Hi, I’m Kerry, the new Tween Librarian! A few summers ago, you may have seen me around Kid’s World helping out with Summer Reading. Now, I’m lucky enough to get to hang out in Kid’s World AND the Hub. Best. job. ever. You might even see me visiting your school this fall.
A few random facts about me:
I am a wannabe foodie and love trying (and usually messing up) new recipes.
I have been a runner since jr. high, and I can’t go more than a few days without going for a run.
I have a cat named Izzy who is currently rocking a sweet lion haircut.
I love to travel, but when I can’t, I read about it instead. I am a sucker for a good love story, but I equally love action-packed dystopian novels. I’m always looking for my next favorite book, so let me know what you’re reading!
Have you ever gotten your earbuds tangled in your bag or pocket? It's literally the worst thing ever. Well, we've got you covered! During the month of June, we made DIY No-Tangle Earbuds in the HUB. All you need is some thin thread called embroidery floss, a pair of scissors, a piece or two of tape, and some earbuds that always get tangled. (We provided some earbuds to everyone who made the kit in June, but feel free to bring in your own and use our embroidery floss to make them No-Tangle. We have almost every color ever.)
Completing a DIY craft is also one of the four challenges for our Read to the Rhythm teen summer challenge, where you can win awesome prizes like iTunes gift cards, instruments from GuitarCenter, and even a pair of wireless Beats headphones! (If those get tangled on you, then I don't know what to tell you. You're on your own there.)
In addition to not tangling and driving you totally, personalizing your earbuds makes sure you never mix them up with someone else's and get their earwax in your ears, which may be the only thing worse than tangled earbuds. After following the really simple instructions below, you'll end up with something looking a bit like this:
Here are the basic steps you'll need to follow:
Secure one end of your earbuds down with a piece of tape. Take a long piece of embroidery floss and tie it to one end of your earbuds with a double or triple knot.
Wind the other end of the floss up loosely. (This way, you won't need to pull the entire length through for every loop you make.)
Loop the floss over and around the earbud cable, and pull it up through the loop you just made. (Look at it like a single knot.)
Pull the loop tight around the cable and push it up against the rest of the thread.
Repeat steps 3 & 4 until you've covered your earbuds. If you want to move on to a different colored floss, just tie the new color on to the end of the old and keep it going.
Check out the video below to see how it works in action.
Depending on the length of your earbuds, it can take a while, so you may need to finish it up at home after leaving the HUB. If you want to give it a try, swing by the HUB desk with your tangled earbuds and we'll get you the supplies!
That means that your schools have unleashed their lists of books they'd like you to read over the summer. We've got some good news for you...the books you seek are available here at the library in The Hub!
We've compiled all the books you may need to read in these handy dandy links. Click on them to see which books are available to check out right now, and put a hold on books that you'd like to read soon! On top of that, you'll find on the lists that you can even get some of these reads as an eBook!
Did you hear that? Be alarmed. That's the sound of zombies eating flesh in the Hub! Well, not really but we've already had a bunch of teens come in and make hilarious and creepy stopmotion movies with little zombies as the undead stars of the film! You can do it too. Just bring a partner and get moviemaking. If you want to try this at home, we won't be responsible for any lives claimed by Zombies.
Supplies:
A whole bunch of mini figurines (These will be your 'actors'. We got our Zombies at the one of a kind extremely odd store American Science and Surplus, which isn't too far away.) Or just raid your old toy chest.
Little ornaments, dollhouse furniture or other toys. This is how you build your set for the movie.
A camera (or an ipad or iphone! We're using the super simple Stop Motion Studio app, which automatically creates super-fast transitions between photos, which is what you need to create the effect of stop motion)
A tri-pod! This is important as one key element to stop motion is that you want your characters to move just a little bit between the taking of photos. A tri-pod will keep your viewer oriented to the action. TIP: You need to be judicious when you move the camera!
Background for your set. We used a cheap tri-fold posterboard. Feel free to add art and create a vivid scene!
A partner. You need a partner for stop motion. One person to take pics, the other to move the figurines just a little bit closer ... to the rotting flesh!
Inklings is the HUB's creative writing club, where once a month, teens get together and explore some facet of writing and storytelling. (We meet the first Tuesday of every month, from 4-6. You should join us!)
At our March meeting, we talked about Choose Your Own Adventure stories, where the reader can choose different paths for the story to take. It's almost like playing a video game, in that your character will inevitably die over and over and over and over... There was a series of incredibly popular Choose Your Own Adventure books in the 1980s and 90s, with hilaroiusly cheesy and dated covers. Just recently, one popped up online to see if you could survive The Battle of Hogwarts!
Inklings decided to write their own Choose Your Own Adventure stories, and you can all read/play along! We used a free online software called Twine. (You can write your own stories there, too!) For each story, Inklingers paired up and chose an opening passage, setting up a scenario and a few choices. (One is a pirate adventure, the other a murder mystery.) Teams would then venture off of one of those choices, creating their own crazy branches for the story to go into. Most end in hilarious death, but a few lead your character to victory! Try them both out, and see how well you can survive!
Friday, April 24th, marked the 100 year anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Not as well-known as the genocide that spurred World War II, more than 1 million Armenians were slaughtered or deported by the Ottoman Turks beginning in 1915. Some historians consider this to the primer used by Nazi Germany for the Holocaust.
Globally, from Los Angeles to Yerevan, crowds gathered to pay tribute to those lost and bring awareness to this catastrophe that continues to affect Armenians worldwide. American rock band System of a Down performed in Yerevan's Republic Square to honor their Armenian heritage.
Want to learn more? Explore more with these resources!
20 Voices - A multimedia site that highlights the experience of 20 genocide survivors.
"I start to run, start to turn into air, the blue careening off the sky, careening after me, as I sink into green, shades and shades of it, blending and spinning into yellow, freaking yellow, then head-on colliding in the punk-hair purple of lupine: everywhere. I vacuum it in, all of it, in, in – (SELF-PORTRAIT: Boy Detonates Grenade of Awesome) – getting happy now, the gulpy, out-of-breath kind that makes you feel you have a thousand lives crammed inside your measly one…"
I absolutely adored this book! It’s beautifully written and had me laughing, crying, and completely giddy. I raced through it like light speeding through the universe.
(SELF-PORTRAIT: Teen Librarian Squealing with Delight)
Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You the Sun is about twins Noah and Jude. Like most twins, they are incredibly close; they have an uncanny ability to know what the other is thinking and can finish each other’s sentences. Noah is an eccentric artist. He’s constantly drawing or painting, sometimes just in his head. Jude is a gregarious daredevil. She loves surfing and makes friends easily. The story begins when the twins are thirteen, a time when they’re experiencing change and exploring life. It continues through sixteen when they’ve seemingly switched roles. They’re coming to terms with the heartbreak they’ve felt due to tragedy and loss, tentatively living their lives and trying to rebuild.
The novel shifts between Noah’s and Jude’s perspectives alternating from early to later years. The voices and viewpoints juxtaposed plainly shows that neither character has the whole story. Throughout Noah’s narration, his artist mind is evident: he’s constantly imagining his surroundings in colors and relays how he’d describe the moment on canvas or paper and what he’d name it. Jude’s are filled with quirky wives’ tales and superstition.
Nelson’s writing is lyrical and expressive. The characters and imagery jump off the page. The characters’ confusion, heartache, and elation are felt through description. Nelson weaves a vivid tale of life, loss, and love intertwined with a message about self-identity and being true to yourself.
This is a must-read for romantics, artists, inspiration seekers, and lovers of words!
We have many anime and manga lovers in the HUB, which is why we created Anime Academy. Originally, it started out as a monthly anime screening instead of our usual Friday night movie back on March 28th 2014. Now we are only a few days away from our one year anniversary!
The very first anime night we watched Fruits Basket and created shrinky-dinks of our favorite characters. Next we had a Black Butler tea party, which is where we created the name Anime Academy. We also had a program all about making ramen healthy.
The very first official Anime Academy meeting was on July 25th 2014 at the La Corda d’Oro program. Since then, we’ve watched Fairy Tail, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, Sailor Moon, and Angel Beats!. Each program has a craft that coincides with the anime we watch. Recently, we started implementing a drawing and language lesson into the meetings that relates to the anime we watch.
We’ve had some very special events, like our Cosplay night back in October. We are hoping to make it even bigger and better this upcoming year.
Just a few days ago, March 21st 2015, we had artist Susan Sieber come host a manga drawing workshop.
Anime Academy has a very loyal following, and is a big part of the HUB. We are always trying to come up with new program ideas and ways to make Anime Academy even better.
In May I will be at ACEN (Anime Central) gathering as much information and new ideas as I can handle.
Anime Academy is something that I love hosting and enjoy immensely. This is a thank you to everyone who has made Anime Academy what it is today. We are looking forward to another amazing year filled with even more anime than the last.
Last Thursday, the AHML Studio was a hotbed of creativity. A bunch of aspiring musicians and producers showed up for our Become a Remix Master program, and took what was originally a pretty simple, unoriginal, and dumb song (we literally titled it DUMB SONG) and used the Studio's tools to alter and adjust different parts of the song into some really exciting and original remixes.
(All of this practice as producers and remixers gave teens the skills they need for our Battle of the Recorded Bands, where teen musicians record and submit songs to win awesome prizes like TicketMaster gift cards, raffles from Guitar Center, and chances to perform at HUB programs. If you're interested in participating, check out the site or send us an email.)
We first went over how the song was created in Garage Band. Give the original DUMB SONG a listen:
We learned how to change instruments, adjust the tempo, and overlay filters using GarageBand. Then the teens each got a copy of the original DUMB SONG file and took over the Studio.
Using some of the awesome Studio tools like our vocal booth and instruments, they each made their own remixes. Teens only had about an hour and a half to remix. Some remixes ended up being more different or similar to the originals, or that much more complex, depending on what directions and tools teens decided to go with. Teens changed up the instruments, wrote new musical parts, and even did some super creative things with sound effects.
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So here they are, some awesome teen remixes. Despite their titles, these songs are notably NOT dumb.
We are liars. We are beautiful and privileged. We are cracked and broken.
We Were Liars by e. lockhart is narrated by Cadence, the oldest Sinclair grandchild, and the latest in a line of old-money wealth. Each summer, the Sinclairs vacation on their own private island, Beechwood, off the coast of Massachusetts. Cady, her cousins Johnny and Mirren, and friend (and sometimes more) Gat – the four “Liars” – have been attached at the hip since their eighth summer on the island. During the fifteenth summer, though, Cadence suffers a calamity she cannot remember. Even more mysterious is that her family refuses to tell her about it. She spends the next several years in a fog of debilitating migraines, pills, and partial amnesia. As she returns to Beechwood for her seventeenth summer, she attempts to piece together the mystery of what happened and why her relatives are behaving so peculiarly.
Cady is an incredibly unreliable narrator, and the both emotional and mental toll her injuries have taken are evident in the novel’s jumbled, nonlinear plot and beautiful impressionistic language. Cadence and the Liars take a long hard look at the Sinclair’s wealth, privilege, and concealed racism. With allusions as varied as King Lear, Wuthering Heights, and classic fairy tales, it’s a familiar story of family squabbles amid decadent wealth, and star-crossed love. (Cady and Gat share some of the steamiest hand holding scenes this side of Eleanor & Park.) The mystery and emotions boil over in a twist thatmight have you hurling the book across the room before rushing to pick it up and race to finish.
(We Were Liars is an option in our poll for Favorite YA Book of 2014. Go vote for your pick!)
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