Teen Summer Reading is here!

Yes, it’s back again, the Teen Summer Reading Program: your chance to earn some great prizes by picking up a book or two this summer!

Registration starts today, and teens who are going into 7th through 12th grades are welcome to participate. Students who are going into 7th grade are also eligible to participate in the Children’s Department’s Summer Reading Program, so you’ll need to make a choice.  Find more information about the Kids Summer Reading Program here.  You may only participate in one of the programs.

Getting Started

New this year, you can sign up online from any computer with Internet access! You can also keep track of your reading hours yourself through your online SRP homepage. You’re also more than welcome to come into the library to sign up at the front desk if you’d prefer. You can also pick up a reading log to keep track of your hours, or download and print a copy from your SRP homepage.

You can register any time throughout the program, up until August 8.  You can even count any reading you’ve done since the program began!

Prizes

Teens, complete one Check-In for every five hours that you read.  You may check in once per week, with a total of five check-ins during the eight week program.

For each check-in, you can pick out a free paperback book.  Or, if you don’t see one you want right away, you’ll get a coupon that you can use in coming weeks.

Those who finish the program will have a chance to win all kinds of great raffle prizes.

Book Reviews

You can also write a book review and turn it in at the library or online for a chance to win a book gift basket or pool passes in a special mid-program drawing. Just get your review in to us by Wednesday, July 6!

Activities

There are lots of great activities for teens every summer!

Check our calendar to see what’s coming up.

Ah, childhood memories…

So, you teens these days, you’re just so young and strange and into weird things like Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga and all kinds of newfangled techno-gadgets and sometimes you just make me feel OLD. So I thought I’d provide you all with a blast from the past so you can get a glimpse of what your friendly librarian’s childhood and teen years were like. So without further ado, check out the awesomeness of the late 80s/early 90s:
 

 
I mean, come on: don’t you all wish you could’ve had the joy of growing up in a time when Steve Urkel was on TV?
 

Game Day tomorrow

Sorry it’s been a bit quiet around here lately.  We’re gearing up for a great summer reading program, so I’ve been busy getting that ready.  I’ll have an announcement about it soon here on the blog.  For now, though, here’s your friendly reminder that tomorrow is our regular Game Day down in the Community Room from 4:00 to 6:00.  Bring your friends and come play Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution, board games, and more!

Teen Craft Club: Sophisticated Shrinky Dinks

Remember Shrinky Dinks, those sheets of plastic pictures you could color in, cut out, and shrink in the oven? Well, at this month’s Teen Craft Club, we’re taking that old kiddie favorite and updating it to create beautiful works of art that you can wear or use as a magnet or keychain. We’ve got all the supplies you need, so come to the library on Monday, May 2 from 4 to 5:30 and get creative!

New trailer for the last Harry Potter film!

Oooh, shiny:
 

 
SO EXCITED.  But also torn, because once this movie’s out, it’s over.  What do you guys think of the trailer?

Goodbye, Tokyopop…

Sad news for manga enthusiasts – after 14 years, Tokyopop is closing down its U.S. operations.  I haven’t kept up with too many Tokyopop titles in recent years, but the first manga I ever read was put out by them, so it feels very strange to me that they won’t be around any more.  They were pioneers in publishing Japanese manga in its original right-to-left format which helped lead to the huge explosion in its popularity in the U.S.

Currently, I’m only buying a few Tokyopop series for the library’s collection, but here’s our series that will be affected:
 

	Alice in the Country of Hearts by Hoshino Soumei and QuinRose This is complete at six volumes in Japan, but since the sixth volume here wasn’t scheduled until July, it’s doubtful that we’ll see the end of this one.
	Chibi Vampire by Yuna Kagesaki This one has been complete for a while, but I’ve been behind in getting this one in, so I’ll be ordering the final volumes right away.
	Deadman Wonderland by Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondou Volume 5 is due out at the beginning of May, but it looks like we won’t be seeing any more of this series unless someone else picks up the license.
	Shinobi Life by Shoko Conami Volume 7 was just released and I have it on order, but volume 8 is due out in July so we probably won’t see it.  There are 9 volumes in Japan and the series is still continuing as far as I know.
	Silver Diamond by Shiho Sugiura Again, the latest U.S. volume of this one (vol. 9) just came out and I’ve ordered it, but it doesn’t look like we’ll see any future volumes.  The series is up to 21 volumes in Japan.

 
And of course, we have quite a few older Tokyopop series that are complete but will likely go out of print, so we won’t be able to fill in gaps if volumes go missing anymore. Here’s a full list of complete or partial Tokyopop series that we have here at NPL:

Alice in the Country of Hearts
Alichino
Aria
Chibi Vampire
Clover
Daphne in the Brilliant Blue
Deadman Wonderland
DearS
Fruits Basket
Girl Got Game
Guardian Hearts
Harlem Beat
Kare Kano
King of Thorn
Kodocha
Love Hina
Magic Knight: Rayearth
Mars
Pantheon High
Peach Girl
Petshop of Horrors
PhD Phantasy Degree
Qwan
Real Bout High School
Rebound
Shinobi Life
Silver Diamond
Tokyo Babylon
Tokyo Mew Mew
Ultra Cute

Whew! That’s a lot of titles – obviously, Tokyopop will be missed. What will you guys miss most out of everything that they’ve put out over the last 14 years?
 

Come to the Dark Side…we have cookies.

What happens when a little girl goes off script at the Disneyland Jedi Academy show:
 

 

Game Day tomorrow

 

Just a reminder that our monthly game day is tomorrow afternoon from 4 to 6.  We’ll meet up downstairs in the Community Room for snacks, Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution, and lots of board games.  See you there!

More Hunger Games casting news

We’ve known for a couple of weeks now that Jennifer Lawrence is our Katniss, but now the main guy players have been announced as well.  According to EW.com, Peeta Mellark will be played by Josh Hutcherson, most recently seen in The Kids Are Alright with Julianne Moore and Annette Bening.  That’s him on the left up there.  It sounds like Hutcherson has been longing to play Peeta and is excited about the role, so hopefully that enthusiasm will result in a great performance.  Meanwhile, Liam Hemsworth will be handling the role of Gale Hawthorne.  He’s an Australian actor who was last seen in The Last Song with Miley Cyrus, who he reportedly has an on-and-off relationship with.  Liam’s the guy on the right.  So what do you guys think?  Do they look like your visions of Peeta and Gale?

New Fiction

	Bitter Melon by Cara Chow  Frances, a Chinese-American student at an academically competitive school in San Francisco in the 1980s, has always had it drilled into her to be obedient to her mother and to be a straight-A student so that she can go to Med school.  But is being a doctor what she wants?  It has never even occurred to Frances to question her own feelings and desires until she accidentally winds up in speech class and finds herself with a hidden talent.  Does she dare to challenge the mother who has sacrificed everything for her?
	The Big Crunch by Pete Hautman  Jen and Wes do not “meet cute.” They do not fall in love at first sight. They do not swoon with scorching desire. They do not believe that they are instant soul mates destined to be together forever. This is not that kind of love story. Instead, they just hang around in each other’s orbits…until eventually they collide. And even after that happens, they’re still not sure where it will go. Especially when Jen starts to pity-date one of Wes’s friends, and Wes makes some choices that he immediately regrets.
	Virgin Territory by James Lecesne  Dylan Flack is uprooted from his cozy life in New York City by the death of his mother. He finds himself transplanted to Jupiter, Florida.  Away from everything he knows and without his mother, each day stretches darkly into a future without hope. Enter: the Virgin Club, a nomadic group of trailer kids whose parents drag them all over the country in search of sightings of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Although not looking for membership in any club, Dylan falls in love with their leader, Angela, who believes that change occurs in direct proportion to desire and the willingness to take risks. In a series of misadventures and brushes with the law in what Dylan comes to think of as “virgin territory,” she teaches Dylan to risk a future without his favorite parent.
	Fixing Delilah by Sarah Ockler  Things in Delilah Hannaford’s life have a tendency to fall apart. She used to be a good student, but she can’t seem to keep it together anymore. Her “boyfriend” isn’t much of a boyfriend. And her mother refuses to discuss the fight that divided their family eight years ago. Falling apart, it seems, is a Hannaford tradition. Over a summer of new friendships, unexpected romance, and moments that test the complex bonds between mothers and daughters, Delilah must face her family’s painful past. Can even her most shattered relationships be pieced together again?
	Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel  For thirteen years, Ben Tomlin was an only child. But all that changes when his parents bring home Zan – a baby chimpanzee. Ben’s father, a behavioral scientist, has uprooted the family to pursue his latest research project: a high-profile experiment to determine whether chimpanzees can acquire advanced language skills. Ben’s parents tell him to treat Zan like a little brother. Ben reluctantly agrees, and it isn’t long before Ben is Zan’s favorite, and Ben starts to see Zan as more than just an experiment. But to Ben’s father, Zan is only a specimen, no more, no less. Soon Ben is forced to make a critical choice between what he is told to believe and what he knows to be true – between obeying his father or protecting his brother from an unimaginable fate.
	The Kid Table by Andrea Seigel  Ingrid Bell and her five teenage cousins are such a close-knit group that they don’t really mind sitting at the kid table—even if they have to share it with a four-year-old. But then Brianne, the oldest cousin, lands a seat at the adult table and leaves her cousins shocked and confused. What does it take to graduate from the kid table? Over the course of five family events, Ingrid chronicles the coming-of-age of her generation. Her cousins each grapple with growing pains, but it is Ingrid who truly struggles as she considers what it means to grow up. When first love comes in the form of first betrayal (he’s Brianne’s boyfriend), Ingrid is forced to question her own personality and how she fits into her family. The cousins each take their own path toward graduating into adulthood—only to realize that maybe the kid table was where they wanted to be all along.
	The Running Dream by Wendelin van Draanen  Jessica thinks her life is over when she loses a leg in a car accident. She’s not comforted by the news that she’ll be able to walk with the help of a prosthetic leg. Who cares about walking when you live to run? As she struggles to cope with crutches and a first cyborg-like prosthetic, Jessica feels both in the spotlight and invisible. People don’t know what to say or act like she’s not there. Which she could handle better if she weren’t now keenly aware that she’s done the same thing herself to a girl with cerebral palsy named Rosa. A girl who is going to tutor her through all the math she’s missed. A girl who sees right into the heart of her. With the support of family, friends, a coach, and her track teammates, Jessica may actually be able to run again. But that’s not enough for her now. She doesn’t just want to cross finish lines herself—she wants to take Rosa with her.