Is it Nap Time Yet?

Happy Monday! I hope you all have time to nap.

Super Smash Bros. Champ!

Congratuations to Nick Gladis! He beat out five other competitors in the Super Smash Bros. Tournament held on Saturday. He won a $10 Wal-Mart gift card. We're looking forward to our next tournament...DDR for Wii on Thursday, May 29th at 3:30. Sign up now!

Super Smash Bros!

I'm hoping to see all of you at the Super Smash Bros. tournament on Saturday, April 26. It starts at 10:30. Be sure to call ahead and register so that we'll have enough pizza for everyone!

Truth Imitates Fiction

Just as Cecilia Galante, the author of The Patron Saint of Butterflies, was preparing for the last bookstore event on the first leg of her book tour, the news broke that a judge had ordered the removal of 400 children from a compound that housed the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, a polygamous religious cult, in Eldorado, Texas. The Patron Saint of Butterflies, Galante’s second novel, tells the story of two girls growing up in a religious commune, with one girl wanting to live out her life there, while the other wants only to escape.

I haven't read the book yet, but I thought it was weird how close the two stories coincided. If someone's read it already, let me know what you think!

Ever Been This Tired?

Happy Monday! I hope you have more energy than this poor kitten. Reminder to all Teen Advisory Board Members and any teens interested in joining the Teen Advisory Board: our monthly meeting is tomorrow, Tuesday, April 22nd at 3:15. See you then!

Calling all Potter Fans!

Want to get your (gloved) hands on J.K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard? Amazon.com wants to send you and a friend to London, England to spend a weekend with the rare and delightful book of fairy tales (security guards included, of course), handwritten and illustrated by J.K. Rowling herself. Open to muggles ages 13 and older in 24 countries, the Beedle the Bard Ballad Writing Contest challenges you to creatively answer one of the following three questions in 100 words or less:
• What songs do wizards use to celebrate birthdays?
• What sports do wizards play besides Quidditch?
• What have you learned from the Harry Potter series that you use in everyday life?

Submissions will be accepted through 11:59 p.m. PDT April 22, 2008. An Amazon.com committee will select 10 semi-finalist submissions (based on creativity and writing style) from each of two age categories: 13-17 and 18-and-over. Amazon.com customers will determine the two finalists and Grand Prize winner by voting for their favorites. The Grand Prize includes round-trip airfare, two nights lodging at a London hotel, as well as an expense allowance. Plus, each of the finalists from the two age groups will receive an Amazon Gift Certificate in the amount of $1,000.

Music Video Contest

Penguin Publishers is looking for musically talented teens to enter a contest based on the book Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway. Waterford Library will be getting it's copy soon. Penguin is inviting teens to create a music video based on song lyrics at the center of the book's plot. (The book's heroine becomes famous when her ex-boyfriend writes a hit song about her.) Between now and June 10, teens can submit and/or vote on videos on the contest's Web site. The grand prize winner, to be announced on August 10, will receive a $1,000 American Express gift card.

How to Hug a Baby

The Storyteller's Daughter by Cameron Dokey

The Storyteller's Daughter is an exciting, thrilling, and romantic story. It tells the story of Shahrazad, the daughter of Maju the storyteller. Shahrazad must sacrifice herself for her people. She marries the king knowing the only thing keeping her alive is her talent as a storyteller. She tries to find a way to show Shahrayar the king that she can learn to see him as he is in his heart and he can do the same. So she begins Shahrayar's story, long but interesting, until rumors, a betrayal, and an invasion comes between them. But through it all they must learn to love and help each other, and themselves.

Do you enjoy books with stories inside stories inside stories, and you enjoy the excitement, thrill, and a little romance in your book? Then you will love The Storyteller's Daughter and all the books by Cameron Dokey.

Reviewed by Brittany Chic

Gossip Girl Returns!

After being silenced by the screenwriters strike, gossip soon will fly once more, when new episodes of Gossip Girl begin to air again starting April 21. And fans eager for the next book need wait only until May, when Little Brown Books for Young Readers’ Poppy imprint will publish Cecily von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl: The Carlyles.

The Carlyles—teen triplets who relocate to Manhattan from Nantucket—move into the very Fifth Avenue penthouse that Gossip Girl star Blair Waldorf’s family has vacated. They attend the same exclusive private schools as did the characters from the original and move in the same privileged social circles.
“My publisher and I wanted to continue Gossip Girl, but the last novel took the characters to the end of the summer after senior year and they were all going off to different parts of the country,” von Ziegesar says. “With all of them scattered, I thought it was more logical to follow a new group of characters, newcomers to the city who land in the same Upper East Side playground.”

National Zoo Lover's Day

In honor of National Zoo Lover's Day, this link takes you to live cameras on animals in zoos and wildlife preservations all over the US. You can watch elephants, cheetahs, pandas, penguins and more! At one of them you can even get in line to control the camera! How fun!

You can also look into a future working at a zoo. Milwaukee Public Zoo has information on how to turn your love of animals into a career.

Hidden Art Could Be Revealed by New Terahertz Device

This 2008 article discusses how T-rays (terahertz radiation) "could let art historians see murals hidden beneath coats of plaster or paint in centuries-old buildings" and "could also illuminate penciled sketches under paintings on canvas without harming the artwork." Includes images. From the University of Michigan News Service. (Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index, LII Week, 4/3/08)

I wonder what you'd find under the paint of your bedroom walls? I bet they could've used something like this in Twilight.

Book of the Week

I just finished Scott Westerfeld’s Peeps. I was looking for something to read after I finished the Stephenie Meyer series, and someone recommended this one because it also has to do with vampires. Nineteen-year-old Cal becomes infected shortly after moving to NYC. He becomes a parasite-positive, peep. He prefers not to use the v-word. He was lucky. He is just a carrier of the virus and therefore gets the super-human strength and extra-sensitive senses, but doesn’t have the negative side-effects of the cannibalism or the mental instability. I thought it was an really original vampire story. I liked it. I also like Scott Westerfeld’s Specials series. Has anyone tried these?

Thinking about that summer job?

Click through to this article…A Guide for Teens: How to Find a Summer or Part-Time Job


Also remember that I’m always looking for teen volunteers over the summer to help the younger kids with the Summer Reading Program. If you’re interested, let me know!

Twilight Fans – Cullen Family members have been cast!

Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Jackson Rathbone, Nikki Reed, Ashley Greene and Kellan Lutz


Summit Entertainment announced that it has rounded out the cast of the Cullen family in the first installment of its filmed franchise, TWILIGHT. The family of vampires, to which the leading male character Edward Cullen belongs, will be comprised of actors Peter Facinelli as Carlisle, Elizabeth Reaser as Esme, Jackson Rathbone as Jasper, Nikki Reed as Rosalie, Ashley Greene as Alice and Kellan Lutz as Emmett.
"Finding six talented actors who can portray supernaturally beautiful, talented vampires of the sort Stephenie Meyer has created and her fans have come to know and love was not an easy task but we are happy to say we have found our perfect Cullen family," said Erik Feig, Summit's President of Production.
Find out more at and get additional updates at www.stepheniemeyer.com

April Fools…or Not

You may not have to put your snowmobiles away just yet…




Share your best April Fools Joke with me! I’ll post the best of the best in future blogs!