Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd. Edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci. Little, Brown. August 2009. ISBN: 978-0-316-00809-9. Gr 7–12.
-- School Library Journal, 6/17/2009
A lot of teens—and an even larger percentage of book-reading teens—are termed “geeks” by themselves or their peers. This book acknowledges that fact and addresses it head-on. While geeks are often ostracized by their peers, this anthology makes it clear that they are not alone! It provides a sense of belonging to a community, and a pretty fun community at that.
The cover, with its pixilated people that resemble MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role playing game) characters, is very cute. It definitely reflects the book’s contents, since pixilated images are symbols of geekdom.The stories, including the sheer variety of them, were definitely compelling. Readers will realize they are definitely not as geeky as they thought before reading this. It’s a lot of fun to see all these different perspectives on “geekyness” in stories that were all original and fun to read.—Lisa M., age 15The Interesting Reader Society (IRS--"teens, not taxes!"), is a library teen advisory and reading group of teens in grades 6-12 from throughout the Poudre River Public Library District in Fort Collins, Colorado. Currently, there are about 40 members with an average of 25 teens per monthly meeting. IRS is also one of the fifteen 2009-2010 national teen reading group appointees for the Teens' Top Ten/YA Galley project of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA).
