DDR Day

On Wednesday, 19 people showed up for our end-of-school Dance Dance Revolution day. There was dancing, of course, but also board games, card games, and Mad-Libs. We did our usual mini-tournament, in which Owen edged out Ross for the closest final round ever! Both guys got candy, but only Owen got the glory and a $5 gift card to Wawa.

There is no DDR day on the program for summer, but I am doing Dance Away Your Fines on July 30 from 3:00 to 5:00. Every time you beat me at a song (and I will be playing on light), you will have $1 subtracted from your library fine!

May Anime Club Drawing Challenge

In honor of Memorial Day, last month's Anime Club drawing topic was "patriotic." The entries were really random! Here is some of the artwork created:

If the guy from One Piece helped us win WWII...

Kawaii presidents??

Nice hair!

A reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Hmmm...maybe we should have specified "American" patriotic!

Book Grub Grads

It's that time of year again...we have to say good-bye to our Book Grub seniors! Although some will still be around through the summer, June is always our graduation party meeting. I made cupcakes (with help from Nat), and bought some other snacks. We heard from everyone about their plans for the summer and where they are headed in the fall. It's amazing to have such a diverse and talented group of library teens! We also talked over all the books the group read this year, and definitely heard some strong opinions. Here's what we read:

• July 2009: Evolution, Me, and Other Freaks of Nature by Robin Brande
• August 2009: Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta
• September 2009: The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding
• October 2009: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• November 2009: Impossible by Nancy Werlin
• December 2009: Paper Towns by John Green
• January 2010: Unwind by Neal Shusterman
• February 2010: The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor
• March 2010: What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundel
• April 2010: Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
• May 2010: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

This was a really wide range of books, so I'm proud of us for not getting stuck in a reading rut this year! A lot of people said the one that stuck with them the most was Unwind, and I definitely agree with that. I liked looking back over the year and hearing everyone's overall opinions. It helps make the group better in the future (not that it isn't already awesome, of course). Anyway, congratulations and best of luck to our graduates!!!

Book Grub Grads: Martha, Alexa, Ashveen, Jeff, Anila, Busra, and Stephanie

We always have to do a silly picture!

Craft Closet Cleanout

Today, nine people dropped by for our spring edition of Craft Closet Cleanout. We forgot to make reminder calls, so that's a good effort by people who just remembered to show up! Everyone could choose to do either the main crafts I had out at the tables, or take their chances with a DIY project from the box. People made tissue paper flowers, jean leg autograph pillows, scratch-painted CD magnets, beaded flower hairpins, button earrings, painted star magnets, and more! I forgot to bring my camera, but everyone made at least two things. Emily's button earrings turned out especially well and got her complements when she wore them to school! I always like to hear craft success stories. Anyway, CCC will return at the end of the summer, so check the schedule.

Candy Sushi Drop-In Day

A record 36 people stopped by last Wednesday to make candy sushi! I had directions for four different types of sushi, three of which were the same as we made last year. The fourth one was a gunkanmaki that we filled with Nerds candy to look like fish eggs! It was pretty realistic looking, and probably tasted better too. Everyone started out with a giant plate of junk food, and some even complained that it was too much unhealthy food all at once. However, by the time it was transformed into cute sushi, no one seemed to care. Almost everyone stuck around to eat their sushi with chopsticks and take turns playing the always-hilarious WarioWare: Smooth Moves. This year's after-school drop-in days were awesome, so look for more of them in the fall.

It was fun, but it took concentration

Chopsticks!

A completed plate of sushi

Look at all the junk food it takes to make fake sushi...

It's fun to play with your food!

Another completed plate of sushi

Cheese Night

Last Friday, 28 people showed up for the Teen Advisory Board's Cheese Night program! This idea has been bouncing around among the TAB members for a few years, and we just decided to go for it this spring. It was a little random, but a lot of fun! As they came in, everyone selected a nametag of a kind of cheese and added their answers to my posterboards of cheesy questions. We did two cheese art projects, which were hilarious. First, everyone had to create a shape from a slice of American using only their teeth. Later, we made constructions out of cheese cubes and toothpicks. Of course, everyone got to eat their creations after I took some pictures! We watched clips from some cheesy movies like Marley & Me and Mamma Mia!, and we saw Wallace and Gromit's quest for moon cheese in A Grand Day Out. Throughout the evening, we also ate cheesy snacks that I cooked in my toaster oven. Overall, we ate 140 pizza rolls, 60 jalapeno poppers, and two trays of cheesy spinach dip with tortilla chips. We ended the program with yummy cheesecake cupcakes. I randomly gave away things from my cheesy prize box all night, including horrible teen library books from the 80s, books by Nicholas Sparks, dollar store junk, Kraft Mac & Cheese, and other cheesy snacks. I definitely declare Cheese Night a success! We'll have to do another one in the future.

Cheesy Pictures

Here are some pictures from our cheese art activities!

A three-legged dog

A rooster

An underwater scene of a fish with bubbles and seaweed

A ray

A snowflake

A diamond!

A pterodactyl

A dog's head

The Eiffel Tower

Two people and a dog

A pentagonal robot monster

A gorgeous jungle gym with a child playing on it

Cheesy Comments

As people arrived at Cheese Night, they added some commentary to my cheesy posters. Here's what they had to say...

Favorite Cheesy Food:

• Ravioli, lasagna, pizza, and baked ziti
• Mozzerella sticks
• Cheese on cheese
• Tacos, nachos, and quesadillas
• Cheese fries
• Macaroni and cheese
• Cheetos and Doritos
• Apples and cheddar ("best combo ever!")
• Broccoli with cheese
• Cheese-Its (and cheese zits...)

Favorite Cheesy Love Song:

• My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion
• The Way I Loved You by Taylor Swift; Love Story by Taylor Swift; anything ever sung by Taylor Swift
• Beautiful Soul by Jesse McCartney
• Firefly by Owl City
• Baby by Justin Bieber; anything ever sung by Justin Bieber
• Your Song by Elton John
• Achy-Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus
• All I Ask from The Phantom of the Opera
• Something by the Beatles
• Can't Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley

Favorite Cheesy Pick-Up Lines:

• Can I have a map? I got lost in your eyes.
• You need a ticket because you've got fine written all over you.
• It's a good think I have my library card because I'm checking you out.
• Are you Jamaican? 'Cause J-makin' me crazy.
• Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?
• Can I have your number? I lost mine.
• Are you from Tennessee? 'Cause you're the only ten-I-see.
• Do you have a Band-Aid? I hurt myself falling for you.
• Can I borrow your phone? I have to call my mom and tell her I found the girl of my dreams.

Favorite Cheesy Movies:

• She's All That
• A Walk to Remember; anything based on a book by Nicholas Sparks
• Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken
• Texal Chainsaw Massacre
• Confessions of a Shopaholic
• Titanic
• 27 Dresses
• The Orphan
• Pokemon 2000
• My Girl
• Born Romantic
• 50 First Dates
• The Lake House
• The Hills Have Eyes

Jean Leg Autograph Pillows

Yesterday, 11 teens showed up to make jean leg autograph pillows for the end of the school year. Thanks to Sellers staff and patrons for donating all of the jeans and the fiberfill stuffing! We used the straightest legs to make the pillows rectangular. We just cut off the cuff, fringed the ends, cutting strips about 3/4" apart and about 5 inches deep. Then we knotted the fringe on one end together, ironed on an "Express Yourself" patch, stuffed it, and knotted the other end. It was easy and cute! At the end, everyone was given a Sharpie to take home with their pillow. Some people collected signatures from friends at the event, while others saved it for school.

Getting an early start on the signatures.

Look! Pillows!

Finished products.

What to do with leftover jean parts...?!

Nerd Appreciation Night!

On Friday night, 21 people showed up for Nerd Appreciation Night. Nitha suggested this program to the Teen Advisory Board over the winter, and it was definitely a success. I guess you could call almost any program we do "Nerd Appreciation Night," but this one was special because it had such a wide variety of nerds!

Everyone picked a nerd nametag as they came in, or made their own. The list included fictional characters like Hermione Granger, Steve Urkel, Lisa Simpson, and Peter Parker, but also some real people like Ben Stein, Weird Al Yankovic, Tina Fey, and Susan Boyle. We played Simpsons Scene-It for about 15 minutes while everyone arrived.

Our major activity for the evening was the Battle of the Nerds. Nitha suggested that we should let everyone defend their nerdish passions, so I set up some NCAA-style brackets and filled in a Sweet Sixteen of nerds. We pitted nerd against nerd in one-minute rounds where each person had 30 seconds to talk about his/her chosen subject. The group voted for the winner of each round, who then moved on into a new bracket. We had a good mixture of guys and girls from a variety of backgrounds, so topics ranged from the expected (role-playing games, fantasy books/movies, writing, drama) to the far-out ("the human mind," "the multiverse theory"). Our final round ended up being Anas (physics) against Nitha (celebrity obsession), with Anas declared the victor for his rational descriptions of how physics is related to real life. Anas won a DVD of the SyFy channel's original miniseries Tin Man, a retelling of The Wizard of Oz.

We also did a nerd quiz slideshow, with a question for the whole group on each slide. People raised their hands to answer and won Nerds (of course) for correct answers. I tried to come up with questions for all kinds of nerds so everyone had an opportunity to win. Some of the questions asked for demonstrations, and that's where we met some true nerds. For example, you're probably a nerd of some type if you can do an actual card trick from memory!

We had chips and candy for snacks, and we watched a movie clip from Spaceballs and a few Monty Python sketches. We ran out of time for nerd media so we definitely have to do this again! We didn't even get to The Princess Bride, Lord of the Rings, or Napoleon Dynomite. Look for another Nerd Appreciation Night next year!

Like, Totally Radical 80s Crafts

Yesterday, 13 people showed up to make 80s crafts! We snacked on popular food of the 80s (Reese's Pieces, Sour Patch Kids, microwave popcorn, and Fruit Roll-Ups) and rocked out to great songs like "Video Killed the Radio Star." I got to wear my very 80s cassette tape earrings and "Jason" heart necklace in honor of the day! The program itself was chaotic, but everyone left with three awesome crafts.

A few weeks ago, I ordered BeDazzlers from their (complete waste of time) website for this program. Note to self: never order anything "As Seen on TV" again!! They charged an arm and a leg for shipping, but never bothered to ship my order. Luckily, they never actually charged my credit card, either. I called and cancelled the order this week, but that left us without BeDazzlers to decorate our tote bags. So, I had to run around like crazy to see what I could get in the craft stores and ended up with iron-on studs as the most economical choice! This meant, of course, that we were treated to an endless variety of "stud" jokes from Jamie as I described the activity, but at least we got to do it!

So, we started with the retro-graphic tote bags, cutting apart the iron-on studs and positioning them on the bags. But, the directions said to turn the item inside-out before ironing, and then all the studs fell off as people did that. We ended up turning the bags inside out first, then sticking on the studs by reaching inside, which worked much better. (It would have been so much easier with BeDazzlers. Grrrrr.) Anyway, the bags turned out pretty well and only a few rogue studs had to be stuck on with craft glue. I hope everything stays on when people use the bags!

We then made a quick necklace modified from the jewelry book Hardwear by Hannah Rogge. It was just plastic tubing and screw eyes, connected in the front with a safety pin for a great industrial punk look. Very 80s, but also cool now.

At the end, I taught everyone about the magic of shrinky-dinks! We did some quick drawings with Sharpie, cut them out, and punched a hole in them. The library does not have an oven, so we used my toaster oven from home, which worked just fine. In less than two minutes, everyone got amazing small versions of their drawings! A lot of people safety pinned them on to their tote bags, which was a cute idea. We are definitely going to make shrinky-dinks again, but we will probably use colored pencils so the colors are not so dark. (If you want to do them yourself, the only craft store around here that sells the paper is A. C. Moore.)

Check out our pictures:

Tote bags get a thumbs up.

Fun with scissors.

Finished products!

Rock Band Jam Session

Last Wednesday, 13 people showed up for our spring Rock Band Jam Session. There was no love for The Beatles, but Rock Band 2 and Lego Rock Band got a lot of time. We had a lot of different people singing, not just our usual two or three. I did Two Princes by the Spin Doctors! I am going to get more Rock Band songs before our next event this summer, so that's something to look forward to. Thanks to everyone who showed up to play!

Book Swap & Miyazaki

Last Wednesday, 27 teens showed up for our spring break Book Swap and Miyazaki event! Ten people swapped 36 old books for new reads, so I hope they are enjoying their selections. We watched a double feature of Miyazaki's anime movies, which was great for me because I have never seen any of them. Several members of the Teen Advisory Board suggested this event, and I am grateful because it was really popular. I was astonished, though, at how much food was eaten during the program. The group demolished a six-pound bag of gummy bears, two gallons of lemonade, an entire batch of chocolate cupcakes, and a giant container of snack mix! It's a good thing I went to BJs to stock up the day before. Anyway, we'll definitely combine Miyazaki and book swap again in the future because there are a lot more movies to watch. However, look for a different book swap and movie theme on the summer schedule!

Bubble Gum Drop-In

Today, 21 people stopped by for the bubble gum drop-in program. Some people stayed for ten minutes, others lasted for the entire three hours, and everyone had fun! Lots of library regulars showed up, but there were also some new faces. Thanks to everyone who brought a friend! At the event, we made chewed gum sculptures, had a bubble-blowing contest, did gum trivia, ate snacks, and played Wii games. Winners of the trivia and bubble blowing contests got packs of gum, of course.

I finally found a used copy of Wario Ware: Smooth Moves for the library's Wii, so we took turns playing that for a long time. I mean, you have to do something while chewing all that gum, right!? The game is so random that even watching someone else play is entertaining, but it is so easy that even someone who has never played Wii can do it. We also played some Rock Band games, ending the event with our always-amazing rendition of Yellow Submarine.

To make our gum sculptures as artistic as possible, we used gumballs in a variety of colors in addition to bubble gum. Here are some creations:

A crazy 3-D monster by Justin. This used the most gum of any sculpture. The dripping saliva gave it an extra gross flair...

Jasmine's poor armless girl couldn't actually pick those flowers!

Yes, Laurel made a macabre skull.

Anas enshrined his love for soccer.

This is Jace from Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series, immortalized in gum by Kaitlyn!

"Birds fly over the rainbow, why, then, oh why can't I..." by Emily

Announcing the Spring 2010 Program Schedule!

Enjoy all kinds of activities at the library from now until the end of the school year! Please note the registration dates. You can also join our Sellers Library Teens page on Facebook and register for events there.

DROP-IN DAYS
No registration, just come by after school and bring your friends! The hours are long because everyone’s schedules are different.

Bubble Gum
Wednesday, March 24, 2:00 to 5:00 pm
Drop by to make a chewed gum sculpture, enter a bubble blowing contest, try some trivia, eat snacks, and play Wii games! This is an early-out day for UDHS.

Candy Sushi
Wednesday, May 26, 2:00 to 5:00 pm
Back by popular demand! Candy sushi looks like the real thing, but tastes a lot yummier. Stop by with your friends to make several styles of sushi out of junk food. This is an early-out day for UDHS.


SPECIAL EVENTS

St. Patrick’s Day Party
Wednesday, March 17, 3:30 to 5:00 pm
Join us after school for St. Patrick’s Day games, food, crafts, and prizes. Be sure to wear your green! Register now.

Book Swap & Miyazaki Movies
Wednesday, March 31, 1:00 to 4:30 pm
Put your spring break to good use! Trade in your old books for new reads, enjoy Hayao Miyazaki’s anime movies on the big screen, and eat food! Stop in to swap anytime, or stay and watch movies as long as you want. Swap books should be intermediate or young adult
paperback fiction in good condition. Register now.

Rock Band Jam Session
Wednesday, April 7, 3:30 to 5:00 pm
Enjoy Rock Band 2, Rock Band: The Beatles, and Lego Rock Band. Come by yourself or with your band members. Register now.

Zine Workshop
Wednesdays April 28, May 5, May 12
3:30 to 5:00 pm
Are you a writer or artist? Join the underground magazine movement! Get creative with your work and get published in our library zine. In celebration of summer reading, the theme for this edition of the zine will be Make Waves. Participants must attend all three sessions. Registration begins March 22.

Nerd Appreciation Night
Friday, April 23, 6:30 to 8:30 pm
Whether you are a drama nerd, book nerd, computer nerd, manga nerd, video game nerd, or any other kind, we appreciate you! Defend your favorites in our Battle of the Nerd Media and enjoy snacks, games, and activities in the company of other nerds. Sponsored by the Teen Advisory Board. Registration begins March 22.

Dance Dance Revolution
Wednesday, June 9, 3:30 to 5:00 pm
Show your moves at our Xbox DDR program! We will project the game onto the wall so four people can dance at once. Dance for fun, or enter our contest. Permission slip required. Registration begins May 3.

Cheese Night
Friday, May 21, 6:30 to 8:30 pm
Yes, it’s completely random. Yes, it’s a little bit weird. But if you love cheese, this night is for you! Enjoy cheesy movie clips, games, and crafts. Of course, there will also be plenty of cheesy snacks! Registration begins April 19.


CRAFTS

80s Crafts
Wednesday, April 21, 3:30 to 5:00 pm
Rock out to 80s music while Beadazzling a retro-print tote bag and making a punk necklace. There will even be 80s prizes and candy! Registration begins March 22.

Jean Leg Autograph Pillow
Wednesday, May 19, 3:30 to 5:00 pm
Get ready for the end of school ! Recycle a pair of old jeans into a pillow and collect good wishes from your friends for the summer. Registration begins April 19.

Craft Closet Cleanout
Wednesday, June 2, 3:30 to 5:00 pm
Make something you missed or create something totally new as we get rid of leftover craft supplies from this year. Registration begins May 3.


BOOK DISCUSSION GROUPS
Get free books and free food! Every month, the group votes on a book, and the library buys them each a copy to read and discuss at the next meeting.

Read and Rant Book Group
Third Fridays from 3:30 to 5:00 pm
March 19, April 23, May 21, June 18
This group is accepting a limited number of new members in grades 7 to 9. Registration is ongoing until spaces are full.

Book Grub Book Group
First Fridays from 3:30 to 5:00 pm
March 5, April 9, May 7, June 4
This group is accepting a limited number of new members in grades 10 to 12. Registration is ongoing until spaces are full.

Primos Branch Book Group
Third Mondays from 7:00 to 8:00 pm
March 15, April 19, May 17, June 21
Open to students in grades 6 to 12, this group meets at the Primos Library at 409 Ashland Ave., Primos, PA, 19018. Call them to register: 610-622-8091.


CLUBS

Gaming Club
Mondays, March 1 to June 21
3:30 to 5:00 pm (no meeting 5/31)
Bring your Yu-Gi-Oh! deck, DS, PSP, or any other game stuff you’re into. We'll also hook up the Wii or Xbox for multiplayer gaming. Hang out, relax, and play whatever you want! Permission slip required. Club size is limited. Registration is ongoing.

Anime Club
Fridays March 26, April 30, May 28
3:30 to 5:00 pm
The anime club meets once per month to watch and discuss great shows, participate in a drawing challenge, and learn about Japanese culture. Permission slip required. Club size is limited. Registration is ongoing.