Tomorrow, When the War Began has been released in Australia.  It’s a film based on the first book in the Tomorrow series by Australian author, John Marsden.  The first reviews are also in, as you can read at The Sydney Morning Herald.  Quotes about the film include “long on action and short on drama” and “a briskly related adventure, with a good-looking young cast.” 

Marsden’s teen series features a dystopian future that has Australia being invaded by a military force from an unspecified country.  One of the big questions about the film is how race will be dealt with in the invaders since it was handled so vaguely in the books. 

Richelle Mead, author of the Vampire Academy series, has sold the film options for the series.  She met with producer Michael Preger of Preger Entertainment to develop the series for the big screen.  They are hoping to create a series of films.  Sounds like a Twilight idea to me!

Mead, who met with Preger and Murphy during the recent Comic-Con event in San Diego, says she’s not presuming anything yet.

"I’m hopeful. I’ve met the guys. They’re great. They love the books. But for me, it’s very easy to put this on the back burner. The options are sold, but it’s not something I’m thinking about most of the time. My focus is the books, because that’s what I do."

Read more at the Kansas City Star, including an interview with Mead.  It gives fans something to do before the final book in the series is released in December!

How I Made It to Eighteen: a mostly true story by Tracy White

Based on the author’s experiences, this book takes a straight-on look at depression and self-destruction.  Seventeen-year-old Stacy Black checked herself into a mental hospital to help deal with her anger and depression.  She had just put her fist through a glass window.  Stacy hated the hospital but knew that she had to be there to survive, so she stayed.  As she spent time there, she developed new friends who helped her in her recovery and in being honest with herself.  Told in graphic novel format that is more like a journal than manga, this book is honest, blunt and intelligent.  Teen readers will easily see themselves in Stacy whether they are struggling with similar issues or not.

This book appears to be a regular novel until you open it and see all of the illustrations.  Done in line drawings, the illustrations are quirky and have the unedited feel of a real journal.  Readers get to know Stacy as well as her friends both in the hospital and from outside.  This perspective shift, done at the end of each chapter is a welcome view of how outsiders view a teen who enters a hospital.  While they express confusion and concern, all of them realize that it was a necessary step.  It is a brilliant and subtle way to tell teens that they will not be vilified if they get the help they need.

Though heavily illustrated, White’s writing is also a large part of the story.  Stacy is a sarcastic and caustic character.  Readers will realize immediately that she is putting on a front, but it takes time for readers and Stacy to acknowledge what exactly has brought her to the hospital and to this place in her life.  The slow unveiling of the basis of her problems mirrors the steps in her counseling.  This makes the entire book feel organic and honest.

A book that teens will enjoy and relate to, this graphic novel will appeal to a much broader audience than graphic novel readers.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from copy received from Roaring Brook Press.

Also reviewed by:

• BookDragon
• Finding Wonderland
• Graphic Novel Reporter – interview with the author
• Long Island Press
• Mother Daughter Book Club
• YA Books Central

Summit has officially announced that Breaking Dawn Part 2 will be released a full year after Part 1. 

Part 1 is due out November 2011, and now Part 2 is scheduled for a November 2012 release.  You can read the rationale for the scheduling at the MTV News site.

Thanks to Frenetic Reader for the link.

A charmer of a trailer for the movie version of It’s Kind of a Funny Story.  The casting choices are excellent, so my hopes are high!

According to /Film, two new names have been mentioned with Fox’s adaptation of Mr. Popper’s Penguins.  Director Mark Waters of Freaky Friday is a possible director.  Jim Carrey, Owen Wilson and Jack Black’s names have been mentioned as possible stars.

Sigh.

Really?

Sigh.

I was hoping for a quirky interesting film because it’s such a cool book.  Now it looks like star-power, big-budget, CGI-animals type movie.  Let’s hope that I’m wrong since the book deserves better.

Cinematical has the news that Lisa McMann’s YA novel Wake will be made into a film.  Wake will be adapted by Christopher Landon who co-wrote Disturbia.

But the biggest news is that Miley Cyrus is going to star in the film.  Sigh.  Why?  Why? Why?

Cinematical reports that Breaking Dawn will definitely be two films.  Bill Condon will direct both films.  Production begins this fall with the first of the two scheduled to be released on November 18, 2011. 

Variety reports that McG and his Wonderland  Sound and Vision is optioning film rights to The DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend), a teen novel by Kody Keplinger.  This is the 20-year-old’s debut novel that is due to be released this September.

In the same article, Variety mentions that Wonderland is also producing a film version of I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President, adapted by the author Josh Lieb.