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This week Miramax and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released Becoming Jane, a modern romantic comedy that looks at how Jane Austen’s real life love affair - and her desire for an independent life - inspired her novels.

I was delighted to receive a review copy from the folks at Click-Comm.com since I think Anne Hathaway from The Devil Wears Prada (Widescreen Edition) and The Princess Diaries (Special Edition) is a fantastic actress that teens and young women can relate to. It also stars James McAvoy, James Cromwell, Maggie Smith, and Julie Walters.

A synopsis:

When 20-year-old Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) meets up with the roguish Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy), sparks begin to fly. Initially repelled by his arrogance, the emerging writer slowly realizes that she has finally found a man who appreciates her intellect as well as her beauty. As her parents (Julie Walters and James Cromwell) arrange a wealthy, aristocratic husband for her, Jane begins a clandestine romance with Lefroy. The young man proposes marriage, but his wealthy guardian, who holds his purse strings, disapproves of Jane’s outspoken manner and ambition to be a writer, and threatens to cut Tom off. In a world where marriage determines a woman’s fate, will they risk everything, including family and friends, for the sake of romance?

Becoming Jane is the true story of how a young Miss Austen dared to hope to marry for love and to support herself through her writing, two very unusual acts in her day. Not only would this movie be a great introduction to Austen’s books, but it would make for a wonderful discussion with your teenage daughter about how a young women’s place in society has changed since Austen’s time.

Becoming Jane is the best kind of chick flick - smart and thought provoking. It’s also funny, romantic, and full of wonderful dialog, gorgeous costuming and handsome men. (James McAvoy - oh my!) All in all, a perfect video rental for an evening of mother-daughter bonding.

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Sara Zarr, author of the National Book Award Finalist, Story of a Girl, is back with her new YA (young adult) novel Sweethearts.

As children, Jennifer Harris and Cameron Quick were both social outcasts. They were also each other’s only friend. So when Cameron disappears without warning, Jennifer thinks she’s lost the only person who will ever understand her. Now in high school, Jennifer has been transformed. Known as Jenna, she’s popular, happy, and dating, everything “Jennifer” couldn’t be—but she still can’t shake the memory of her long-lost friend.

When Cameron suddenly reappears, they are both confronted with memories of their shared past and the drastically different paths their lives have taken.

I enjoyed Sweethearts immensely. It’s a great novel for young women and while there’s some very adult topics, namely child abuse and parental neglect, the writing and story are age appropriate. For more on Sara and her books check out her website at www.sarazarr.com.

Five Questions for Sara Zarr

1. Sara, your book Sweethearts has a bittersweet ending. Were you trying to share with your readers “better to have loved than have not loved at all” when it comes to friendship?

No - there’s no agenda or lesson to the ending, it’s just what I felt was authentic for those characters in that situation. Without giving too much away, I didn’t see how it could turn out any other way given all of the circumstances. Maybe a few years after the ending of the book, there’s still a chance for a different outcome to their relationship.

2. Do you really believe kids who are ugly ducklings can turn into swans while still in high school? Or does personal reinvention only happen when people “grow up”?

I don’t see Sweethearts as an ugly-duckling-to-swan story. I see Jenna as a girl whose primary goal was emotional and social survival, and once she lost her only friend—and without the support of siblings or a parent who could take a break from work long enough to guide her—she only did what she felt she needed to do to get through. That said, adolescence is a time of constant change and growth and the trying on of new identities, so, yeah, I think anyone can do a surface reinvention in high school. Of course, it’s not necessarily a true transformation.

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I’m voting for Duck for President. Really can you blame me?

It is our pleasure, our honor, our duty as citizens to present to you Duck for President. Here is a duck who began in a humble pond. Who worked his way to farmer. To governor. And now, perhaps, to the highest office in the land.

Some say, if he walks like a duck and talks like a duck, he is a duck.

We say, if he walks like a duck and talks like a duck, he will be the next president of the United States of America.

Thank you for your vote.

And if that doesn’t convince you, watch this video: