatorade all over her. Yes, Izzy Skymen has a hectic life. But what Izzy doesn't realize is that these are only minor symptoms of life's insanity. When she discovers that the people she trusts most are withholding from her the biggest secrets, things are about to get epic -- or is it epidemic?

So, are you planning on rocking the drop?  Or picking up any of these debut YA beauties?