Mandy's Book of the Week (10/31)

Happy Halloween!  I hope everyone is ready to go out and have some nice Halloween fun tonight.  And I hope you have an awesome costume.

I have been terribly remiss in posting my books of the week.  October has been CRAZY around here and, quite frankly, I just had trouble finding the time.  But I have all kinds of things to post about in the upcoming weeks, so hopefully I'll be able to slide in books as well.

In honor of Halloween, my book of the week this week is a zombie book.

Well, when I say zombie I mean that in the loose sense of the word.  In the sense that the people eat other people.

Anyway, this book takes place in Britain.  A virus has unleashed itself and everyone over the age of about 16 is affected.  When you first get the virus, you get sick. A lot of people simply die, but some get worse and worse: fever, aches, and eventually pus pockets that burst and seep.  Your brain gets infected and you lose the ability to stay focused or speak coherently.  And then you get hungry, but not for food, for flesh.

This book follows a group of young survivors who have holed up in a grocery store called Waitrose.  It has been months since the virus broke out and now they've pretty much run out of food and supplies; they are going to have to relocate.  Of course, this is dangerous with the packs of infected adults roaming about.

At this point, a young man who says that he's from a group that is hiding out in Buckingham Palace comes onto the scene.  He says they have gardens and weapons and that it is safe.  Is it really?  Can he be believed?  And can the Waitrose kids survive the trip?

This book was a great read and it kept my heart pumping, for sure.  We got the prequel, The Dead, in a few months back and the final book in the series will be out soon.

Our New Library Council, Banned Books Week, Olympians Week, and Second Saturday

Be warned!  This is a post FULL of information, pictures, and other good stuff!  I've practically been too busy to blog, so I'm cramming it all here so I can call myself caught up.

First off, last month we took 6 new members onto our Teen Library Council: Megan Rodriguez, Bailey Brown, Jonah White, April Daugherty, LaDonna McNutt, and Nicole Grover.  It has been great working with them so far and I hope they have even more to contribute as the months pass.  I took one of these pictures on the day that they first joined us for a meeting and the second was taken at David's Trail where we participated in the C3 Challenge a few weeks ago.

Four of our six new members: April Daugherty, Jonah White, Bailey Brown, and Megan Rodriguez.

Next up, we have our celebration of Banned Books Week, which is our September Teen Tuesday.  Participants read a passage from a banned or challenged book on stage and each time they did they were entered into a drawing for a "I read banned books" bag.  They also had a little quiz based on the books I had rotating on a screen above the stage and, if they got all of the answers right, they got their name put into a drawing for a $20 Pizza Hut gift card.

Olympians Week was super busy and a total blast.  For four days, we had events leading up to the release of Rick Riordan's new book, The Son of Neptune.  We had a drawing and gave away three signed copies of the book (and we are selling 10 more signed copies with proceeds to go to the Humane Society), we ate Greek food, we did trivia, and watched the Percy Jackson movie.  I was so crazily busy that I didn't even think to pick up the camera until the last day.  I wish I'd have gotten pictures of the Library Council dressed up at our Oct. 1 event.

These pics are all from our Tuesday event, which was our release party.  I had them randomly number off and divide into "cabins."  Then they had to name their cabin and create a flag.  After that, we had some trivia.



This month, we started a new program that, I hope, will end up being permanent.  Second Saturday will be held (guess when?) the second Saturday of each month from 1-3pm and, each month, we'll have a different activity or workshop.  This month, we did origami.  The turn out wasn't great, but that's ok for a first meeting.  Our Children's Librarian snapped a photo of the participants doing their paper folding and me reading a book.

Up next, we have our Teen Read Week Read-a-Thon, which everyone is welcome to come to (Oct. 21, 6pm-1am), a Harry Potter themed Teen Tuesday (Oct. 25, 5-7pm), and a scary movie marathon (Oct. 28, 6pm-1am). 

We're having a blast; come join us!

Mandy's Book of the Week (10/3)

The name of the game is busy.  Whew!  Happy Olympians Week!  We are in the middle of having a GREAT time gearing up for the release of Rick Riordan's new book, The Son of Neptune.  I hope you've gotten the chance to join us for an event or two!

In honor of his new book, it only makes since that its predecessor is my book of the week this week.

It will help if you read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series first.  I didn't and I was confused.  The book was still great and I still was able to follow it, but there were certainly some references that went over my head.

The book opens amid confusion.  Jason has woken up and he has no clue where he is or who these people are.  He is lost.  Eventually, some monsters come along and who shows up to rescue his little group but Annabeth and another camper from Camp Half-Blood.  Turns out that Jason is a half-blood, but there is a little bit of a twist involved.  It is hard to reveal too much but rest assured, there is TONS of action and lots of mythology not yet seen from the previous books.

Now that book two in this series is out, book one may be a bit harder to come by.  But we've got all of the Percy Jackson books on the shelves right now, so if you need to start the series, we've got you covered!