Mandy's Book of the Week (4/25)

This rain has me feeling like I live in Forks.  Good thing we're nice and dry here at the library!

I had some trouble deciding what book to make the book of the week this week.  I'm currently reading one that I really, really want to highlight, but I'm not done yet so I don't feel like I can.

So I'll highlight this one instead:

Nick Hornby is a British author and so this book is very British, which I love.  I find it really neat to explore the slang and culture from other places.

Slam is the story of a guy.  He's just a regular guy.  He likes skateboarding and has read Tony Hawk's autobiography (which we have at our library, by the way) about a million times.  It is like his Bible.  He finally starts doing ok in school.  He's getting along with his mom.  He finally meets a girl and falls head over heels for her.

And just when all this stuff is clicking into place for him, he gets his girlfriend pregnant.

How does it all pan out?  Come get the book and see.

Mandy's Book of the Week (4/18)

For your consideration this week, I present a book of non-fiction.  Shocker!

From the book jacket, I got the idea that this was about Charles Darwin's (author of The Origins of Species) marriage to a devout Christian woman.  I was intrigued.  How did the man who presented one of the most radical ideas (ie-evolution) of his time end up marrying someone who was deeply religious?  How did that work?

Wow.  I think most people aspire to have a marriage like theirs. 

This book reads like a love story and is based off of the massive amounts of letters that they wrote to one another during their engagement and from the volumes and volumes of journals they each kept.  Really, it is fascinating.  I didn't feel like I was reading a work on non-fiction at all.

Spoiler alert!

They had 10 children.  Only 7 lived to adulthood, but wow.  Even 7 is an impressive number.

Mandy's Book of the Week (4/11)

I was pleasantly surprised by this book.

This is the story of two brothers, James and Alex.

James is the older brother, a senior in high school.  He is popular, an athlete, and can get pretty much any girl he wants.  He also HATES living where he does (Tuscaloosa, Alabama) and can't wait to get out of Alabama totally.

Alex is a junior, only one year younger than James.  Something is bothering Alex.  He's always been relatively popular and had, what he perceived to be, a good group of friends.  But he's feeling off, like he doesn't fit in.  So at a party one night, he drinks some Pine-Sol (you know, the stuff you clean the toilet with) and ends up at the hospital getting his stomach pumped.  And everyone but his parents essentially abandons him.  His friends don't show up to see how he is.  Even James feels awkward around Alex.  And he becomes an outcast at school.  So why did Alex swallow the Pine-Sol?  Even he can't pinpoint a reason.

This is the story of the fallout after Alex's "suicide attempt."  And it is the story of him rebuilding his life, finding himself, and discovering happiness again.

It isn't a girl book and it isn't a boy book.  It is a book that I think both can enjoy.  I sure did.

March's Teen Tuesday

I'm warning you now, there are a TON of pictures in this post.  I took a lot and I simply can't pick out 5 or 6 that are the best.

I even got some video.

This was, by far, the most fun Teen Tuesday we've had yet.  The theme was "Game Night," so we broke out the Wii, the XBox 360 w/Kinect, the ping pong table, and a lot of card sets.

Not only was it fun, but you really got a work out dodging ping pong balls.  We need to all work on our ping pong skills before we break that thing out again.

So many of the pictures are blurry b/c people were moving and shaking pretty much the whole time.

Our next Teen Tuesday will be April 26th.  Hope to see you then!

Mandy's Book of the Week (4/4)

Happy April!  I don't know about you, but I'm so ready for the warm weather of spring.  We have the Teen Patio ready for you to enjoy once the weather gets nice!

Anyway, on to the book of the week.  It is one for the ladies...

I like to read and I read a lot.  Sometimes I read really "heavy" stuff.  And sometimes I just need a light read, something fun and easy.

May I present you with my most recent light read: Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen.

Sarah Dessen is, in my humble opinion, the queen of teen chick lit.  I have enjoyed a lot of adult chick lit, but I had yet to delve into anything written by Ms. Dessen.  This was a great book for me to start with.

The story is simple: two girls, best friends, both fall in love.  But their experiences with love are totally different and it takes them on an amazing journey, both physically and emotionally.

I enjoyed this book enough that I can't wait to get my hands on some more of her stuff, and we sure have plenty of it here.  She actually has another book coming out next month, What Happened to Goodbye, that we already have on a list to order.

If you need something fun and easy to read this weekend, this is my recommendation!