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