A few weeks ago we decided to sign Adrian up for Literati Club Titan. Each month he’ll get five curated young adult books ($9.95 a month) and we can keep some of them or all of them (prices vary based on the book). We have a lot of YA readers in this house so while it is for Adrian, it’s really for lots of us (Ani’s even got one from his first box at her apartment right now).

His first box arrived the middle of last month after a strange journey that took it from Austin up to Dallas for a couple days before coming back south to San Antonio. The box was pretty. I couldn’t wait to open it. (Yes, this is 100% for Adrian, why do you ask?)

Opening the lid I was greeted with a rather strange and confusing art poster. The colors were were bright, but there was no specific image that I could identify.

The next layer of the box presented me with a card and several bookplates, all custom printed with Adrian’s name (see, told you it was all for him!) plus the reason why the pictures didn’t make sense.

Included in that layer was a tri-color viewer thingy. And now the crazy pictures started to make sense. Each picture was really made up of lots of pictures.

Each color of the viewfinder allowed us to see a totally different picture from the other colors by filtering out certain colors. So cool!

Adrian and I spent a long time looking at the pictures through the viewfinder thingy and discovering the hidden pictures within the colors.

So clever and so very cool. I don’t really understand how it works, but I love that it does work. Such a neat bonus gift with his books.

Having enjoyed the pictures, it was time to move on to the books. We had already looked at the synopses of each of the books (using the online price list they provided after the box shipped) so we knew what was coming, but there’s something special about actually getting the books and touching them.

Pride by Ibi Zoboi

This one is a Pride and Prejudice remix. This one is probably the one Adrian is the least interested in, but I think he’ll enjoy it once he gets into it (and I know I will).

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Reading the synopsis of this one made me think of The Westing Game, a book I first read in elementary school and have read many times since. Adrian was the most excited about this book and, really, I don’t blame him.

Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds

This one just sounds weird. Like really weird. Also, very intriguing. Based on the synopsis I have no idea where it’s going to go or how it even happens. Should be an interesting read.

I Killed Zoe Spanos by Kit Frick

I think I read that every box has a theme to it. I’m pretty sure this box’s theme is death. This one sounds a bit creepier than I like, but it’s YA so it can’t be too creepy, right? That would be, like, breaking a Rule of Young Adult Books or something.

I Have a Bad Feeling About This by Jeff Strand

This one sounds like it’ll be right up Adrian’s alley. Humor, silly situations. I’m looking forward to reading this one, too. It might be a bit more of a mind vacation than the others.

So that’s all five of the books. They came with a sheet giving the prices. They also give the Amazon prices and I checked. They are accurate. You can keep any number of the books (or none of the books), but if you keep all five you get a 5% discount.

It comes with a return address label making it easy to return any you don’t want to keep (you have 7 days to decide). Bet you can’t guess how many we decided to keep. Yeah, this label just went in the trash.

Joel was really excited about the books, especially Pride. He claimed it as his own and carried it around “reading” it (sometimes upside-down).

After checking out the books, Adrian put the bookplates in his new books. It’s just extra fun to have something special marking your books as your own.

A little crooked, but still cool. The viewfinder thingy can even be used as a bookmark so the bookplate picture can be looked at any time.

Adrian was pretty happy with his pile of books. He insists he is smiling here. I guess he is. Sort of. Anyway, that’s a pretty nice book haul he’s got there.

He sat right down and started to read The Inheritance Games. In a couple weeks we’ll get our second box of five books. I’m excited to see what’s included.

(If you want to subscribe to Literati Kids (any of their many age group boxes, not just Club Titan), if you use my link you’ll get $25 in Book Bucks and so will I!)