An Oprah for Teens?

BookDivas.com (www.bookdivas.com) is trying to do for teenagers and books what Oprah did for adults and novels. The new Web site is touted as the first online book club for teen girls, but organizers want boys to take part, too. "We already have a few boys signed up," says Howie Kleinberg, vice president of Electric Artists, an online marketing company that is launching the club. "There is a huge teen girl audience passionate about reading."

The site asks only that patrons be opinionated. There will be message boards and plenty of polls. (In the first survey, 80 percent of the 500 members said they regularly use the library.) Registration is free. But BookDivas is still pretty much a work in progress. Teens have already had a say in the site's logo design, and they are expected to influence book selection. "If a company tries to build something for teens to come in and use, it does not work. So we are encouraging teens to decide what it is that they want," says Kleinberg.