Books to Be Excited About

A few weeks ago I found myself in a reading rut.  Nothing on the library's shelves excited me, and there was nothing new coming in that begged for me to take it home.

Fortunately, a recent shipment of new books and the arrival of a few holds has changed these circumstances.  I've gone from having nothing to read to being a tad overwhelmed by the good books.  Here are a few of the books I'm excited to try:

The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppet by Tom Angleberger
In case you haven't heard, I'm a huge Origami Yoda fan.  I'm very excited about this fourth volume to the series, and I'm curious to see how the kids as McQuarrie Middle School handle the return of Dwight to their class, along with the school's newly-imposed curriculum designed to raise their test scores.  Can Origami Yoda save the day again?

William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope by Ian Doeschter
It's Star Wars written in iambic pentameter, told in the style of one of Shakespeare's plays.  It's two of my favorite things rolled into one.  What's not to like?  I'm not exactly expecting brilliance out of this pastiche, but I am expecting to be entertained (and probably laugh lots and read especially clever/amusing passages out loud).

Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It by David M. Ewalt
I don't often read books written for an adult audience.  Much of this has to do with that fact that I work with children and teenagers, so I get really caught up in the books that are written for them.  But every so often a book for adults will catch my eye.  I'm curious to see what this author has to say about D&D - its history, its cultural significance, and the nerd subculture it has spawned.  (For the curious:  Yes, I have played Dungeons & Dragons.  Yes, I enjoyed it.  No, I'm not a complete loser.)

The Lord of Opium by Nancy Farmer
Several months ago it was announced that Farmer would be publishing a sequel to her multiple award-winning novel The House of the Scorpion, and I've been eagerly waiting on the edge of my seat for the book to be released.  That day is finally here!  It's been ten years since The House of the Scorpion was first published, but it remains one of my favorite books of all time and one that I regularly try to recommend to middle-school readers.  Sequels tend to make me anxious, but I'm still excited to see what Farmer has in store for Matt and his newly-inherited opium empire.

Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde
I was pretty much awed by Jasper Fforde's last fantasy novel, The Last Dragonslayer.  I was so happy that Jennifer Strange would be returning for a sequel.  If you're a fantasy fan, and if you've enjoyed books by Neil Gaiman and/or Terry Pratchet, then I think that Jasper Fforde should be the next author you try.

Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy by Elizabeth Kiem
In this teen novel, clairvoyance meets 1980s Soviet immigrants.  Intriguing, n'est-ce pas?  I love a combination of plot elements that you don't see every day.  Also, I'm kind of a fan of the cover art.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
First of all, the author's name is Rainbow.  Love it.  Second, this book sounds really good:  A girl tries to survive her first year of college after her best friend outgrows their shared love of a celebrity.  Thirdly, this book has gotten awesome reviews.  I probably should be reading another book by this same author that's gotten some early award buzz (Eleanor & Park), but this book just sounds a bit more fun.

Three Movie Trailers

I think today is a good day to watch some good movie trailers. First, a trailer for the recently-released movie "City of Bones," based on the book by Cassandra Clare:

 


 Next, a trailer for "The Book Thief," based on the award-winning novel by Marcus Zusak. This movie will be released in November 2013:

 


 Finally, the newly-released trailer for the upcoming movie "Divergent," based on the book by Veronica Roth. This movie should appear in theaters in March of 2014:

 


 I'm often hesitant about seeing movies based off of books that I enjoyed, but I'm actually pretty enthused about these book-to-movie adaptations. Anyone else looking forward to these?

Bo at Ballard Creek

Bo has two fathers, but she didn't get them in the usual way.  She also eventually gets a little brother, but he doesn't join the family in the usual way either.  This this charming story tells all about young Bo's childhood as the adopted daughter of two big, burly miners just after the height of the Alaskan gold rush.  The town of Ballard Creek is filled with tough miners and loving Eskimo families, and everyone takes a hand in raising Bo.  Over the course of a year, Bo sees her first airplane, encounters a grisly bear, helps one of her papas in the cookshack, listens to lots of records, and attends a big Fourth of July celebration.  All the while the miners are busy working, hoping that they'll hit enough paydirt to make it through the year.  Even though Bo lives in a small town in the wilderness, there is never a dull moment in Ballard Creek!

Kirkpatrick Hill's charming novel, Bo at Ballard Creek, reminds me quite a bit of Laura Ingalls Wilder's classic Little House in the Big Woods.  Each chapter of the book recounts a different episode in Bo's life and provides exquisite detail about what everyday living in this specific time and place was like.  The story is very engaging, the characters are lovable, and Bo herself is a spirited counterpart to Laura Ingalls.  As a reader I found myself especially fascinated by Bo's papas and their unique co-parenting situation.  Such partnerships may seem unusual to modern readers, but it really does make perfect sense given the time and the place.

Overall Grade:  A+

If you'd like to learn more about this book check out an interview with Kirkpatrick Hill, the author of Bo at Ballard Creek.  Hill herself grew up in Alaska in the company of mining, just like Bo does.  In the interview, Hill describes how some of her own experiences were included in the story.

Teen Summer Program Success

The 2013 Summer Library Program is wrapping up here.  Summer is always our busiest time of year, and this year it felt like especially crazy.  I've been pulling some statistics together for my Teen SLP (which I am completely responsible for) and the numbers don't like:  It really was a lot busier than last year.  A lot busier.  Here are a few of the more interesting numbers:

Total registration in the Teen SLP increased by about 24%.
Total reading done by teens increased by about 16%.
Here's the real kicker:  Total attendance at teen programs increased by a whopping 210%!  This number increases to 431% if you include all of the passive programming that I put together for this summer (none of which existed last year.

No wonder I'm exhausted!  Being around that many teenagers will do that.

There are a couple of things that point to the increase in participation this summer.  The first is that, since I'm not longer the new kid in town at this library, more of the teens in the area know who I am.  Some of the teens who know me especially well (who came to other programs during the school year, etc.) have started bringing their friends to the library and getting them to sign up for summer reading.  Peer pressure and word of mouth does wonders.

I also like to think that the increase in program attendance has something to do with the fact that I put together some awesome teen events this summer.  Enjoy a few pictures from some of these programs:

Last year's popular Ninja Training program returned with
a new and improved format...  And a new and improved
outdoor obstacle course! 

My most well-attended program of the summer was
DIY Henna Body Art.  I ordered and mixed the henna, and
the teens had the change to design their own temporary tattoos.

We did some geocaching at the library...

And found some neat prizes!

We also held a Super Smash Bros.
Brawl tournament.  We had 20 teens
participating in this modified single-
elimination tournament.

The winner of the tournament won
this awesome trophy that  I crafted
from a block of wood, an Iron Man piggy
bank, and some gold spray paint.

To finish off the summer we had an after-hours
zombie party at the library.  Most of the teens
came in costume, and so did I.  I came dressed
as one of the zombies from the hit game Plants
vs. Zombies.  All of teens understood the
reference.  None of my adult co-workers did.

LEGO Librarians

Have you seen the official LEGO librarian minifigure?

Image taken from the LEGO website, link above.

It's pretty much exactly what you expect:  Female, glasses, cardigan, book in hand, and of course a cup labeled "Shhh."  But believe it or not, this is not actually what most librarians are like!  This stereotype has been around for decades, and sometimes it seems that no one except for the librarians themselves quite realizes that the profession is filled with a lot of different types of characters.

Joe Hardenbrook, a librarian at UW-Green Bay here in Wisconsin, saw this official minifigure and decided it just wasn't enough.  He created and photographed lots of other librarian personalities and then shared his creations, along with some snarky commentary, on his blog.  It's spectacular, and it seems pretty much spot-on.  I'm pretty sure that I've encountered most, if not all, of these sorts of librarians at some point.  Enjoy!

SLP Artwork

If you haven't figured this out yet from my posts, this year our summer library program theme is all about being underground - dirt, rocks, tunnels, etc.  Every year our theme - and some corresponding artwork - is provided by the Collaborative Summer Library Program.  The overall theme is given a different tag line and a separate set of artwork for each major age group - kids, teens and adults - and the CSLP also provides program suggestions and other materials that might be useful to librarians as they plan their own summer programs.  

This year, however, I had a bit of a dilemma when it came to materials provided for the teens.  The tagline for the teens, "Beneath the Surface" was just fine.  The tagline evokes the idea that things are more complex than they first appear, which is in my mind a great way for teens to approach this topic.  But the artwork that was intended to be used for the teen program...  Well, it didn't exactly correspond with the theme.  Here's an example:

You know what I see when I look at this poster?  I see a who lot of "up" and not a lot of "beneath the surface."  There's a flying machine!  And a Pegasus!  Something at this just doesn't add up with the theme to me.

After talking these issues out with my Teen Advisory Group (who agreed that the artwork was a tad lame), we made the decision to use the tagline and artwork intended for the adult program instead.  The adult tagline this summer is "Groundbreaking Reads," which was something that all of us could get behind.  More importantly, we loved the artwork created to go with this tagline.  I'll let it speak for itself:

Yup.  Definitely made the right decision there.  

"In the Grand Scheme of Things"

Today a nanny was telling me about how the 2-year-old girl she cares for, one of our regular storytime attendees, loves Mo Willems' pigeon books (Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, etc.)  She told us that the girl actually had the book Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late completely memorized!

At one point in this book, the pigeon tried to rationalize his desire to stay up a bit later by saying, "What's five more minutes in the grand scheme of things?"  The girl's nanny told me that at one point the child's mother had told the girl that she needed to wait five more minutes for something.  The girl proceeded to respond by quoting this line from the book.  Of course a 2-year-old doesn't really understand exactly what this phrase means, which makes it all the funnier for the rest of us.  So cute.

Candy Carrot Cupcakes

I'm giving full credit for these adorable little cupcakes to one of my co-workers, who has a way of always going above and beyond what we expect when it comes to the summer book clubs that she runs.

Today our youngest book club met to read and do activities that go along with Candace Fleming's marvelous book Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!  After reading and discussing the book as a group, the kids played Garden BINGO, made rabbit masks, and ate these masterful cupcakes.  Too much cute!

Want to learn how to make these tasty treats?  Check out the recipe here. 

Soil Science

Last week I was responsible for another school-age summer event.  Our topic for the week was soil, so I chose to focus our activities not only on dirt, but also on all of the good things that grow in the dirt.

Our first activity was actually a cooking project.  We made dirt cake!  I shared a recipe for this tasty treat in my last post, and while this recipe is decadent it uses more dishes and has a few more preparation steps than I wanted for this program.  Fortunately, there are many different ways to make dirt cake and I was able to track down this simplified recipe.  This version has the added bonus of being served in individual cups, so everyone could easily pick out their own servings.  Everyone took turns with the steps by adding ingredients, stirring, and crushing Oreos for the group.  Everyone spooned the pudding mixture into their own cups and topped it with the crushed Oreos and gummy worms.  We then put all of the dirt cups in the refrigerator to set while we did our other activities.  Everyone got to eat their treats at the end of the program.

Next came our biggest project of the day:  Soil Testing.  Before we got to the testing itself, I took a few minutes to talk about soil pH and the nutrients nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium and why they are important for gardens.  I also explained that I had used a special soil testing kit to check to see if these minerals were found in potting soil that I had purchased at a garden store.  As a group we made predictions and everyone correctly guessed that the specially-formulated potting soil had a fairly low pH and had more than enough of the essential nutrients.

Then it was the kids' job to run the test themselves on a sample of soil from a co-worker's garden.  The kids divided themselves into four groups, and each group was responsible for testing a sample of soil from the garden for a different nutrient.  My co-worker had actually mentioned that her garden was not producing as well this year as it had in the past, so we expected to find that the garden was deficient in at least one resource.

To do this project, I purchased a simple soil testing kit.  We bought ours at Nasco a couple of months ago when we bought the supplies for my geode program, but these kits are readily available at a variety of other locations as well, including Amazon.  Each group was lead by a teen or adult volunteer, who helped keep everyone on task.  Each group was assigned a different test (one group tested the soil's pH, one tested for nitrogen, etc.) and a corresponding set of instructions on how to test the soil.  As a group we also made a chart that we used to compare the results of their tests with the results of my test on the potting soil.  (If anyone is curious, my co-worker's soil was severely lacking in nitrogen and potassium.)  The kids really loved this project, and I think it really helped that the experiment had actual real-life applications that they could readily understand.

My group of 2nd and 3rd graders took quite a bit longer than expected to complete both of these activities, but the group of 4th-6th graders had time for one last project.  We got some bean seeds started on damp paper towels.  I borrowed my plan for this activity from similar project I had seen on Pinterest (check it out here).  Each kid actually set up two bags (four seeds in each bag).  They were able to take one bag of seeds home to observe directly, and the second bag was left here at the library.  We taped these seeds up in one of our windows and have invited patrons to visit them daily to watch them grow.  It's kind of a nice bonus to have something here at the library that patrons can watch grow and change over the course of the next week or two.

All in all, this was a very successful program.  The kids had a great time, and they got very excited about all three of our projects.  I was very glad to have four good volunteer helpers to guide the kids directly while I floated between groups to help where needed.  I definitely couldn't have made this program the success it was without them!

Dig In, Read In

When I was planning this year's Teen Summer Reading Program, I soon realized that I was going to run out of money in my summer budget.  I found myself looking at the summer calendar with one more day of programming to fill and almost no money for special supplies or a presenter.  I needed a program that would grab attention, but not cost much money.  And given the intensity of a few other programs I had planned, it wouldn't hurt if the program was super easy to plan and put together.  What to do?

Desperate for inspiration, I thought back to other programs that I had seen done and other libraries.  My mind wandered to a previous job and some of the programs I had seen done there.  One program in particular seemed to be just what the doctor ordered.  I'm not ashamed to say that I borrowed this program plan (which had been originally been done with school-age kids in mind) and adapted it for my teen audience.

The idea behind this program is actually pretty simple:  Everyone comes to the program with a book.  Everyone reads silently for a set time (I settled on 45 minutes).  Afterwards, everyone is given a tasty treat as a reward for their effort.  Easy!

One component that I decided to add to this program was a show and tell.  Before we started reading, I gathered everyone in a circle and asked them to each say just a few quick words about whatever the book was they were planning to read.  This way everyone was able to hear about new titles that other teens were enjoying that they might not have otherwise have heard about.  I was actually very impressed with how well my group of teens handled this part of the program.  They did a good job of giving us succinct summaries of their books, and they got excited about talking about books with each other as we moved around the circle.  At one point we actually had a mostly thoughtful discussion about the merits and flaws of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight.  This discussion added about 20 minutes to the program time - admittedly, more time than I'd anticipated thanks to the depth of the discussion and the number of teens in attendance - but it was totally worth it.  After all, it's the library's job to get teens excited about books and reading.  I'd say mission accomplished!

When I first told my supervisor about this program idea, she was skeptical.  She cautioned me that I might not see the attendance numbers I'd prefer in a low-key program like this.  In the end, however, there was no need at all to worry as I had a whopping 19 teens in attendance.  Wow!  I was confident that there would be a market for a program like this in my community, but I truthfully wasn't quite expecting to have this many teens.  Not that I'm complaining.  I'm thrilled that so many people were willing to come to the library simply to hang out and read.

Everyone was also invited to bring pillows, blankets, or whatever else they wanted to get comfortable while they read.  They were also invited to sit anywhere they wanted while they read.  I was pretty impressed that so many teens were excited about curling up underneath one of the many tables that are always present in the programming room.  Who knew?

As far as the tasty treat promised as a reward for reading, I decided that given this year's underground theme I would make some dirt cake.  It was a big hit!  The dirt cake was also the only expense for the program.

I've seen a few different dirt cake recipes floating around, but this is the one I used:

2 (20 oz.) pkgs. Oreo cookies
1/2  stick butter
1 (8 oz.) cream cheese
1 c. powdered sugar
3 1/2 c. milk
2 sm. French vanilla instant pudding boxes
1 (12 oz.) Cool Whip

Cream the butter, cream cheese and powdered sugar together in a bowl, and then set aside.

In another LARGE bowl, mix pudding together with the milk, add the Cool Whip to pudding mixture. (Don’t follow the directions on the pudding, just use the 3 ½ cups of milk).  Then blend in with the cream cheese mixture.

To crush the Oreos, put the packages of Oreos in a large Ziploc bag.  Then, in case of a tear in the bag, just put your Ziploc bag inside another large Ziploc bag for protection, then crush.

Then, in a large bowl, layer the cream and the Oreos.  Start with the Oreos on the bottom of the bowl, then end with Oreos to top it off.  Don't be afraid to go a bit heavy on the cream (or you'll have lots left over) and use a thin layer of Oreos (or you won't have enough).  Chill at least one hour before serving.  Top with gummy worms or other goodies as desired.