DDR

On Wednesday afternoon, 9 people showed up to play DDR after school. That isn't as many as usual, but I forgot to make reminder calls, so that probably had something to do with it! Anyway, 6 people entered our tournament, and Sarah was the winner of a $10 gift card to GameStop. Jamie would have won, but we handicapped him heavily by making him play on Heavy. Maybe next time, we'll just go for Standard and see what happens! Look for another DDR event this summer.

Nintendo Night

Last Friday, 25 people came out for our winter Nintendo Night! There were a lot of familiar faces, as well as some new ones. And huge thanks to Rachel for bringing in her Wii. Eight people entered the Pokemon tournament for Diamond and Pearl on DS, and Maher got a $10 gift card to GameStop for winning. Twenty-four people entered the Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament. The top two from every round moved on until we had the final four. Mike won a $20 GameStop gift card for his win in the final. The top six finishers (Sean, Val, Maher, Rachel, David, and Mike) also got cups of candy. Other people had fun playing their own DS games or playing Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. on my old NES. It was a really great event, and we will do it again in June!

More Lubar Pix!

Nancy Trimbur, a member of our library board, came to the David Lubar author visit on March 5 and took pictures! Here are some of her shots from the evening:

A lot of people purchased books.

The book sales area was always packed.


David working the crowd!

There was a long line for book signing.

David took time with everyone, which was really nice.

Some older fans, and a new one!

Pimp My Phone!

On Wednesday afternoon, only four people showed up to make crafts for their phones, but it was a lot of fun! The three girls made felt cases for their phones that looked like Pop-Tarts. They all turned out really cute. The lone boy made a case for his out of red duct tape. It was very challenging! We were going to make robot charms for them too, but we totally ran out of time. Anyway, the program leftovers will be at our Craft Closet Cleanout program in May, so you can still make the items if you missed this event!

Lubar Was Here!

Tonight, a record-breaking 54 people came to our library to meet author David Lubar! It was really cool. We kept having to get out more chairs, and everyone was crowding around the table to buy books! There were a lot of different people there, including book group members, parents, teachers from several UD schools, students who wanted extra credit, and others who were just curious. There were people who use our library regularly and people I've never seen before!

David (who teased me for calling him Mr. Lubar) talked for about 1/2 hour about all kinds of things. We all knew he was an author, but we learned that math actually helped him be a writer. And that his philosophy degree helped him design video games. And that weird "what if" questions are central to his writing. His presentation was offbeat and a lot of fun. He hardly talked about his books at all until the Q&A part of the evening. Of course, then we talked about why his short story books all have "weenies" in the title. We learned that his future books include another "weenies" book, three books in a creepy new series, and another young adult title.

Thanks to the staff at Children's Book World for doing book sales, and to library page Nate who moved so much furniture. Thanks to Delaware County and Margie Stern who brought David to our library. And, of course, huge thanks to David Lubar for being awesome!

An action shot

What a great audience!

My brush with fame.

A smiling, but unwilling, victim of my photo frenzy.

Talking with David Lubar.

Everyone wanted to get books signed...

...even these teachers from BH!

Leap Day!

Last night, 25 people showed up for our Leap Day celebration! We did a lot of random things, like filling out Leap Day Mad-Libs, making and racing origami frogs, designing paper Leap Day t-shirts, taking a trivia quiz, learning a Charleston-style dance to Jump, Jive, and Wail, and writing notes to our future selves in 2012. People won prizes that had to do with hopping or jumping, such as Honey Smacks, tricky triangle puzzles (where you jump the pegs to get rid of them), frog keychains, and chomping teeth wind-up toys. It was hilarious. I hope everyone had fun, because we won't get to do it for another four years!

Countdown to Lubar

Only 5 1/2 more days until David Lubar is at our library!! He will be here Wednesday, March 5, at 7:00 pm for an author talk and book signing. In honor of his visit, the blog poll is asking you to select your favorite Lubar books. If you want to know more about his books, check out David Lubar's website.

Send a Leap Day Card!

Celebrate the arrival of February 29 by sending your friends a Leap Day card! Look at the selection:

Care2
11 different Leap Day cards

E-Cards
Photo cards of creatures that leap!

American Greetings
1 Leap Day card

123 Greetings
4 cards celebrating Leap Day birthdays

Guitar Heroics

Yesterday, 18 teens came out after school to play Guitar Hero III on the Xbox 360. It was a lot of fun, except we ran out of time really fast! Next time, we'll definitely do a longer program and have a tournament. Look for another Guitar Hero event on the schedule this spring or summer.

Book Swap!

Yesterday, 16 people showed up to swap books and watch movies. Almost everyone stayed for the entire three hours to watch both movies. Not a lot of people were singing, but I was! I haven't seen Aladdin or The Little Mermaid in a loooooong time. About 50 books changed hands during the swap, but some people didn't use their tickets. Don't worry, you can save them until we do this the next time! That will probably be in June.

Happy Un-Valentine's Day!

Today, 23 teens came to our Un-Valentine's Day party at the library. Despite a two-hour delay in the morning and yucky rain all day, everyone showed up and we had a great time. We started with an anti-conversation heart contest, in which David won Sour Patch Kids. Then we watched a clip of the least romantic movie I could think of: Weird Al Yankovic's UHF. After that, groups made catapults to shoot conversation hearts through a target. Genni, Katie E., and Caitlin C. came in first, hitting the board twice and getting one heart through a hole. David, Avis, and Evan came in second, hitting the board once and getting one heart through a hole. All of them got gummy snakes, Air Heads, and Dum-Dum Pops for their efforts. It was mass chaos, but a lot of fun to see all the catapults in action! Later, we ate snacks and finished up with Anti-Valentine Bingo. People won black roses and finger traps if they got five in a row. We didn't even get to do everything I had planned, including make black duct tape roses and watch the Monty Python "Crunchy Frog" sketch. It was a great afternoon, and we will definitely do it again in the future!!

Check out these photos of us building and launching our catapults!

Un-Valentine's Day Party!

Don't forget that this Wednesday, February 13, is our Un-Valentine's Day Party from 3:30 to 5:00! Make black duct tape roses, eat snacks, play funny games, and win prizes! If you haven't already, call the library to sign up. Don't worry; we will not celebrate love or relationships in any way!

FNL?

OK, so it was Friday night, but 16 teens enjoyed celebrating Saturday Night Live anyway! We watched some clips from old and new shows, did some comedy improv games, and watched the church scene from The Blues Brothers movie. We ate snacks and soda, including little chocolate doughnuts in memory of John Belushi.

The favorite improv game of the night was definitely Taxi. Basically, you set up four chairs to represent a taxi. One person acts as the driver and two or three people get in as passengers. The object is to portray who you are and where you are going while interacting with the taxi driver. It was a crazy night for taxi passengers and drivers alike! We had satanic nuns riding with a drunk taxi driver, a grandfather and his bad grandchildren riding with a taxi driver trying to sell them encyclopedias, comic book nerds riding with a strung-out taxi driver, and a nanny with bad kids riding with a non-English speaking taxi driver who didn't know her way around the city!

It was great fun, and we will definitely do it again sometime.

SNL Night Tonight!

Whether you like to create humor or just watch it, celebrate comedy at our Saturday Night Live event tonight from 6:30 to 8:30! We will watch some sketches, see movie clips, try out some improv comedy games, and have snacks. Everyone in grades 6 to 12 is welcome--bring a friend!

Not Your Mother's Hot Chocolate

Yesterday, 20 teens came to meet Dr. Elin Danien from the University of Pennsylvania and hear her presentation on the history of chocolate in ancient civilizations. We learned about how cacao was used in various ceremonies and saw photographs of artifacts depicting the bean. For a while, cacao was even used as money! We drank hot chocolate and had chocolate snacks during the presentation, then got in a really interesting discussion about archaeology and anthropology. It touched on everthing from the future of spelling to the misinterpretation of the information on a quarter! Dr. Danien had a hard time leaving because everyone wanted to ask her things. If you have more questions for Dr. Danien, just ask me for her email address. There are a lot of different programs available from UPenn, so we will hire another speaker sometime.

Crafts for Your Hair

Last Wednesday, 7 teens came out to make fun things for their hair. We made ribbon rose bobby pins, beaded pony tail holders, and ribbon-decorated pony tail holders. We also tried to make flower bobby pins, but the beads were the wrong size, which was totally my fault. So we'll do that another time! Anyway, everyone left with a few new items to make their hairstyles more exciting.

If you missed this craft event or didn't get to make everything, you will be able to make some of the items at our "Craft Closet Cleanout" later this spring!

David Lubar Is Coming!

Since the visit is only a month away (March 5), it's time to start getting ready!

I've posted this before, but I think David's young adult novel kit is really humorous. Just fill in the blanks to create your own storyline! Here's my most recent story idea:

As the story opens, the main character is in jail because she feels disaffected. On the advice of her ouija board she is creating free verse about the traumatic past, during which her puppy tragically committed suicide. While recording these events, she meets a hobbit who is even worse off than her, and soon commits suicide, helping the main character realize that life is just like a puppy.

Anime Club

Last Friday, 12 members of the Anime Club met for our monthly meeting. We started with an "Actual Japanese Knowledge Quiz," which asked members to recall facts and information about Japanese geography and culture. Maria won a Japanese-English dictionary for her efforts, while other members won smaller prizes. Tim came and gave everyone trading cards based on an anime series, which was very cool. We then got snacks and watched some anime for about an hour.

Since our club has grown, we joined a new anime club called Operation Anime. They will let us borrow different shows as long as we fill out a survey afterwards. So we finished up with voting for what we want to watch next month. I haven't tallied up the votes yet, but everyone was pretty excited about the ones on offer!

If you would like to join the Anime Club, get a permission slip in the children's room. We meet every fourth Friday, and our next meeting is on February 22 from 3:30 to 5:00.

Victoriana

In honor of her new book The Sweet Far Thing, 14 teens came to our Libba Bray Cele-BRAY-tion last night. It was basically a Victorian-style event with tea, crafts, and games. We started out with a dance card icebreaker, then had hot tea and finger sandwiches. After that, we learned about the meanings of flowers and had a contest to write down what flowers in a bouquet would be best for certain situations. Later, we played Hunt the Slipper and made Victorian valentines. Finally, we had our costume contest. Kara won (as usual!), but Kaitlyn B. had the most creative costume. She came as one of the factory girls from the new book!

People who hadn't read the books certainly will now because we had so much fun. If you are looking for the trilogy, the books are A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, and The Sweet Far Thing.

Great costumes!

The food

OMG she's wearing her wig!

It's springy!

Filling up the dance cards as people arrived

What class! What style!

Making Victorian-style valentines

Another table working on their valentines

Excellent costume contest entries!

Get in Touch with Your Victorian Side!

This Friday night, we are having a Libba Bray Cele-BRAY-tion in honor of the completion of her amazing trilogy. These stories take place in the Victorian era, but have an excellent fantasy component and a lot of mystery. Even if you haven't read the books, you should come to the party! We are going to do crafts, eat finger sandwiches and drink tea, play parlour games, and generally act high-class. Also, dress in your best Victorian-style costume to win prizes. The event will be from 6:30 to 8:30 on Friday night, so sign up now!