Outdoor Art: Crafts for Your Hair

Yesterday, 34 teens stopped by for our first outdoor craft event of the season!  (There were so many teens there that some moms thought our tent was the place to sign up for the township's playground program.  Ha!)  We made three different crafts to wear in your hair, so this was definitly a girly event.  We made nail polish painted bobby pins, beaded ponytail holders, and hair sticks.  The hairsticks were definitely the most popular, and they turned out beautifully!

Are you sad that you missed it?  Mark your calendar for Craft Closet Cleanout on August 24 from 3:00 to 5:00, when craft leftovers from the summer will reappear!  Thanks to Genni, Katie, and Christine for their help in setting up this event and keeping it running.  Extra thanks to Genni and Christine for helping clean up!

Want to make more stuff for your hair?  Check out these links:

• Cute and Easy Beaded Bobby Pins
• Flowered Hair Clip
• Bohemian Floral Headband
• Preppy Flower Headband
• Ribbon and Bead Barrettes

 Craft mob!!!

 Check out our homemade hairsticks!

Happy crafters

Teen Summer Reading Winners, Weeks 1 & 2

I have so much stuff to give away this summer that I am going to do five prizes for each weekly drawing!  I combined weeks one and two because the program was just getting started, but there are eight more weeks to go.  Bring in your five-book slips each week and get your free book and free food coupon.  Those slips are your entries for my weekly prizes and the county's prize drawings!

Anyway, here are the first weekly winners for the summer:

Kimberly, grade 9
won a hardcover book, UDHS silly bands, and candy.

Najia, grade 7
won a hardcover book, mini highlighters, and candy.

Angelise, grade 12
won a copy of Flyy Girl signed by Omar Tyree and candy.

Laurel, grade 10
won a gift certificate for a free 16” cheese pizza from Jano’s Italian Pizza Kitchen in Drexel Hill.

Ashish, grade 8
won two tickets to visit the Eastern State Penitentiary.

Fresh Picks

Tons of new books are here for you to check out!

 FICTION

• Almost Home by Jessica Blank
• The Opal Deception by Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl series; replacement copy)
• Sisters in Sanity by Gayle Forman
• Where She Went by Gayle Forman
• The Limping Man by Maurice Gee (Salt trilogy)
• Huntress by Malinda Lo
• Dramarama by E. Lockhart
• The Resistance by Gemma Malley
• Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
• Starlet by Randi Reisfeld
• Good Girls by Laura Ruby
• The Temptress Four by Gaby Triana
• The Kayla Chronicles by Sherri Winston
• My Life, the Theater, and Other Tragedies by Allen Zadoff

GRAPHIC NOVELS

• Rave Master, volumes 1, 14, 18, and 26 by Hiro Mashima
• Angelic Diary, volumes 1, 3 and 4 by Kara Lee YunHee

Book Swap and Board Games Extravaganza!

Yesterday, 30 teens descended on the library program room for an afternoon of book swapping and board/card games.  I have never run this event for four hours before, but I declare it a success!  Exactly half of the people brought books to trade, and their swaps added up to 70 books.  That's a lot of new reads!  The longer time gave people room to play some time-consuming games, as well as shorter ones.  I had little candy for short games and big candy for long games, and it worked out really well.  I had to cut off some people from too many games of stuff like Uno and Connect Four, however, because they were taking all of my candy!  We had a wide variety of games in play, including Munchkin, Quelf, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Life, and Apples to Apples throughout the afternoon.  Thanks to the 20 people who stayed to play all day!!  We'll definitely do this again, probably over winter break.

Welcome Back

Yesterday, a not-so-sneaky teen put three big loads of books in the adult library's book drop.  An eagle-eyed librarian knew it was one of our book thieves.  I don't know if he just felt guilty, or if his parents found out, or what, but he returned most of what I had marked missing from our comic book section.  I was elated to see them return, even under such circumstances!  Some of them need some TLC (new barcodes, pockets, other fixing), but many are ready to go out right now.  Look for Vampire Knight, Bleach, Naruto, Shonen Jump magazine and more next time you are in!!  Now, if only the vampire book thieves, series book thieves, and girly fiction thieves would do something similar...

Seriously, people, you don't need to steal from the library!!  I'll let you in on a secret...the books are FREE to borrow!

Rockin' Awesome!

Yesterday, 17 teens dropped in for our Rock Away Your Fines program!  Teens got $1 removed from their overdue fines for every game of Rock Band they played all afternoon.  We played Rock Band 1 & 2, Lego Rock Band, and the Beatles edition.  (We tried Green Day, but it wasn't working for some reason.)  Some people got their fines down to $0, and most got them under $10 so they can use their cards again.  Good effort, everyone--altogether, we got rid of $169 in fines!!!  Special thanks to those with higher fines for dedicating a lot of time to this event.  I gave you all a little bonus, and I hope you can get your fines down below $10 soon!

If you missed this event, we may do it again in the future.  Last summer, we did it with Dance Dance Revolution.  We could do that again, or we could try something like Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Just Dance, or MarioKart.  Let me know what you think!

Stuffed Shelves

Here are this week's new additions to the teen section:

• The Other Boy by Hailey Abbot
• The Road of the Dead by Kevin Brooks
• Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter (Heist Society series)
• Puppy Love by Jenny Collins (First Kisses series)
• On Location by Jen Calonita (Secrets of My Hollywood Life series; replacement copy)
• Jason & Kyra by Dana Davidson (replacement copy)
• Wereling by Steve Feasey
• Stargazer by Claudia Gray (Evernight series; replacement copy)
• Things Left Unsaid by Stephanie Hemphill
• Stacie & Cole by R. M. Johnson
• Confessions of a Not It Girl by Melissa Kantor (replacement copy)
• Skinny by Ibi Kaslik
• Carmen by Walter Dean Myers
• On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God by Louise Rennison (Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series; replacement copy)
• Just Like That by Marsha Qualey
• Vampire Kisses:  The Beginning by Ellen Schreiber (Vampire Kisses series; additional copy)
• La Petite Four by Regina Scott
• Bleed by Laurie Faria Stolarz
• Chasing Boys by Karen Tayleur (replacement copy)
• Sixteen Candles by Tia Williams (It Chicks series)
• The Chaos by Rachel Ward (Numbers series)
• Numbers by Rachel Ward

Teen Toy Story Movie Marathon

Yesterday, 24 teens showed up for the Teen Advisory Board's Toy Story Movie Marathon!  Some people came late or left early, but most stayed all day.  It was so much fun to see all three movies in a row!  We did trivia (with candy for right answers) during all three movies, plus coloring, a papercraft alien, a silly Mr. Potato Head contest (photos below), and games of knock-down with army men.  And, of course, there were plentiful snacks all day long.

In the spirit of all things childish, I put together a candy guessing jar for the event.  Teens often complain to me about how unfair it is that the children's summer reading program has one on their reporting table every week, so this was their chance.  The guesses ranged from 42 to 2000...some people need to work on their estimation skills.  Zaire was the winner with his guess of 585 because the the jar actually had 621 pieces of candy in it.

Huge thanks to my son Nat, who graciously lent us his Mr. Potato Heads, army men, and all three Toy Story movies.  (Although, he was a bit puzzled about why the big kids wanted them...!)

Here are our silly potato pictures:

 by Joelene

by Kathy 

 by Hannah

 by Chelsie

by Siaka 

 by Ben

 by Nikki (Our winner of a $5 gift card to DQ for her creative use of the potato and the materials!)

 by Genni (it's a hipster!)

by Nitha 

 by Owen

by Blya

What's New This Week

Look for these new additions to the teen shelves:

FICTION

• Played by Dana Davidson
• A la Carte by Tanita S. Davis
• .hack//Another Birth, volumes 1-3, by Miu Kawasaki
• Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler
• Project 17 by Laurie Faria Stolarz

NONFICTION

• Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul III edited by Jack Canfield

GRAPHIC NOVELS

• Avalon High Coronation, volume 3, by Meg Cabot
• Mobile Suit Gundam:  Lost War Chronicles, volume 1, by Masato Natsumoto
• Mobile Suit Gundam Seed:  Astray, volume 3, by Kouichi Tokita
• Mobile Suit Gundam Seed: Astray R, volume 1, by Yasunari Toda
• Wicked Lovely Desert Tales, volumes 1 and 2, by Melissa Marr

Nintendo Night

Last Friday, 32 teens came to our end-of-the-school-year Nintendo Night program.  We did two tournaments, plus had out my original NES.  Thanks to the teens who participated in the Random-A-Thon fundraiser, we had great prizes for the winners and soda for everyone.  Thanks also to David J., who added his Wii and controllers to the event.  We got through the tournaments in record time and actually had time for free play on both machines.  Amazing!

This time, the Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament was with teams rather than a four-player free-for-all.  So, people picked their teammate, then I randomly pitted them against each other.  It worked very well (although I was really hoping to see more of the Gaming Club members matched up in the first round!), and I'd definitely do it that way again.  The final match was between Morgan/Le and Conor/Ranier, with Morgan and Le emerging victorious!  They each got a $20 gift card to Game Stop.  All of the top four teams got candy for their efforts, which included Morgan/Le, Conor/Ranier, Tommy/James, and John E./David J.

Also, in our continuing efforts to change things up, we tried a Naruto Shippuden III tournament on the Wii.  This game has been popular at our weekly Gaming Club meetings.  Only 11 teens entered, which made me have to mess with the brackets a little.  We ended up with a three-way round-robin final among Dennis, Khalil, and David F.  Dennis was the winner, earning a $10 gift card to Game Stop.  All three of the finalists also got candy. 

We are not doing any tournaments this summer, but look for another Nintendo Night on the fall teen program calendar!

TAB Grads

On June 5, the Teen Advisory Board (TAB) met to celebrate our graduates, meet new members, and plan stuff for summer!  The TAB is an awesome group of 15 teens in grades 8 to 12 who plan and raise money for our programs at the library.  This year's graduates are Nitha, Kaitlyn, Christine, Christa, and Judy.  It's always hard to say good-bye to our amazing seniors, so I'm glad we still have you around for the summer!

 

We welcomed new members Billy, Amie, and Kimberly to the group, as well.  We need all the help we can get over the summer!  The TAB is working on several programs for the summer, including the Childhood Toy Movie Marathon, a murder mystery, and a multicultural food event.  If you want to join the TAB, applications will be available in August/September for the 2011-2012 school year.

All of the TAB grads

The silly picture

The totem picture...?

Members, old and new

Some of our younger members

Arwa came to visit us!!!  :)

Craft Closet Cleanout

Last Wednesday, 11 teens stopped in for our spring craft closet cleanout.  Some had to finish their decoupage from last week, while others worked on new projects.  People made duct tape crafts, decorated giant flip-flops, did sand art keychains, and made random things from my "make stuff" box of mismatched leftovers.  Everyone left with several things.

We have six weeks of outdoor crafts scheduled this summer, plus a craft closet cleanout in August.  Check the teen summer calendar!

 Decoupage is always chaotic!

Two people making random stuff, and one making an amazing duct tape wallet.  She used my entire new roll of tie-dye duct tape and had to improvise!  The wallet turned out amazingly cool.

Newest of the New

Here are our new books this week.  Come check them out and enjoy that new book smell!  :)

FICTION

• The Bones of the Holy by Jennifer Allison (Gilda Joyce series)
• Cruel Love by Kate Brian (Privilege series)
• Bloody Valentine by Melissa de la Cruz (Bloods Bloods series)
• Dark Times by Rob Reger and Jessica Gruner (Emily the Strange series)
• Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

PLAYAWAY AUDIO BOOKS

• Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter (Gallagher Girls series)
• City of Glass by Cassandra Clare (Mortal Instruments series)
• Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
• Bloody Jack by L. A. Meyer (Bloody Jack series)
• Curse of the Blue Tattoo by L. A. Meyer (Bloody Jack series)

Doctor Who Night!

Tonight, 12 fanatical teens showed up for our first-ever Doctor Who night!  I know literally nothing about Doctor Who, but some of our Teen Advisory Board members are devoted fans.  They planned a fun event, and all I had to do was bake cupcakes.  We had a costume contest, made papercraft TARDISes, watched clips of Doctor Who episodes old and new, had a cupcake-decorating contest, and worked on Jasmine's dishwasher-box TARDIS.   Kaitlyn won the costume contest, and Emily won the cupcake contest. They each got a $5 gift card to Dairy Queen.  Thanks to Jasmine, Emily, Maria, Kaitlyn, and Genni for their efforts to make this program happen!

There were a few things planned that we didn't get to do.  The laptop wasn't cooperating, but they wanted to show this video of all of the regenerations of Doctor Who.  I also found two fun trivia links:  Doctor Who Trivia Night and BBC's cult TV show quiz page.  And, we didn't get to discuss anything, such as favorite villains, favorite Doctors, or what people thought of the new season.  It makes me think we might have to do this again sometime!



2011 Book Grub Grads!

Today was our annual end-of-the-school-year Book Grub talkfest and graduation party!  Nearly the whole group showed up, plus Caitlin and Martha came to visit.  We have five members graduating this year:  Nitha, Jamie, Kaitlyn, Judy, and Christine.  I know I say this every year, but I can't believe they're going off to college and I will really miss them!! 

We didn't read a book this month, but did spend some time talking about the books we read this year, their sequels, books made into movies, and good stuff we've read recently.  Of course, we also heard the grads' plans for life after high school, and everyone's plans for the summer. 

 Some grads

 Nom nom nom

 What would you do for a Klondike bar?

 The semi-serious Book Grub picture

 And, of course, the silly picture

 Group hug!

 In height order...

 ...and in reverse!

Cuteness

Incarceron

The dystopian world of Incarceron is vast, frightening, and amazing. I came to this book first at my Scholastic(TM) book fair and then again in a reading group. It both intrigued and mystified me. There were so many question, so many ideas that actually made me think. Although the main plot was highly predictable, it was still an entertaining read. There were many mishaps the characters had to face, and they did with discretion. I would recommend anyone who is a fan of Twilight or Harry Potter to read this. This recommendation actually works because Incarceron is one of the many books that are being turned into movies to replace Twilight and Harry Potter. If you love a good romance that isn't mushy or girly, both a hero and an equally amazing heroine, read Incarceron, the only thing you'll possibly lose is your mind because so many questions will fill it!

Mockingjay

Do not, I repeat, do not read this review if you have not read Mockingjay yet. There are spoilers!






I was told that the end of the epic Hunger Games series would make me hate the entire series, but it didn't. Yes, it may have canceled out Katniss' original reason for entering the games, but it was just as thrilling as the prior two. In this end, Katniss must now be the face of the war, without actually taking part of it. When she finally has the sense to take matters into her own hands, she ends up losing the reason this whole mess started - (SPOILER ALERT!)Prim. I had found this out previous to reading the book. It seems to me though that Collins was being a bit to much like J.K. Rowling. She killed off so many characters in this book! Anyway, there are plenty of moments that will have you creeped, cheering, confused, and maybe even make you cry. The thing I didn't like was how Gale pretty much fell off the face of the earth. Also, Collins acts like another author once again. You know how in New Moon Bella goes into extreme depression when Edward leaves? Well the same thing happens to Katniss when the war is over. I mean, I get that she just lost her sister and assassinated the president, but seriously, that's how your going to end a series like the Hunger Games? Also, here she goes copying J.K.R. again! Read the epilogue. It's just like the one in Harry Potter. So I'm going to be nice and say I loved the book, which I did. It's just if I was Collins, I would have given the readers a better end to a series which I, a devout Potter fanatic, thought was better than both Harry and Twilight.

Check These Out!

Here is what's new in the teen section this week:

FICTION

• The Secrets of Boys by Hailey Abbot
• So, So Hood by L. Divine (Drama High series)
• Suddenly Last Summer by Melissa J. Morgan (Camp Confidential series)
• Speed Dating by Natalie Standiford (Dating Game series)
• Take a Chance on Me by Cecily von Ziegesar (Gossip Girl:  The Carlyles series)

GRAPHIC NOVELS

• Avalon High Coronation:  The Merlin Prophecy, volume 1, by Meg Cabot
• Jing, King of Bandits:  Twilight Tales, volume 3, by Yuichi Kumakura
• Bizenghast, volume 2, by Alice LeGrow
• Mobile Suit Gundam Seed X Astray, volumes 1 and 2, by Kouichi Tokita 

NONFICTION

• Within Reach:  My Everest Story by Mark Pfetzer and Jack Galvin (three copies; summer reading title)