Answer a Question and Win

A number of popular teen fiction books feature strong female characters. Which young woman do you most admire from the choices below?  Please note that the question is about the characters portrayed in the books rather than the movie characters but it was easier to find movie images for the picture below!

Complete the form to enter the prize draw (open to Kapiti District residents only). The winner will be drawn at the next Wrappers meeting on Friday 5th September.

Kapiti Libraries Poetry Competition Winners

Kapiti Libraries held the second annual poetry competition recently and the winners were announced last Friday. The theme was 'war and peace' to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1. The winners of the teen section were:

1st place - Star Wilson-jennings
2nd place - Gus South Aiken
3rd place - Grace Rundle-Keswick

Congratulations to these poets. Their poems were insightful and moving. You can read them on the new Teen Poetry page of The Wrap. 

Speed Freak by Fleur Beale

Racing. Winning. That's all that matters in this exciting teen story about driving competitively.

Archie Barrington, fifteen, is the third generation of his family to drive karts competitively. He's good, and this is the year he and his dad have decided he'll have a shot at the Challenge series of six races. If he comes out the winner overall then he wins the chance to race in Europe.

However, he's not the only good driver after the prize. Craig is his main rival, and Craig's father is wealthy and prepared to spend whatever it takes to help his son win the Challenge. 

Archie doesn't let Craig worry him, but Silver Adams is another matter. She's come back into karting after a two-year break and her ambition seems to be to drive her kart like a weapon of destruction to others on the track, Archie in particular.

His life isn't the smoothest at home either, thanks to Dad's new girlfriend Erica who, in Archie's opinion, is ridiculously overprotective of her seven-year-old son Felix. Karting is the last thing in the world she intends for him to do. However, shy, reserved Felix is fascinated by the whole world of karts. 

Archie and Craig dice all year – first Archie wins at a Challenge meeting, but next time Craig does. Archie must win the sixth and last meeting if he's to win the series. All is going well until disaster strikes in the pre-final, when he's pushed off the track and breaks an axle. That's it. Craig will go to Europe but he won't. Then Silver comes to the rescue unexpectedly and Archie is able to drive the race of his life. 

I have to confess that I didn’t think the subject matter of this book, kart racing, would appeal to me.  However it is so much more than a story about a series of kart races.  The main competitors are an interesting mix of personalities, each with their own motivation to win. Along with the issues in Archie’s family life this story is a great combination of character conflict and plot development. 

Reviewed by Carolyn 

More Beast than Beauty

Although the Beauties were conspicuous by their absence on Friday the Beasts made up for it in force. There were some really ghastly hands and garish (but delicious looking) Zombie cupcakes. 

Beauty and the Beast Teen Event

The Wrappers Recommend

Books discussed, liked and recommended at the August Wrappers meeting.

Origin                           Jessica Khoury       (‘the best stand-alone novel I’ve read in a while’)

Feed                             M.T.  Anderson

Furnace                        Alexander Gordon Smith           (‘first of a series, scary but good’)

How to Save a Life       Sara Zarr

The Elephant in the Garden    Michael Morpurgo

A Kiss in Time              Alex Flinn             (Sleeping Beauty wakes up in the 21^st century)

Paper Towns                John Green

H.I.V.E.                         Mark Walden 

Monument 14               Emmy Laybourne    (this book keeps on being recommended)

Now for the ‘not recommended’ books – because a book that one person loves may be hated by another. Just check out a website such as Goodreads.com to see how varied the reviews and ratings are for each book.  Wrappers who have taken on the 27 Challenge have to share a book they didn’t like and here are a couple:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Drowning Instinct by Ilsa J Bick

Have you read either of them? What’s your opinion? 

The Fault in our Stars by John Green

Every now and then, when we can get hold of enough copies, the Wrappers all read the same book. This month we were able to get hold of a new library book club kit and read The Fault in our Stars. 

There was a unanimous feeling that it was a sad story laced with humour.  Peter summed it up with this comment: “It was one of the funniest and saddest books I’ve read. My face started hurting as I went between laughing and crying.”

Some other comments were:

• The writer character (Peter van Houten) was annoying/irritating.
• Hazel’s parents were control freaks.
• It was sad that Hazel saw herself as a grenade and didn’t want anyone to get close to her.
• What happens to Hazel at the end? We want to know.

Isaac was a very popular character.  A comment was made that he didn’t appear as much as he should have in the movie of the book. Discussion then included movie related comments. Several Wrappers agreed that they don’t like movie editions of novels because they like to imagine the characters themselves rather than be shown pictures from the movie.  There was also quite a strong feeling that it was off putting that the actors have a sister and brother role in the Divergent movie but are lovers in The Fault in our Start movie!