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?