Nintendo Night and Super Smash Bros!

Last Friday night we had 28 teens come to the library for Nintendo Night! Of them, 22 signed up to compete in our first Super Smash Bros for Wii U tournament. It was a noisy, fierce competition, and in the end Sarah came in first with Roy, winning a Hyrule map puzzle and a $25 gift card to Gamestop! Alex was really feeling it with Shulk and came in second place, and Aaron took home third (also with Shulk!).

When people weren't competing, we had multiple TVs set up with older Nintendo systems. Duck Hunt was getting a lot of play on the old NES! One table started just drawing a lot too, which was really cool! It was a really great night and we had a lot of fun! Our next gaming tournament will be for Pokemon at the Municipal Library on July 7.

Summer Reading Club!

We're a week into this year's Summer Reading Club, and I just wanted to take a moment and point out that if you go to our website's teen page, you can fill out an online form instead of doing the paper one that we hand out at the library. Either way you want to do it is up to you, but don't forget that for every five books you read you'll get a prize, a free book off our cart. You'll also be entered into the weekly prize giveaway! The Upper Darby Library teen page is linked below:

http://www.udlibraries.org/teen

Read comics, books, magazines, manga, whatever you want to read!  And don't forget that next week we'll have back to back craft programs at Sellers and Municipal Libraries! Next Tueday, the 30th, we'll be doing Perler Beads at Municpal at 3:00. Then on Wednesday we'll be making superhero necklaces from Shrinky Dinks! Both programs are drop-ins, so stop on by!

Rocking Away Fines!

Last Thursday we had 9 teens show up to lower their overdue fines by playing Rock Band! While the attendance is a little lower than usual, 8 out of the 9 patrons had their fines completely erased during the event! In three hours we got rid of $100 of overdue fines, so I think that can still be considered a big success! Thanks to everyone who came in to get their fines done!

New Book Titles!

FICTION

I Was Here by Gayle Forman
In an attempt to understand why her best friend committed suicide, eighteen-year-old Cody Reynolds retraces her dead friend's footsteps and makes some startling discoveries.

The Summer Schedule 2015!

Summer will be here before you know it! And we'll have lots of activities going on at the library for everyone! Below you can find the front and back image of the Summer schedule pamphlet that's now available! Click on them for the full-size image.

New Books!

FICTION

Boyfriend Shopping by Earl Sewell, Caridad Ferrer and Deidre Berry (part of the Kimani Tru series)
Holidays mean family, friends, presents and extra doses of drama! But for three girls, the one gift they weren't expecting may be everything they ever hoped for.

DDR Free Play and Tournament 2015

Last Wednesday we had 5 teens participate in our Dance Dance Revolution tournament! We played Dance Dance Revolution II on the Wii in four-player mode for some warmup, then went down to 2-players for the actual tournament. In the end, Sarah got the first place prize, a $10 Gamestop gift card. Hurit came in second and Mary came in third, both winning candy prizes. We also had some music games to play just for fun, such as the strange Donkey Konga games on Gamecube, played with bongo controllers, and Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, which is exactly what it sounds like, DDR played with remixes of Mario music! There were also several games of Connect 4 played during downtime! Thanks to everyone that came out to play some DDR!

Teen Tech Week 2015: Meme All the Shirts!

For Teen Tech Week this year, we had Chromebooks set up at Municipal Library with tabs open to a few popular meme making sites such as memegenerator.com and www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk. After teens had made their custom meme, we flipped the image and printed it out on iron transfer paper, then put them on t-shirts! Awesome wearable art! We had 11 teens show up and make stuff to wear home! Someone even came to the library the next day wearing the shirt they made!

New Books

This list of "new books" is actually a couple of weeks old, as I had accidentally left it in draft format instead of publishing it! But anyhow! It's most likely new to you! Click below for the full list of the latest additions to the teen collection!

Fiction

Geek Girl by Holly Smale
When she is accidentally discovered by a modeling agent, fifteen-year-old Harriet jumps at the chance to transform herself from a geek to a fashion model.

New books!

Lux Opposition by Jennifer L. Armentrout 
Katy knows the world changed the night the Luxen came. She can't believe Daemon stood by as his kind threaten to obliterate every last human and hybrid on Earth. But the lines between good and bad have blurred. Daemon will do anything to save those he loves, even if it means betrayal. But when it quickly becomes impossible to tell friend from foe, and the world is crumbling around them, they may lose everything to ensure that survival of their friends--and mankind.

New Titles

Fiction

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

In 1959 Virginia, Sarah, a black student who is one of the first to attend a newly integrated school, forces Linda, a white integration opponent's daughter, to confront harsh truths when they work together on a school project.

The Last Call cart!

Over the fall, about 60 books were placed on a cart in the teen section that were in danger of being withdrawn from the collection due to low circulation. Teen patrons were invited to check out one of the books and write on the slip provided whether or not they were worth keeping around. Half of the titles on the cart ended up staying, with 30 being kept and 31 being withdrawn! Thanks very much to those of you that decided to try out some of the titles on the cart and give your feedback!

Of the responses we got back on why the books should be kept, below are some of the higher recommendations:

More new graphic novels!

Continuing from last week, here's more of the new graphic novels that have been added to the teen collection! You can click the link in the descriptions to go to the library listing of the book if you'd like to put a hold on it!

Kingdom Hearts II by Shiro Amano (vol. 2)

When Roxas disappeared, Sora awakened from his deep slumber along with his allies, Donald and Goofy. Now the trio continues their mission to save the worlds from the forces of darkness and to find King Mickey and Sora's best friend Riku. But this time a new menace to the peace of Kingdom Hearts bears down on Sora and his friends--the Nobodies and Organization XIII.

New titles!!

There are going to be lots of additions in the coming weeks, so let's get started on what's new at the library! Also, I'm changing up the format here to give a little more information on each title. In addition to the title and author, each entry will have a book cover, and a link to the library copy on our website! Let me know what you think of the changes!

Fiction

The Glass Sentence (book 1 of The Mapmaker Trilogy) by S.E. Grove

In 1891, in a world transformed by 1799's Great Disruption--when all of the continents were flung into different time periods--thirteen-year-old Sophia Tims and her friend Theo go in search of Sophia's uncle, Shadrack Elli, Boston's foremost cartologer, who has been kidnapped.

Pics from our Shrinky Dinks art @ Municipal!

Yesterday we had 13 teen show up to make Shrinky Dink art! While Shrinky Dinks seem to be making a comeback, there are still a lot of people who don't know what they are. They're a thin, papery-like plastic that you can draw and color on, that when baked become about 50% smaller and get thicker and harder, like a plastic charm. Some people traced over pictures I'd brought in, others traced over drawings that they had made, and others just drew freehand! Below are some of the results!

It's Computer Science Education Week!

This week is Computer Science Education Week! Challenge yourself at some point this week to write an Hour of Code, even if you've never done it before! I'll be posting some links to stuff for beginners to try their hand at coding, so check back soon! If you do any coding this week, tell us about it!

Code.org has lots of great tutorials for beginners looking to try their hand at coding! The link below lets you create a Flappy Bird clone! This lets you move simple blocks of code around to change how the game plays on the fly over ten different steps. You can eventually change things like speed, sound effects, graphics and the score system, then share it online! A great challenge for beginners! (The site is getting slammed right now though, so you may need to reload a couple times!)

Below is another challenge for the Hour of Code! This one uses the same snap together blocks of code that the Flappy Bird clone does, but in this challenge you made designs in ice by directing Elsa and Anna from Frozen.This is another challenge aimed at beginners. Once again, the code.org site is still getting slammed so loading may take a while right now!

"Gotta Code 'em All" uses a C++ like environment to introduce users to functions, variables and integers as they make changes to a Pokemon-like battle system! Then you run the program in a virtual iPhone!

Some pics of our Perler Bead creations!

We had fun yesterday making stuff out of Perler Beads, and while I didn't get pictures of all of them, I did try to get as many as I could in between ironing other people's creations! Special thanks to everyone that chipped in to help finish my Christmas Mario when I became too busy with the iron to work on it!

new books incoming!

FICTION

• Gabi: A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero
• Don't Touch by Rachel M. Wilson
• This Is How It Ends by Jen Nadol
• I Have a Bad Feeling About This by Jeff Strand
• A Matter of Souls by Denise Lewis Patrick
• The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau
• Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer
• Monument 14: Sky on Fire by Emmy Laybourne
• A Death-Struck Year  by Makiia Lucier
• I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
• How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon
• Wild Rover No More by L.A. Meyer (final book in the Bloody Jack series)
• Stitching Snow by R.C. Lewis
• The Young Elites by Marie Lu
• The Rules For Breaking by Ashley Elston
• Teen Spirit by Francesca Lia Block

NON-FICTION

• Minecraft: Construction Handbook by Mojang

New books!

A couple new additions this week, with lots more to come soon!

FICTION

• Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld
• The Devil's Intern by Donna Hosie
• Love is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson

AUDIO BOOKS

• Found by Harlan Coben, read by Nick Podehl
• The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey (book 2 of The 5th Wave) read by Phoebe Strole and Ben Yannette

Halloween Party @ Sellers Library!

Halloween fell on a Friday this year, which worked out perfectly since I wanted to have a Halloween party on a Friday night at the library! We had 18 teens show up, many most in costume, to play some Halloween themed games, make some Halloween themed crafts, and of course, eat Halloween themed pizza.
...Okay, the pizza wasn't actually Halloween themed in any way, but it is still an essential for a Halloween party!

We started out the night with a simple Minute to Win It game where each person has one minute to inflate a balloon, then use the air from the balloon to blow a row of 15 plastic cups off the table. Then we played another Minute to Win It game, Dizzy  Mummy, which was a hit at last year's party too. Everyone gets into teams of two, with one person trying to unwrap an entire roll of toilet paper over the other person. The team to use up their roll first wins! I also brought out a Nerf gun and zombie targets for some target shooting.

One of my favorite things about Halloween are the movies, and throughout the party there was a projector playing a YouTube playlist of Halloween-y clips for people to enjoy. Classics like Thriller, Dracula, Frankenstein, and Nightmare Before Christmas were playing while people enjoyed pizza. Overall it was a really fun night, and I'm already looking forward to next Halloween!