Divergent Program Ideas

The Divergent series by Veronica Roth might be put to bed, but I haven't seen that book on the shelf since I purchased it in 2011. An early favorite, this series packs enough adventure for thrill seekers, a dystopian society to die for, and there are more than enough sparks on the romance front to keep all entertained.  That said, I've had multiple teens begging me for a Divergent program.  For whatever reason it hasn't materialized, but I am definitely going to hit that up this summer and watch the sparks fly. 

As I've previously stated, my program ensemble is very important to me.  I spend a lot of time and effort with my wardrobe overall, so it is no surprise to anyone that knows me.  If you find yourself in a similar boat or want to really want to get in character, might I recommend checking out the Official Divergent Tumblr for costuming suggestions?  If I lived in the Divergent dystopia I know that I wouldn't hesitate to select Dauntless on Choosing Day, but feel the requisite wardrobe of black and leather might be a bit much for a teen librarian running a program, so I proffer an adorable Abnegation outfit.  Grey is my favorite color to wear and as librarians are supposed to selflessly help everyone that comes through their library's doors it seems most fitting.  Please click on the link and browse the inspiration for your chosen faction to spice it up!

On to the games!  While my high schoolers prefer acting games and being left to their own devices to relax, my middle schoolers are hyper and can't sit still to save their lives.  If I am not constantly rushing from one high intensity game to another, trouble flares up.  Not all of these games will work for your teens, which is why I provided three per faction.  I got a lot of ideas from looking over this fabulous link by the Divergent Lexicon. Check that link out for food ideas as well!

Dauntless Games

These games should be executed with caution as Dauntless activities are not for the weak at heart! We played Trainwreck at a Hunger Games lock-in a few years back and there were a few skinned knees and head on collisions, so please be careful! I still recommend it because it was hilarious to watch and the teens had a great time.

• Manhunt
• Capture the Flag 
• Capture the Pearl sounds a whole lot more exciting, but might not be suitable for every library.
• Trainwreck

Erudite Games

These will go over particularly well with my uber nerdy teens.  I really like the Divergent trivia I found on Goodreads and can't wait to dig into it.

• Divergent Trivia
• Trivial Pursuit
• Jeopardy

Candor Games

Spotting lies and seeking the truth are the name of the game for Candor.

• 2 Truths & a Lie
• Truth or Dare
• Truth be Told

Abnegation Games

Abnegation facilitates selflessness and teamwork, so try these team building games!

• Hands Down
• Blanket Flip
• Portal

Amity Games

Amity games are all about teamwork and not about who wins.  I highly recommend the link I provided for Charades, as it is actually a variation known as Charade Relay.

• Charades
• Catchphrase
• Amoeba 

Booktalks

What book do you find yourself booktalking over and over again? Why that particular book? For me it's The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I just booktalked it for the third time this week and I only got in to work 15 minutes ago.

I'm looking to build up the short list of my go-to books as they're all getting checked out slowly but surely. What will I do when they're all off the shelf? Rely on you, that's what! Leave a message in the comments about which books you think should be included because only one book on the list below is checked in.

The List (thus far, as I remember it):

• The Hunger Games -- Suzanne Collins (duh)
• Marcello in the Real World -- Francisco X. Stork
• Alice, I Think -- Susan Juby
• The Mortal Instruments series -- Cassandra Clare
• All Alone in the Universe -- Lynne Rae Perkins
• Ordinary Ghosts -- Eireann Corrigan
• Hold Still -- Nina LaCour

The list also includes books that sell themselves due to popularity amongst teens or their connection to a movie (such as Inkheart).

Get ready to "Read for your Life"

Many have been buzzing about the changing of guards for the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature for some time now (Fuse #8, Mother Reader and A Year of Reading among them). While some people leaked the information on the interwebz last night (I'm looking at you NYTimes!), Katherine Patterson was officially named the 2nd National Ambassador for Young People's Literature this morning.

First and foremost, congratulations! Not only to Ms. Patterson, but to everyone who had a hand in selecting her because you did a phenomenal job. I had the pleasure of hearing her speak at the Baker and Taylor CATS Publisher preview this past November and she was delightful and showed that she will do much more than step up to the plate.

Jon Scieszka spent his time as Ambassador promoting the love of reading and motivating reluctant readers to enjoy reading. What will Katherine Patterson do? She has already started her Ambassadorial duties declaring that "Read for your Life" is going to be her driving force. What this entails we will find out in more detail in the coming weeks. If her time prior to receiving this honor is anything to go by, it can only be good for young people's literature. Shelf Talker has written up a fabulous summary of Ms. Patterson's numerous qualifications for the post and links to the aforementioned NYTimes article that is definitely work checking out for a more detailed look at Ms. Patterson's accomplishments.

Waiting on Wednesday: Two for the price of one!

Last week was my first WoW post and Marce of Tea with Marce left me a comment, leading me to her posting. This week I'm using the book she selected (Thaw) because now I'm waiting on it, too! It also made me think of this ARC I received at the Baker and Taylor Spring 2010 preview, so I decided to give you that one as well. Breaking the Spine is hosting the round-up.

Both of these books center on people going through difficult depression and their journey as they decide whether or not to commit suicide. As dedicated readers of Purple Polka know, my stepfather committed suicide in the beginning of December last year, so it seemed a timely post for this week's WoW. And on that somber note, the books!

Book One: Thaw (Fiona Robyn)

(description pulled from Fionarobyn.com)

Ruth is thirty two years old and doesn't know if

she wants to be thirty three. Her meticulously-ordered lonely life as a microbiologist is starved of pleasure and devoid of meaning. She decides to give herself three months to decide whether or not to end her life, and we read her daily diary as she struggles to make sense of her past and grapples with the pain of the present. "Thaw" explores what makes any of our lives worth living. Can Red, the

eccentric Russian artist Ruth commissions to paint her portrait, find a way to warm her frozen heart?

--

The neatest part about this book is that Fiona Robyn is publishing it on a blog in March in addition to hard printing. To help spread the word she's organizing a Blogsplash, where blogs (this one included!) are going to publish the first page of the book and a link to the blog.

She's aiming to get 1000 blogs involved--if you're interested in joining her email her at fiona@fionarobyn.com or find out more information here.

***

Book Two: By the Time You Read This, I'll be Dead (Julie Anne Peters)

(found on the back of the book--a plot description was found online, but this compelled me more so I opted to use this instead)

23 Days and counting

Dear

__mother

__father

__other

There was nothing you could do to stop me because:

__I'd already made up my mind

__I have been suffering my whole life

__you were too slow to notice

I offed myself because:

__my life sucks

__the world sucks

__you suck

Goodbye,

Daelyn

--

Author of two books burning a hole in my To Be Read pile (Rage and Between Mom and Jo, respectively) why shouldn't Julie Anne Peters add yet another title to the stack? I'm most excited for the count-down method, where we slowly find out more about our teenage protagonist and find out if she decides to pull the plug.

Waiting on Wednesday

I saw Abby (the) Librarian's WoW post in my reader and thought this was finally a kidlit blog meme I could get behind. Breaking the Spine hosts the event, so check it out if you want to add even more books to your ever growing To Be Read pile.

Freefall (January 18, 2010)

Ariela Anhalt

(Description pulled from Amazon)

Luke was not eager to accompany his best friend, Hayden, and the cocky new kid, Russell, up to the cliff that night. The plan was to watch Russell jump off the cliff into the lake--his initiation to the Briar Academy fencing team. But instead, after an angry confrontation with Hayden, Russell falls to his death.

Now Hayden is in jail and the pressure is on Luke to report what he saw. But what did he see? An accident--or a murder? Luke has always followed Hayden's lead, but this is one decision he'll be forced to make on his own. And to do it, he must face the truth about his friendship with Hayden and his own painful past.

This suspenseful and scandalous tale of rivalry, peer pressure, and finding the courage to take responsibility will have an impact on readers long after the last page.

---

I'm most excited about the fact that this author is a 19 year old sophomore at Dartmouth College. I love when actual young adults write and publish young adult novels. What an achievement!

I received the ARC just last Friday and it is burning a hole in my bag, begging for me to read it. Anticipate a review sometime before 2009 has its final say.

Digital Towns

Move over John Green, Google is getting in on the paper town action! Paper towns are getting 2.0 with their bad selves in the form of Argleton. Google may or may not have created this town so that rival mapmakers cannot steal the fruit of their cartographic labors.

My question is does the terminology change because it's an online map or can we still call it a paper town?

Wait... What?

Baker and Taylor makes up nice little lists for us to peruse and ponder. It takes most of the guesswork out of ordering new books, really. We can order other books that aren't on the list, but why bother when you can get books like this? Below is the line from the Booklist review of Joaquin Dorfman's The Long Wait for Tomorrow that would have made me spit my drink all over the computer monitor, had I been consuming a liquid at the time:

The next morning, however, Kelly wakes up a new man. He buys Patrick expensive gifts. He kisses Jenna like he means it. He's what they dub the New Kelly McDermott; a pleasant change until Kelly mentions that he is a 40-year-old version of himself who has time-traveled in from a mental institution.

I'm quite alright with timetraveling into future or past versions of yourself and other things of that vein (like 13 Going on 30 or 17 Again) as long as they can explain things properly. But the mental institution? That's a nice touch, Mr. Authordude. Really, you decided that was necessary? H'okay...

Why can't YA just be YA? One of the other books in the list features a protagonist whose parents die in an airplane crash. That's not traumatizing enough, however, because then she also has to face the fact that her Uncle is sexually attracted to her after she goes to live with him. Why oh why do we need to shove so much into these books?

Express Yourself

Rutgers steals money for various things I never use and then calls it tuition. Usually I just shrug my shoulders and ignore it. What was that? $11 for a grammatically incorrect paper I never read because it makes my eyeballs bleed? Sure, why not. However much you want to take from my lazy non-gym using ass? Please! My wallet is yours.

Well not this time! I am going to use the entirety of my printing budget this year if it's the last thing I do! I made the booklist you see below last night in Fireworks and plan on printing them out with the remainder of the unused printing fund. Mwahahaha I = evil genius. Or a dork. Either way, check out my new booklist!!!!!!!exclaim!!!

Online program idea!

I created a animated gif of a YA book cover! ... sorta. I definitely appreciate the outcome and the possibilities this creates. A Myspace page could gain activity with a contest for the best book cover avatar. Or maybe characters from a book could be sent to an email address?
ETA: Audrey, Wait! eLouai

Book meme time!

I've hit an impasse with a project for work, so I am hoping that upon completing this meme all the answers will be revealed to me. That or the people I want to discuss said project with are on some sort of messenger program then. Either or. ^-^

Stolen from Jill's facebook (again, how does one cite Facebook notes?) but you can view the LibrariYAn's results over here.
100 Teen Books Meme

From Karen Brooks-Reese

The following list of books teens love, books teens should read, and books adults who serve teens should know about was compiled IN ABSOLUTELY NO SCIENTIFIC MANNER and should be taken with a very large grain of salt.

Instructions:
Put an "X" next to the books you've read
Put a "+" next to the books you LOVE
Put a "*" next to the books you plan on reading
Tally your "X"s at the bottom
Share with your friends!

1. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy / Douglas Adams *
2. Kit's Wilderness / David Almond
3. Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian / Sherman Alexie *
4. Speak / Laurie Halse Anderson +
5. Feed / M.T. Anderson X
6. Flowers in the Attic / V.C. Andrews
7. Thirteen Reasons Why / Jay Asher +
8. Am I Blue? / Marion Dane Bauer (editor)
9. Audrey Wait! / Robin Benway *
10. Weetzie Bat / Francesca Lia Block
11. Tangerine / Edward Bloor
12. Forever / Judy Blume X
13. What I Saw and How I Lied / Judy Blundell
14. Tyrell / Coe Booth
15. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants / Ann Brashares
16. A Great and Terrible Beauty / Libba Bray
17. The Princess Diaries / Meg Cabot +
18. The Stranger / Albert Camus
19. Ender's Game / Orson Scott Card *
20. Postcards from No Man's Land / Aidan Chambers
21. Perks of Being a Wallflower / Stephen Chbosky X
22. And Then There Were None / Agatha Christie
23. Gingerbread / Rachel Cohn *
24. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist / Rachel Cohn and David Levithan *
25. Artemis Fowl (series) / Eoin Colfer +
26. The Hunger Games / Suzanne Collins *
27. The Midwife's Apprentice / Karen Cushman
28. The Truth About Forever / Sarah Dessen
29. Little Brother / Cory Doctorow
30. A Northern Light / Jennifer Donnelly
31. Tears of a Tiger / Sharon Draper
32. The House of the Scorpion / Nancy Farmer *
33. Breathing Underwater / Alex Flinn
34. Stardust / Neil Gaiman
35. Annie on My Mind / Nancy Garden +
36. What Happened to Cass McBride / Gail Giles *
37. Fat Kid Rules the World / K.L. Going *
38. Lord of the Flies / William Golding *
39. Looking for Alaska / John Green X
40. Bronx Masquerade / Nikki Grimes *
41. Out of the Dust / Karen Hesse
42. Hoot / Carl Hiaasen X
43. The Outsiders / S.E. Hinton X
44. Crank / Ellen Hopkins
45 The First Part Last / Angela Johnson
46. Blood and Chocolate / Annette Curtis Klause
47. Arrow's Flight / Mercedes Lackey
48. Hattie Big Sky / Kirby Larson
49. To Kill a Mockingbird / Harper Lee X
50. Boy Meets Boy / David Levithan X
51. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks / E. Lockhart *
52. The Giver / Lois Lowry +
53. Number the Stars / Lois Lowry X
54. Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie / David Lubar
55. Inexcusable / Chris Lynch
56. The Earth, My Butt and Other Big, Round Things / Carolyn Mackler *
57. Dragonsong / Anne McCaffrey X
58. White Darkness / Geraldine McCaughrean
59. Sold / Patricia McCormick
60. Jellicoe Road / Melina Marchetta *
61. Wicked Lovely / Melissa Marr
62. Twilight / Stephenie Meyer X
63. Dairy Queen / Catherine Murdock
64. Fallen Angels / Walter Dean Myers *
65. Monster / Walter Dean Myers
66. Step From Heaven / An Na
67. Mama Day / Gloria Naylor
68. The Keys to the Kingdom (series) / Garth Nix
69. Sabriel / Garth Nix
70. Airborn / Kenneth Oppel
71. Eragon / Christopher Paolini
72. Hatchet / Gary Paulsen +
73. Life As We Knew It / Susan Beth Pfeffer *
74. The Golden Compass / Phillip Pullman +
75. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging / Louise Rennison X
76. The Lightning Thief / Rick Riordan X
77. Always Running: La Vida Loca / Luis Rodriguez
78. how i live now / Meg Rosoff
79. Harry Potter (series) / J.K. Rowling +
80. Holes / Louis Sachar X
81. Catcher in the Rye / J. D. Salinger X
82. Push / Sapphire
83. Persepolis / Marjane Satrapi
84. Unwind / Neil Shusterman
85. Coldest Winter Ever / Sister Souljah
86. Stargirl / Jerry Spinelli
87. Chanda's Secrets / Allan Stratton
88. Tale of One Bad Rat / Brian Talbot
89. Rats Saw God / Rob Thomas *
90. Lord of the Rings / J.R.R. Tolkien
91. Stuck in Neutral / Terry Trueman
92. Gossip Girl / Cecily Von Ziegesar X
93. Uglies / Scott Westerfeld +
94. Every Time a Rainbow Dies / Rita Williams-Garcia
95. Pedro and Me / Judd Winick
96. Hard Love / Ellen Wittlinger
97. American Born Chinese / Gene Luen Yang
98. Elsewhere / Gabrielle Zevin
99. I am the Messenger / Markus Zusak
100. The Book Thief / Markus Zusak

Youch. I've only read 26 of the 100! Eeep! I better get crack-alackin' if I want to be a good YA librarian, huh?

If this is how 12 year olds look these days I give up

The female lead for Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief has been announced and I have to say... did they not get the memo that this chick is playing a 12 year old? No seriously, who is believing Alexandra Daddario to be prepubescent? Not me, that's who.
Seriously though, did they decide to change the age of the characters for a broader appeal? That's lame. I guess they had to because Alexandra is 23 and Logan Lerman is 17. At least Lerman is under 20. In fact, I slightly hope they are making the characters older if just because a 23 playing a 12 year old makes me feel worse about the fact that I get mistaken for a high schooler all the time. If I could be mistaken for a 12 year old too... well... let's just not go there.

What made these books so awesome was the amount of daring adventure and intellectual problem solving these characters had to do at the ages of 12 and 13! To make these characters in their late teens is cliched and doesn't give the kids on the early end of their teen years the sense of empowerment the Percy Jackson book series provides. While I doubt there are 11 year olds out there going, "Hey, that 13 year old boy just opened a can of whoop ass on a Greek god," they identify with the age better than if it was a 17 year old opening the same can.

Does anyone have confirmed information on this?

Review: For-Eeeev-Er

Somehow, despite not really liking The Sandlot while growing up I love the heck out of the scene where Chauncey* explains how long the dog will stay chained up, specifically the portion below:


So speaking of forever, how about that Judy Blume book? I think the only thing that I really have to say about it is exactly what my friend Danielle said when she saw me reading it, "That book is filthy." Since this is the internet, the italics could be misconstrued to mean that she was repulsed by this, but that is clearly why this book was worth reading. Duh. Sometimes I felt dirty reading it because I was in public. I know there was no little bunny and some jugs hanging out on the cover, but there might as well have been because I felt like I was reading straight up erotica. This is the first challenged book I read that I actually shrugged my shoulders in understanding after reading it.

The long and short of it (hehe he... apparently my mind will be in the gutter for the remainder of this review... you've been warned) is Katherine meets Michael at a New Year's Eve party and even though she tries to play it off like she isn't interested to us, the reader, she totes wants on him. Turns out that he too wants her, despite bringing some other chick to the party. Drama, drama, drama of the high school variety, and then they're going steady. They go on a date and then hang out in her house with more privacy than my parents would have allowed and start hooking up on a regular basis. The rest of the book progresses with their explicitly fooling around and professing they will love one another forever. Katherine's parents are concerned by the serious nature of their daughter's relationship and commands her to be a tennis counselor in another state. Boo hoo. End of the world to begin in five... four... three... two... one... or so it feels to someone with their first love.

SPOILER!

They break up and I laughed. Haha. Oh high school love, how naive and adorable you are. I remember you like a nagging pimple on my upper lip.

First Line:

"Sybil Davis has a genius I.Q. and has been laid by at least six different guys."

*when an actor's real name is this awesome, all names of the characters portrayed are irrelevant. For the record.

Review: The Chocolate War

This is one of the first times I've seen third person omniscient narrator work to a great effect. Sure, it creeps up a lot in fantasy and is well done enough, but this book rocked it. In the beginning the chapters alternate between the two main characters, the first dedicated to Jerry, our protagonist, second going to Archie and then swapping between the two for a while. Then when the chocolate sale begins and Jerry refuses to accept his chocolates, the reader is deprived of Jerry's P.O.V; building suspense for what motivates him to decline to carry on his preparatory school's long-standing tradition.

The narration then shifts to the population of the all boys school at large, capturing the atmosphere created by Jerry's chocolate refusal, which does not bode well for the fund raising efforts. A secret society known as the Vigils attempts to persuade Jerry to sell his chocolates, to no avail. An all out war breaks loose as the sway of the Vigils is strong, leading to every other student besides Jerry to step up their chocolate game. Does Jerry succeed or is he eventually worn down and made to sell his chocolate bars? Will the Vigils continue to dominate the school?

First line of book:

"They murdered him."

Anyway...

I feel like I'm the only person in the kidlitosphere that is apathetic about the Youth Media Awards. Even my friend Sara who doesn't blog outside of once a year dedicated our daily email thread to them. Am I the Grinch that stole the Awards Ceremony? Granted, I did not fashion my aged dog and myself in spiffy outfits and take the correspondences into a red sack, all the while laughingly maniacally. This much is true, but I still am all bah-humbug! about this stuff.

When I was a kid Newberry books were something you had to read for school over and over again, and therefore sucked. Now that I'm a librarian I'm supposed to get giddy about it? I can still see that strained look when kids come into the library with their Newberry assignments, so I know this hasn't changed much in the past decade. I know there are kids out there that get excited about the award books, but from my personal experience they are younger and care about the Caldecott. I honestly tried to be proactive about them the summer before library school started and ... fail. The books I read were enjoyable but that nagging feeling that I was reading a Newberry clouded my brain. Prejudices die hard.

So, Kidlitters, I implore you to show me why I should care about this. Yeah, it's a bit of a demand and yeah, I'm aware 2 people read this but still... IMPLORE!

Note: What do I know? I'm not even a for-real librarian yet, what with that pesky graduation 4 months away. Also: I love Animorphs which should serve as several grains of salt in and of itself.

Review: The Outsiders

I have to admit that I opened this book with some trepidation. No, not because of the violence, but because I am a little kid. It is an old book with yellowed pages and an ugly cover. I'm a bad librarian, what can I say? Despite this initial hesitation I was reluctant to put the book down after I got halfway through the first chapter. The issues the main character and his friends face are so drastically different from the problems that I ever have and most likely will ever encounter, yet Hinton's writing makes it come alive for me. I felt as if I was a greaser. I hated the Socs, but as Ponyboy and I came to find out together, they are human all the same.

It opens as a story about economic classes determining the way things are run in Ponyboy's city. The Socs have all the money and the best of everything and they let the Greasers know exactly what they think of them by jumping them. Often. The Greasers may not have the best money or vernacular, but they have heart and are expressive. For the most part the fights that occurr as a result of this classist society are miniscule and a part of everyday life. That is, until Ponyboy and his friends walk home two Soc girls that just so happen to be the girlfriends of some of the toughest Socs in town. Later that night, the very same Socs stumble upon Ponyboy and his buddy Johnny looking for a fight. Not only do they get a fight, but meek little Johnny knives one of the Socs and kills him. Ponyboy and Johnny go on the run and are about to start a new life when something unexpected happens. The church they were hiding out in blazes with a wild fire, with several small children trapped inside. With their big hearts in tow, Ponyboy and Johnny jump into the fire and bring the children out, who would have otherwise died. Juvenille delinquents turned heros, say the papers, but that doesn't make Ponyboy feel any better because his buddy Johnny caught the brunt of the rescue and is in critical condition. Meanwhile, things between the Socs and the Greasers are at an all-time low ever since Johnny murdered one of the Socs, and an ultimate showdown is on the way. Will Johnny make it out of the hospital alive? Who will come out on top of the big fight, Socs or Greasers? Is Ponyboy going to stay sweet and poetic or will he succumb to the hardships of his lifestyle and lose heart?

First line of the book:

"When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home."

BONAS JONAS: My FAVORITE aspect of this novel is the circular nature of it. Circle stories (the first and last paragraph are the same) are my absolute favorite and it definitely made this book that much better for me. I think I actually squealed with delight, but then again, I squeal and shake with delight like a guinea pig often. I am easily excitable. But still! Amazing!

Drive-by link dump

Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!

Link ambush!

Sorry for the gangsta stylings, but every time I go to blog, I get bombarded with, "Ms. I need more time!" "Ms. how do you find a google images?" "Ms. show me how to make a cootie catcher!" "Ms. How do I find things on google images?" Therefore, you will get overwhelmed with linkity link links. I mean, psht, don't these children know that my computer was attacked by zombies and the only time I have to give you these amazing links is when I am at work? Clearly the job comes first, so I will gladly stop blogging to give them the assistence they need (even if I have to show them the same thing 5 times before they actually get it), but still... YOU NEED TO SEE THESE LINKS!!!!!!

The 6 links up thar on the tippy top of the post are pretty self evident. As for the links that follow, they benefit from some blurbification.

I'm a 21st Century Reader, are you? Thanks, A Year of Reading!

Is it just me, or should someone turn the news into YA novels?

• Man steals live shark
• "U.S. Marshals tracked Marcus Schrenker, 38, to a north Florida campground late Tuesday night, peeling back the flap to his one-man tent to discover him in clouded consciousness with blood-soaked arms, muttering the word 'die.'" Um... excuse me? I thought only fiction writers were capable of this level of epicness.
  

Bib-Laura-graphy link dumps, so I don't have to. Thanks Laura! Though, I will point out my favorite article she mentioned, which is obvious since it is Twilight. Not only is it Twilight, but it involves cognitive pyschology!! I don't often (if ever) mention my love of this subject because Purple Polka isn't really the right forum, but Twilight+cognitive science=Heaven on the web.

The Book Chook offers some helpful hints on how to get those pesky, reluctant readers to enjoy reading. Thanks! Makes my job a whoooole lot easier here in Library Land. Let's get those parents' reading that information!!

Dr. Seuss can use 0nly 50 words to create a masterpiece, can you? Thanks Tales from an Open Book!

Um what? Note: the word Sexting is absurd. Thank you, YALSA Blog, for bringing it to my attention.

Temporary hiatus seems imminent

Last night I was browsing the interwebs and got very over-excited by the LibrariYAn's comments on Scott Westerfeld's book.  As a result, the casing of my new computer is lifting (don't ask).  I will have to bring this johnson in to the shop and get it fixed.  I am such a winner.