Hi Teens,
Bailey and I hope your holidays were great and that you are enjoying this cold winter!  We will be planning for our Summer Reading program  at our YAK planning session on February 2.  I spent Thanksgiving week in Florida and attended a NASA workshop about the Curiosity Rover and it's launch to Mars.  It is to land on Mars sometime in August and we will be planning for some fun outer space events.  Come one, come all and be ready to participate.  Aliens are welcome!  Thanks, Laura

Hey teens...Bailey and I are very proud of your Summer Reading participation this year.  We had a great turnout at our YAK events and with the bingo cards.  We have a display in the teen section showing our winners and photos of the Read Posters.  Again, congratulations to all winners!  Have a great school year and see you at our fun year long Yak events!  Laura 

He teens! I have been seeing a lot of you in here collecting your bingo prizes, and I must say, this years program has been more successful than ever! I have had 6 teens make it to level 5 and 4 of you blacked out the bingo card! That is much better than last year! Keep up the good work teens!

You have until August 31st to continue earning level prizes so keep it up! however this Thursday (July 28th) at 4pm we will be drawing for the grand prize! So if you are trying to earn raffle tickets, you only have a few days left! You do not need to be present to win, so if you do not come to YAK on Thursday and you win I will call you at 5pm to collect your prize!

I am very pleased with the posts that you teens have been leaving on the YAK forum, I hope some of you will continue to post after summer reading and keep the community alive!

I hope you are all having a good summer!
-Bailey

This story was on NPR the other night, and I wondered what the teens thought, Click the link below to listen.


Is Young Adult Fiction Too Dark? Wednesday, July 6th, 2011


"There’s a debate going on about young adult fiction.  In an article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago, children's book critic MEGHAN COX GURDON argued that young adult books (or YA for short) have become too dark and depressing.  She wrote “kidnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings are now just part of the run of things in novels directed, broadly speaking, at children from the ages of 12 to 18.”  Gurdon’s essay sparked strong reactions on all sides of the issue from YA fans, writers, parents, booksellers and librarians.  This hour, guest host Tracey Matisak explores the state of young adult fiction with guests MEGHAN GURDON and young adult book author MAUREEN JOHNSON. We'll also hear from teenager MADELEINE KEMPER, an aspiring writer and avid reader of YA fiction."

For those of you who attended YAK! today you know that today is Tanabata. The YAK! teens celebrated Tanabata just like the Japanese do, we wrote our names on slips of paper and then a wish to be granted. This holiday celebrates the reunion of deities Orihime and Hikoboshi represented by the start Vega and Altair who are separated by the milky way. These lovers are only allowed to reunite once a year on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month. The day of Tanabata changes ever year.  The teens hung their wishes in the library garden, if the wishes blow away it means that their wish will be granted.

Here is the list of future dates

• 2011-08-06
• 2012-08-24 (The Chinese date is 2012-08-23 because of the time difference.)
• 2013-08-13
• 2014-08-02
• 2015-08-20
• 2016-08-09
• 2017-08-28
• 2018-08-17
• 2019-08-07
• 2020-08-25

Hey everyone! We are almost at the mid point of our Summer Reading Program. A lot of teens have signed up for the program and we have awarded lots of prizes! However no one has made it to level 5 yet. Be the first!

Good luck teens!

-Bailey

Hey teens! It's getting to be that time of year again, and we are about to start our Summer Reading Contest! This year's theme is 'You are Here.'  It all has to do with travel and/or finding your way or finding yourself. If you are interested in participating, you can come into the library and pick up a bingo card, or download one from the teen site on the 'teen summer reading' page. See the bingo card for rules! This also means that Laura and I might be visiting some of you in your classrooms over the next several weeks, so be sure to say hi! This year the teen department is raffling off some seriously cool prizes! Each time you complete a bingo you get a raffle ticket! Prizes include Rock Band game for XBox plus equipment and a $25 gift card to Hastings, Mountain Home, and the movie theater! The contest begins June 1st so pick up your bingo card soon and get cracking!  

Here's a contest for all the budding photographers out there! The Laramie Area Visitor's Center is looking for  photographs of Western Heritage, Landscapes, Winter Activities, Summer Activities, Buildings/Museums, and Wildlife.  There are cash prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in each of six catagories! 

Entries are due by April 29th, 2011.

For the entry form and all the other details, visit the center's website at http://www.visitlaramie.org/photoContest.html

-Anna

Hey teens, another staff member here at ACPL found this and showed it to me, we thought you all might be interested!

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/406

Click Here for more details!
The Great Scavenger Hunt Contest™ is a brand-new, super easy, totally FREE reading program for teen and youth librarians. This year-round program is open to librarians in the U.S. and Canada, in public libraries and school libraries alike. It offers fun, fast, cool programming that’ll keep your kids and teens coming back to the library for more.

Over 200 YA and middle grades authors have created a 10-question trivia challenge for one or more of their books. Trivia challenges include fun questions like “What was the color of Moe’s hideous car?” or “What is Gemma’s favorite comfort food?” (Check out the book lists in the left hand nav bar to see all of the participating titles.) Every trivia challenge also has a special note from the author to give it a personal touch. And administering the program couldn’t be easier!

To participate, readers (called hunters) simply read a participating book, complete the author trivia challenge, and turn it in to you. If they get 8 out of 10 answers correct, you get to enter them in the monthly contest. Easy, right?

Every month, I’ll choose one lucky hunter as the winner. Winning hunters will receive a $50 gift card to the bookstore of their choice to use for whatever their heart desires. Even better, when they win, YOU win too… a library prize tote filled with more terrific Great Scavenger Hunt Contest™ books for your library collection.

Fun, fast, simple plus free prizes. It doesn’t get any better than that, does it?