Teen Blog
May Teen Book Club
This month’s book club will be Tuesday, May 15th in the coffee shop at 6:30PM. This month we are reading the road trip novel “In Search of Mockingbird” by Loretta Ellsworth. If you are a fan of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee you will want to read this month’s book! Hope to see you there!
Brittany's Book-A-Week
When I first picked up The Fault In Our Stars by John Green I was conflicted. On the one hand the short jacket summary sounded amazing and the reviews raved about how great it was. On the other hand I knew that reading it was going to make me cry – bawl even. In general I don’t like reading books that make me cry, the reason being that I read in order to escape reality for a little while, not to make myself sad. Despite this, I read it anyway. And I was right. The Fault In Our Stars did make me cry. I’m pretty sure I bawled through the entire second half of the book. However, I couldn’t put it down. I finished it in one night and the next morning picked it back up and read a good chunk of it again. Today after I turn this copy back into the library I plan on going to Barnes and Noble and buying my own copy. It was just that good.
Congratulations to Teen Volunteer!
Congratulations to our teen volunteer, Eun Sol Chon, for being named NWA Media Girls Newcomer of the Year for girls swimming and diving. Eun Sol helped the Lady Tigers swim to victory as they set a state record in the 200-yard freestyle record. She won the state title in the 500 freestyle by almost 10 seconds over her nearest competitor and took third in the 200 intermediate medley. Eun Sol has been a library volunteer since 2011. Great job, Eun Sol!
Brittany's Book-A-Week
It took me awhile to get through Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler. By awhile, I mean six weeks. Initially I was very excited about this book – the idea was creative and interesting and it sounded like a quick read (it has pictures!) - but about halfway into it I lost interest and had to force myself to finish it. The book follows Min, an ‘arty’ high-school student who has a passion for old movies, and her relationship with Ed, a preppy basketball player who is the most popular boy in school. At first thought this premise sounds cliché and boring – but Handler went about telling their story in a creative way. The book is written as a letter from Min to Ed, explaining the reason why they broke up. She tells their story by going through a box of mementos she has kept from their relationship and explaining how the memory recalled by looking at each item relates to why their relationship was doomed from the beginning. Each chapter tells the story of a different memory or scene and therefore a different item – and each chapter is accompanied by a beautifully illustrated picture of that item. I love the whole idea of the book – Handler has taken a cliché high-school love story and tells it in an interesting and captivating way. However, after the first 10 or so items the whole idea started getting a little old. Min and her friends are endearing however Min’s writing is rambling and long-winded – she goes on tangents quite frequently and easily gets distracted – and while at first this didn’t bother me, it became confusing and detrimental to actually telling the story. The entire plot line could have been told in a lot less words than Min used; however, I guess I can cut the heart-broken girl some slack as she did just break up with her boyfriend. All in all, the book was solid; it just didn’t tug at my heartstrings as much as it annoyed me.
Teen Book Club
Hey guys! This is a reminder that Teen Book Club will meet next Monday, March 12th at 6:30PM in the café. This month we are discussing Slam by Nick Hornby. Even if you have not read the book please feel free to come and visit and enjoy some snacks!
TAB Sponsoring Youth Art Contest
Draw Me A Story: Enter your best work of art that has been inspired by a literary work. Open to all grade levels and prizes will be awarded for the winner of each age division. Entries are due March 24, 2012 at BPL. Works will be displayed at the Library during April. Pick up a contest form at the Library today!
Teen Book Discussion Canceled
Snowy weather is causing BPL to cancel Teen Book Discussion this evening.
Hunger Games Movie
Are you all counting down to the Hunger Games movie release? 44 days!!! I’m looking forward to seeing how well this movie represents the book. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole trilogy and hope the movies do them justice! I found some maps of Panem that other fans have modeled based on hints given in the books. Join the ‘Teen Conversation’ to the right and let me know which map you feel most accurately depicts Panem based on your knowledge of the books.
Congrats and Shout Out
Congratulations to Bentonville High School for their win in the Academic Competition in Education at the Arend Arts Center. Special shout out to our Teen Advisory Board member, Indran Kamalanathan for his participation on the team! Go BHS!
Brittany's Book-A-Week
The book I read this week was The Radleys by Matt Haig, about a family of abstainers, vampires who are living a weakened half-life because they have decided not to drink human blood. Peter and Helen Radley haven’t always been abstainers, but they have raised their teenage children Rowan and Clara to know nothing about their true identity. This family’s relatively normal, boring British world is turned upside down after Clara violently and unexpectedly unleashes her true nature. The consequences of this act have enormous implications for not only Clara, but for her entire family, when repressed temptations and family secrets come to light. This isn’t normally a book I would pick up and decide to read on a whim. I’m usually drawn to light-hearted books – Princess of Glass, for instance. But this book had one thing that drew me to it: the language and writing promised to be very, very beautiful. Haig delivered in every way. Matt Haig has a talent for weaving words together that makes me crave more. The images he is able to invoke and the feelings he is able to capture are absolutely breathtaking. Put that together with a plot that starts out slow but builds up to be captivatingly intense and you have an altogether enjoyable book. The book also raises some startling questions about morality, temptation, marriage, and love. Haig’s view on vampirism, a completely overdone theme in today’s young adult literature, is surprisingly fresh and easy to imagine is real and his characters are complex and relatable. In this version of reality, great artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Lord Byron, and Miles Davis were vampires, a theme slightly overdone but presented in a less trite way. I do have a couple warnings before I start recommending this book to everyone. One, the language is not polite. At all. Be prepared for a lot of swear words, especially in the dialogue. On that note, this book is very adult. Three of the main narrators are adults, and as such it presents an adult viewpoint of the world as contrasted to the teenage viewpoint of the world. There are some very short graphic sex scenes, and some graphically violent scenes. I would recommend this book to more mature teens who are looking for older books to read, and definitely to adults looking for an interesting take on the vampire craze.
