Congratulations to Our Teen Draw It Contest Winner

During March we held a teen drawing contest - and we have a winner!! Audrey W (grade 6) is this year's winner. Her artwork is featured on the publicity for the upcoming 2010 Teen Summer Reading Club: Making Waves @ Your Library. In addition, Audrey wins a prepaid $50.00 Visa card.

You'll want to be sure and participate in this year's Teen Summer Reading Club (from here on out referred to as the TSRC to make my life easier). One lucky grand prize winner will get their choice of an iPod Touch or a Wii. In addition, we will have tons of other prizes like gift cards to your favorite fast food joints and stores. All the fun kicks off on Saturday, June 5th.

Tine Fey Says to Read It!

There was this movie called Mean Girls. Tine Fey wrote it based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. It was a pretty awesome movie, made before Lindsay Lohan basically fell apart at the seams.

Well, Rosalind Wiseman has written a new book called Boys, Girls & Other Hazardous Materials. And Tina Fey gives the best book blurb ever: "You can't put this book down . . . or it will talk about you while you're out of the room." Actually, Tina Fey writes a pretty awesome book blurb. But what about the book?

Charlie is entering High School and looking to have a drama free year (aren't we all!). But nope, it doesn't look like that is going to happen. Her year is not helped by the return of Will, a former male bff who's back, HOT, and popular. So Will gets involved in a prank gone bad and Charlie must decide what she is going to do about it: Should she tell or keep her mouth shut?

And if you're a Meg Cabot fan - well, she says to read it too!

Nerdfighters!

So the other day I was getting my semi-regular Nerdfighters (1) fix and thought to myself - Why Have I Not Shared This With You? You should be mad at me. Nerdfighters is described as a place where "nerds gather and play" to "increase awesome and decrease suck." (2) The site was started by teen author John Green (more about him in a moment) and his brother. They have a blog and make fun video posts.

John Green is the awesome and talented writer of books like Looking for Alaska (a Printz Award Winner), An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns. His books are DEFINITELY for older, mature teens. But they are awesome. Seriously.

Green recently wrote an online book that you can only get to if you solve a series of riddles at www.thisisnottom.com. I haven't read the book because the riddles are wicked hard and I haven't gotten to it yet. (3) But I am loving the process and the concept. It is wicked fun. And if you look around the net you can get cheats and hints.

In a recent article for librarians (4), Green talked about the "magical moment when the space between you and me evaporates, and we are all of us making a story real together". He says that "reading is an act of translation—taking seemingly random scratches on a page and turning them into a story in your head—a book is, more than any new media, a cocreation of reader and writer." (School Library Journal, January 1, 2010). Imagine that - an author who respects the reader.

John Green's newest book is Will Grayson, Will Grayson with David Levithan. This is the story of two boys, both named Will Grayson, and how their lives come to intersect with each other. The two authors got together and decided they would write a story - each one focusing on one of the Will Graysons. Levithan chose the characters first name and Green chose the characters last name. As the two become friends they produce a high school musical (5) that tell their story. And this book - it is laugh out loud funny. And touching. And amazing.

Awesome quotes by John Green:

"Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?' In fact, it seems to me that most contemporary insults are pretty lame. Even 'lame' is kind of lame. Saying 'You're lame' is like saying 'You walk with a limp.' Yeah, whatever, so does 50 Cent, and he's done all right for himself."

"Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back." - An Abudance of Katherines

"What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?" - An Abundance of Katherines

"The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive." - Looking for Alaska

"So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane." - Looking for Alaska

"'Francois Rabelais. He was a poet. And his last words were "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." That's why I'm going. So I don't have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.' " - Looking for Alaska

"What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person." - Paper Towns

"The town was paper, but the memories were not." - Paper Towns

This is me trying to be witty and copy John Green's source notes:

1. Go to http://www.nerdfighters.com/

2. More awesome is good.

3. Seriously, if you figure it all out PLEASE let me know. I need help.

4. Hey, that would be me :) Guess that's why I read it.

5. No, not THAT high school musical.

Graphic Novels 101

Graphic novels and manga are so popular right now, even your favorite books are being made into graphic novels. Some popular titles include Twilight (yes, THAT Twilight), the Maximum Ride adventures, Artemis Fowl, Cirque Du Freak and Alex Rider series. Popular adult authors like Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Sherrilyn Kenyon are also diving into this very popular and very graphic medium. Harlequin, the popular romance publisher, even produces a line of romantic graphic novels known as Harlequin Pink

Some of the most popular manga series (Don't know what manga is? Just check out the handy GN Dictionary below) include: Beauty Pop, Blade of Heaven, Bleach, Chroncles of the Cursed Sword, Dragon Hunter and Naruto. Some of the most popular Graphic Novels include Bone and The Simpsons. And of course whatever superhero is popular at the moment.


GN Dictionary
Comics - The big umbrella term for stories told with pictures and words
Graphic Novel - A graphic book, or collection of comic books, that are put together like a book
Anime - Japanese animated cartoons
Manga - A Japanese comic book, usually black and white and read from right to left
Manga style - Like manga, but produced outside of Japan
Mecha - Anime or manga featured mechanical creatures, usually awesome giant fighting robots
Shojo - Comics for girls, usually romantic
Shonen - Comics for boys, usually action/adventure

Other interesting terms:
Panel - One part of a comic book page
Gutter - The space between the panels

Great GN and Manga Sites:
Bookshelf: Diamond Comics
Comic Book Resources
Comics Worth Reading
Newsarama
No Flying, No Tights

Free Comic Book Day with Brad's Bookstore and Marion Public Library

Join us on Saturday, May 1st for Free Comic Book Day. We will be giving away free comic books, provided by Brad's Bookstore and Comics, to teens who come visit (while supplies last). Each teen will have their choice of 1 of the titles provided.

April is National Poetry Month

It's April . . . which means it's National Poetry Month. Poetry is everywhere.

Poetry is in you. It's in the air you breathe. The chair you sit. And the car

you drive. It is simple. It is complex. It is everything. It is nothing.

So don't just sit there . . . get creative! Want a place to start? Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words by Susan Wooldridge is one of the best poetry writing books ever. The author gives you great tips such as collecting words and creating a wordpool: "A word can trigger or inspire a poem, and words in a stack or thin list can up make up poems" (p.10).

Other great things she talks about include grocery weeping (and we're not just talking about the cost of your grocery bill or wilted lettuce), joywriting, poem sound and song, fear of poetry (come on, some of you have it), dreamsense and being visited by words. Imagine answering the knock on your door and there at the open door stands the word "awesome". I'd like to be visited and told that I am awesome. As Wooldridge says, "Writing this way seems like being visited. And as with any visitor, I have to make room and time" (p. 190).

Or you can go online and play at "magnetic poetry." You know, those little word magnets that you put on your fridge and rearrange to make a poem. You can go here to create your own magnetic poetry.

Or use the following URL and make any page you love into your own person magnetic poetry kit. Simple replace the part after the url= with your own web address and presto - it is magnetic poetry. Here's this blog done as magnetic poetry.

http://wearehugh.com/public/2003/02/poetry.cgi?url=teenservicesmarionpubliclibrary.blogspot.com

So have fun with poetry this month . . . and remember the words of Piri Thomas:

"Each child is born a poet and every poet is a child."

What is Your Favorite Book Playlist?

What would movies and tv shows be without a soundtrack? The truth is, music helps build mood and is part of the expression of an artist and the story they are trying to tell. The best soundtrack I ever got was the soundtrack to the movie Garden State. I hated the movie really. But the music was awesome.

Music can also play a role in books. For some books, music is an integral part of the story. In Just Listen by Sarah Dessen, Annabel spends a lot of time listening to music. Annabel's life is changing - old friendships are strained, her family may be falling apart, and she is finding herself friends with an angry loner named Owen. This is teen fiction at its best. And honestly, Sarah Dessen is one of the best teen authors out there.

Sarah (we're on a first name basis, she just doesn't know it) is so awesome she put together a playlist for her book. Here is the playlist and a reason why she choose each of the songs.

Then I thought - how awesome is that, making a playlist for a book? I am not the only one who thought that. Here is a lists of book playlists put together by authors or fans of some of your favorite books.

I think that should be everyone's challenge: Take your favorite book and come up with a music playlist that best expresses the book.

Reading Rants

Our favorite book review site gets a new look! Check out the newly updated Reading Rants to get great book reviews.

For example, I get asked every few days for a book that will "make me cry". Well, here you go. These books are rated by the number of hankies you'll need. These books are weeptastic. One of the books on the list, If I Stay by Gayle Forman, even made me cry.

Vampire lovers can check out Fanging Around. Those of you who like psychological thrillers should check out Nail Biters. One of my favorite lists is Cool Classics You Never Even Heard Of. Sure we all know about To Kill a Mockingbird and Shakespeare - but what about Cheaper by the Dozen? That is a fun read.

Reading Rants also has links to other great reading blogs and authors. You do not want to miss out on author John Green's Nerdfighters page where they "fight to increase awesome and decrease suck."

Other great sites to find great reads:
Teen Reads.com
Chicklish - a UK readers site with the awesome UK humor
Bookshelves of Doom - Seriously, how can you resist a site called Bookshelves of Doom?

Of course keep checking back here to read my book reviews and see cool book trailers (I am totally obsessed with book trailers).