Hunger Games Movie Event

I put a lot of effort into planning programs for my teens. But my most successful program of the year in terms of attendance required almost no effort from me! In case you hadn't heart, August 18 was the release day for the highly-anticipated movie "The Hunger Games" onto DVD and Blu-Ray. Since my library is lucky enough to have the licencing required to show movies to the public, I decided to invite the teens to the library to watch this movie.

We started advertising the movie event about three weeks in advance with posters.

Anticipating a large amount of interest, we decided that we would require everyone interested in attending to pick up a ticket in advance. There is a lot of benefit to ticketing for an event like this if you have concerns about there being too many people in the room. Tickets make it easy eager patrons to understand why only so many people are allowed in the room. They also can give librarians peace of mind knowing that the room will be filled past capacity. I made the tickets myself on the computer and printed them on golden paper:

Tickets were available on a first come, first served basis two weeks before the event. We gave away the last of the tickets about one week before we showed the movie.

Food is also essential for any sort of teen event and everyone knows that snacks are great to have during movies, so it seemed pretty important that I serve something to eat. I've had truly horrific experiences with serving popcorn in the past (it's easy to spill and is hard to clean off of carpet when it gets stepped on) and I had a little bit of money left in my summer budget, so I decided to order cupcakes. These cupcakes weren't super fancy - chocolate with orange-tinted buttercream, no fancy decorations. But the color scheme was very appropriate for the movie. You could almost imagine that the orange frosting was a flame. I also served juice to go with the cupcakes.




I hadn't expected everyone who had picked up a ticket to come to the program. There are always a couple of no-shows, and this program was no exception. But any program that has 60 people (mostly teens!) in attendance is a success in my book. Everyone really enjoyed seeing the movie - many for the second or third time, but some for the first.

Another unexpectedly cool aspect of this program was the intergenerational potential. I had targeted teens in the advertising for this event but decided to ultimately leave the program open to anyone who wished to attend. Yes, many teens came alone or with friends. But there were also a good number of teens at the program with Mom or Dad in tow. It was actually very cool to see families in the audience so that they could share the experience. "The Hunger Games" is one of those rare gems with appeal across all ages and I was happy that so many families took advantage of the opportunity to see it together.

Dear Librarian

I have one last Summer Reading story to share!

At my new library we don't just ask kids to read during the summer. We also give kids the option to do a number of other activities to supplement their summer experience ranging from riding their bikes to doing art projects to visiting a museum. One of the activities that kids had the option to do during the last week of the program was to write a letter to someone.

One of the kids (age 5) in the program decided that he wanted to write a letter to the librarians! He composed the letter and dictated it to his mother who did the writing, but he signed his own name. Here is the letter:


Aww, how sweet!

Dust Girl

Callie LeRoux seems to be stuck in Slow Run, Kansas helping her mother run a hotel that hasn't seen much business since the Dust Bowl's arrival. Even though Callie suffers from dust pneumonia her mother refuses to leave for a more prosperous climate, insisting that she needs to stay there until Callie's long-missing father returns for them. But when Callie's mother disappears in a dust storm Callie knows she has to take matters into her own hands. Soon Callie learns a few details of her past that she never would have imagined: Her estranged father was a fairy prince, and warring fae factions are all very interested in finding Callie one way or another. As Callie tries to escape these dangerous fairies and find her mother she teams up with Jack, a boy living as a hobo with a mysterious past of his own. The two attempt to make their way to California, where Callie thinks her mother might have been taken, but Kansas proves to have plenty of dangers for them to deal with first.

There is quite a bit to like in Sarah Zettel's Dust Girl, which is a unique take on faerie mythology. The Dust Bowl setting is certainly an interesting one, and it was fascinating to see how different elements from this region and time period were incorporated into the novel. Especially interesting was the way that music from the period was worked in, both as a way of enhancing the setting and as a part of this world's faerie lore as music turns out to be one of the faerie's sources of power. Callie was a fun character to follow and I appreciated the way that she struggled to make sense of her mixed background - both before and after she learns of her fae heritage.

Overall Grade: A

Dust Girl if the first book in the American Fairy Trilogy. No official word on when the next book will be published, but my money is on sometime during the summer of 2013.

Orange Curly Hair

Today a boy came to the library asking about a book. He didn't remember much about it at first, but we eventually tracked it down!

Here was the initial reference question:

"I'm looking for a book. I don't remember what it was called, but it's a biography about a girl with orange curly hair."

Hmm, not much to work with. So I prodded a little further to see if I could get some more information that would help us.

Do you remember what this person did that made them famous? "I think it was something about science."

Have you gotten this book from the library before? "No, my mom showed it to me when we were looking for a book about Davy Crockett."

Ah ha! This was actually a good clue. I knew exactly where to find books about Davy Crockett, and from this clue we could guess that the book came from a nearby shelf. I had a guess as to who our mystery person was at this point, but wanted to dig a little deeper just to be sure. We wandered over to the biography section to see what jumped out at us from this area. When we got there I asked one last question:

Is the person you're thinking of from today's time, or from a long time ago? "Definitely a long time ago."

Bingo! I was pretty sure that this boy was looking for a book about Marie Curie, the female scientist who did lots of work on the subject of radioactivity in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Curie and Crockett would be very near each other on the shelf, and we have lots of books to choose from about Curie so the odds seemed to be with us.

The one hiccup in this equation was that I didn't know what color Marie Curie's hair was. After all, every photograph I'd ever seen of the famous scientist was black and white. Fortunately, a Marie Curie biography jumped out at us with a colorfully-illustrated cover. The lighting in the cover picture made Curie's hair seem to glow a golden, vaguely orange, color. Part of the Giants of Science series, this biography was written by Kathleen Krull and illustrated by Boris Kulikov, and it was exactly the book that this boy had remembered! Thank goodness it was on the shelf, because it might have been tough to sell him a non-orange, black and white Marie Curie biography.

Books with Buzz

We're just over the halfway point in the year, which means that I've started looking at various book blogs and on Goodreads for books that are generating lots of conversation - and maybe even some award buzz. Here are a few books that people have been talking about that I'm looking forward to reading soon:

Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Augie was born with a facial deformity that prevents him from attending regular school...until now. As he enters the 5th grade, Augie must prove to his class that he's a normal kid despite appearances.

Summer of the Gypsy Moths by Sara Pennypacker
Stella loves routine and Angel is tough and spunky. Needless to say, the two girls do not get along at first. But then tradedy strikes and the two unexpectedly bond. I'm a big fan of Sara Pennypacker, and I'm excited to give this novel a try.

Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead
Georges is new to his Brooklyn apartment building and is quickly recruited as a spy by another kid. Author Rebecca Stead already has one Newbery Medal under her belt, and if the reviews are to be believed her latest book is just as good.

Three Times Lucky by Shiela Turnage
This book promises Southern charm by setting the book in a small town full of interesting characters. Add in a mystery and we have ourselves the making of what promises to be an interesting book.

Summer Reading Sign

I was out of town not too long ago visiting my in-laws and saw this sign posted in a neighbor's front yard:


Love it! What a good way to promote the library and summer reading!

Keeping the Castle

Althea's family is in dire straights. Her great-grandfather foolishly built an elaborate castle on a cliff in Yorkshire, and now the whole family's fortune as been lost to the castle's upkeep. Althea is determined that her family will keep the castle at any cost so that her young brother will have something to inherit when he comes of age, and so she is determined to marry anyone who is rich enough to help repair the crumbling building. Unfortunately there simply aren't very many suitors to be had in the area. Things change quickly when the young and wealthy Lord Boring moves to Lesser Hoo, and Althea soon finds herself plotting ways in which she can tempt Lord Boring to propose. But Lord Boring has brought with him his friend and business manager Mr. Fredericks, and the meddling Fredericks keeps getting in Althea's way.

Patrice Kindl's Keeping the Castle is a light, easy read that is perfect for summer. The plot is fairly predicable, but in this case predictability is not a problem. Instead it becomes easy for readers to simply fall into the Regency setting and become absorbed in this comedy of manners. Comparisons to Jane Austen are inevitable given the book's subject and setting, and unfortunately (inevitably?) Keeping the Castle lacks the cleverness and drama of Emma or Pride and Prejudice. Still, anyone looking for a historical comedy will likely be pleased as the book has plenty of funny moments. This is also a quick read that may appeal to reluctant readers despite the period language.

Overall Grade: B