Mandy's Book of the Week (2/28)

This week, I give you The Maze Runner by James Dashner.  This is a great book for guys.

It is also a mind game.  Or, at least, it screwed with my head.

The basics of the story are this: one day, you wake up and you are in a metal box.  You have no clue what is going on.  You can remember your name.  You can remember things out in the world, but not the context for which they were used (for example, you know what a shower is but you can't ever remember taking one).  You can't remember much of anything else.

So the box starts to rise and you show up in basically a huge stone enclosed square.  And facing you is a group of about 60 boys.  Turns out you are in the center of a big maze.  At night, the walls move to close the square off from the maze because these creepy killer blobs come out.

One day, a girl shows up and everything starts to change.

It is bizarre and it is fabulous.

I finished The Maze Runner about a week ago and had the sequel, The Scorch Trials, on hold since then.  It came in yesterday.  I can't wait to read it.

February's Teen Tuesday

Anyone want to talk about having a good time?  Because if I wanted to talk about having a good time, I'd talk about February's Teen Tuesday.

Or maybe I wouldn't talk so much as I'd show you pictures.

Playing Jenga.  Or building a castle.  I'm not sure which.

Eating like medieval royalty

A big shout out to Mrs. Kim, the library's community outreach coordinator, for the use of her castle.

Watching a movie

You can just see our knight-in-shining-armor peeking out in the back.

 Seriously, good times.  I've never seen 30 chicken drumsticks disappear so quickly.

Our next Teen Tuesday will be on March 22.  Hope to see you there!

Mandy's Book of the Week (2/21)

Happy President's Day!

Even though the library is closed today, I thought I'd debut my book of the week segment.



Matched by Ally Condie

 Matched is one of those dystopian novels that is huge in young adult literature right now.

The main character, Cassia, is a model student and daughter.  In her society, every thing is planned for you so that life functions perfectly.  Society even matches you with the perfect mate.

In Cassia's case, it picks a mate for her that happens to be her best friend, so she assumes all has gone perfectly.  But a glitch in a computer system reveals another mate for her and this starts a downward spiral for this "perfect" society.

This book is also a part of a series with the next book, Crossed, coming out in November.  Too long to wait!

Buried Under New Books

If you follow our Facebook feed at all, you know that I ordered a ton of new books for our section.

If you don't follow our feed, you should!  I even made it easy and gave you a link on the right. *glances over there*

Anyway, a lot of the books are here and I wanted to give you a preview of a few that I was especially excited about.

Ellen Hopkins is the author of Identical, Burned, Glass, and Fallout.  They have some really mature themes in them, but they are wonderful reads.  We actually have copies of these here already, but they are so popular that we ordered more.

This series, by Lisa McMann, follows a girl who is basically assaulted by other people's dreams.  Very cool concept and very good books.  This is a new series to our library.  Wouldn't it be cool to be the first person to check it out?

Here is the lovely Amy with a second set of the Uglies series.  I just read Uglies last weekend and it was great.  I'm planning on picking up the next book, Pretties, to read this weekend.

This is a great book chronicling the experience of a young man who is serving as the vet to a circus in the 1930s.  It has been made into a movie, although I don't think it has been released yet, starring Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson.  Is everyone familiar with Mr. Pattinson?  He's the guy that plays Edward in the Twilight films.

We ordered a few non-fiction and historical fiction books as well.  The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a beautiful and heartbreaking story.

 

I have to admit that I wanted to read this before I even knew it was a YA (young adult) book.  We ordered two copies and I snagged one right away.  So far it is a really interesting story.  And it is another that is being made into a movie (I actually think this movie is coming out this weekend).

So come get a book!  The weather is supposed to be beautiful this weekend; come get a book and go read at the park in the sunshine.

A Virtual Tour

It is strange to me the number of people that haven't been to our new library yet.  It is seriously awesome, guys.

To prove it, I'm taking you on a virtual tour of the Teen Library here at the Baxter County Library.

To begin, we have the entry to the Teen Library.  We are on the bottom floor and have a whole secluded section to ourselves.

When you walk into our section, this is to your left and it is my current pride and joy: our gaming area.  We slightly rearranged it today so it is facing a different direction, but the configuration is the same.  We have 2 Xbox 360s w/Kinect, 2 Wiis, and a PS3.  Come play!

 Across from the gaming area, you have the Teen desk and my office behind it.  Amy staffs our Teen desk and she rocks.  She can recommend books, help you with computers, hook up a video game, whatever you need.  You can sign up to play video games and get your controller from this desk.  Watch for signs; I'm all about giving stuff away and that is where the notice will be.

Next, you'll find our display shelves (to the left of these, not pictured, is a great sitting area) and our bank of computers.  The computers in our section are only for teens, so no little kids or adults can come down and hog the computers.

This is our selection of young adult books, DVDs, audiobooks, and playaways.  See all the empty space in the back?  Yeah, I'm going to be filling that up.

Finally, you have our selection of magazines.  It is kind of out of the way in a little nook, but there is a big sign so it shouldn't be hard to find.  We've got a bit of everything, magazine wise, but I'm always open for suggestions.

Thank you for joining me on that fun spin around our section.  Hope to see you soon!

Winner!

The first half of this month, we ran a raffle for a $10 Hastings gift card.

What is up with us having to basically lasso you guys to get you to sign up?

Anyway, our winner is...

Hello and Welcome!

I'm so glad to be launching our new blog! 

Watch this space for upcoming events, tons of pictures, and weekly features.

:-)