Featured Book of the Week and An Exciting Announcement

FEATURE BOOK OF THE WEEK

Imagine waking up one day in total darkness, unsure of where you are and unable to remember anything about yourself except your first name. You're in a bizarre place devoid of adults called the Glade. The Glade is an enclosed structure with a jail, a graveyard, a slaughterhouse, living quarters, and gardens. And no way out. Outside the Glade is the Maze, and every day some of the kids -- the Runners -- venture into the labyrinth, trying to map the ever-changing pattern of walls in an attempt to find an exit from this hellish place. So far, no one has figured it out. And not all of the Runners return from their daily exertions, victims of the maniacal Grievers, part animal, part mechanical killing machines.

Thomas is the newest arrival to the Glade in this Truman-meets-Lord of the Flies tale. A motley crew of half a dozen kids is all he has to guide him in this strange world. As soon as he arrives, unusual things begin to happen, and the others grow suspicious of him. Though the Maze seems somehow familiar to Thomas, he's unable to make sense of the place, despite his extraordinary abilities as a Runner. What is this place, and does Thomas hold the key to finding a way out? (Publisher's summary from Goodreads)

 Announcement and Special Guest Post From 

James Dashner

The Area Wide Book Battle Committee with the help of Scholastic Book Fairs is happy to announce that James Dashner will be attending this year's battle.  

Hi guys! I'm honored to be part of the Book Battle this year, and I can't wait to come out there and meet a lot of you. I hope you'll enjoy my book, The Maze Runner. It's a dark story and might give you some nightmares, maybe even cause some permanent psychological damage. I hope you're cool with that! Just get a therapist afterward and watch lots of Spongebob and you should be back on track.

I had a lot of fun writing this book, as well as the two sequels (Book 3 comes out this fall). It was heavily inspired by two books I loved in high school: Ender's Game and Lord of the Flies. It was also influenced by the TV show Lost, which I was watching while working on the manuscripts. There is a lot of mystery, action, intrigue, and suspense, and I hope that you find yourself wanting to tear through its pages.

There are a lot of exciting things coming down the pipeline related to this series, including a movie by 20th Century Fox, so crack it open and have at it! I hope you have as much fun reading my story as I did writing it. See you soon....

James Dashner

About the Author

James Dashner is the author of both children's fantasy series The 13th Reality, and the Jimmy Fincher Saga. His novel The Journal of Curious Letters was chosen for a 2008 Borders Original Voices pick. He has been published by Cedar Fort, Inc and by Shadow Mountain Press, known for their popular children's novels series Leven Thumps and Fablehaven. However, Delacorte—a division of Random House— published his new series, The Maze Runner, the first of which was out Fall 2009, and The Scorch Trails, which was released Oct. 2010. The third book in this dysptopian series The Death Cure (working title) is planned to be release Oct. 2011.

James Dashner was born in Georgia and attended Brigham Young University. Dashner. He currently lives in South Jordan City, Utah and is married with four children.