We've got MySpace!!

Teens has another way to let y'all know what's going on: MySpace! Since so many of you guys have your own MySpace accounts and check them so often (I know, I've seen you), we decided that we should have an account to! So go to www.myspace.com/clpteens and ask to be our friend...

John Green's Printz Award Experience

As you all know, John Green's truly marvelous novel Looking For Alaska was the winner of this year's Printz Award. One of the lovely librarians on a listserv I subscribe to (yalsa-bk) posted a link to John Green's blog, where he's posted a photo essay of what happened when he found out he won. I highly recommend checking it out -- very, very funny. Get there by clicking here.

I love the library because...

...of all the nice things you've said about it!!

In honor of Valentine's Day, every branch of CLP (and most departments at Main) have put up a display of a big red heart with "I love the library because..." written on it. We've got heart-shaped post-it notes for people to write their thoughts on. Here are some of the things on our heart in Teen:

• 'Cause it's like coming home!
• Because the librarians are AWESOME
• Because it's special!
• The great books and computers. I never want to go home.
• I am no longer a number, I am a person.
• Joseph, Karen, Ellen, Robin and Erin (thanks, guys)

So, the next time you come into the Main library or to any of the neighborhood locations, be sure to tell us why you love the library...let me tell you, we love to hear it!

An Opportunity to Change the World

January 31st from 5:00 to 7:00 pm representatives from the League of Young Voters will be here in Teens in Oakland talking about their organization and even training interested teens on how to register people to vote. They're working on finding teens to cruise around Oakland, talking to Pitt students, filling out voter registration cards, etc. You might even get paid! So, if you're interested, come by Teens next Tuesday evening. For more information, check out their website.

YALSA Announces Best Books for Young Adults

Clicking on the title of this post, or here, will take you to the complete list of the 2006 Best Books for Young Adults. Like the literary awards I posted yesterday, this list is selected by members of YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) at the American Library Association Midwinter Conference. The books selected for the list "meet the criteria of both good quality material and reading appeal for teens," and teens were given the opportunity to discuss with the committee what their favorite books of the year were. Here are the top ten:

BBYA 2006 Top Ten

Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager's Story, by Said Hyder Akbar and Susan Burton

Upstate, by Kalisha Buckhanon

Looking for Alaska, by John Green

Inexcusable, by Chris Lynch

Twilight: A Novel, by Stephenie Meyer

Runaways: Volume 1, by Brian K. Vaughan

Peeps, by Scott Westerfeld

Poison, by Chris Wooding

And the winners are...

The ALA announced the top books for children and adults this morning. The press release with the winners showed up on the website a little before 11am our time, and I was clicking the refresh button obsessively until it appeared. I'm not going to post all the winners, but here are the ones that relate to teens, including the Newbery winner and honor books (after all, the Newbery goes up to age 14). Books that are not shelved in the Teen collection are marked with an "*":

John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children's literature:
Criss Cross, by Lynne Rae Perkins

Newbery Honor Books:
*Whittington, by Alan Armstrong
Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Princess Academy, by Shannon Hale
*Show Way, by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Hudson Talbott

Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults:
Looking for Alaska, by John Green

Printz Honor Books:
Black Juice, by Margo Lanagan
I Am the Messenger, by Markus Zusak
John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth, a Photographic Biography, by Elizabeth Partridge
A Wreath for Emmett Till, by Marilyn Nelson, illustrated by Philippe Lardy

Coretta Scott King Book Awards recognizing an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults:
Author Award-
Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue, by Julius Lester

Coretta Scott King (Author) Honor Books:
*Maritcha: A Ninetenth-Century American Girl, by Tonya Bolden
Dark Sons, by Nikki Grimes
A Wreath for Emmett Till, by Marilyn Nelson, illustrated by Philippe Lardy

Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award
Jimi & Me, by Jaime Adoff

Pura Belpre Award honoring a Latino writer and illustrator whose children's books best portray, affirm and celebrate the Latino cultural experience:
Author Award-
The Tequila Worm, by Viola Canales

Schneider Family Book Award for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience:
Middle-School Award-
Tending to Grace, by Kimberly Newton Fusco

Teen Award-
Under the Wolf, Under the Dog, by Adam Rapp

Margaret A. Edwards Awards for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults:
Jacqueline Woodson

Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for most distinguished informational book for children:
Secrets of a Civil War Submarine: Solving the Mysteries of the H.L. Hunley, by Sally M. Walker

Sibert Honor Book:
Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Mildred L. Batchelder Award for an outstanding children's book translated from a foreign language and subsequently published in the United States:
An Innocent Soldier, by Josef Holub and translated by Michael Hofmann

Batchelder Honor Books:
*Nicholas, by Rene Goscinny and translated by Anthea Bell
When I Was a Soldier, by Valerie Zenatti and translated by Adriana Hunter

Alex Awards for the 10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences:
****A Note: Although these are not all currently held in the Teen collection at CLP - Main, they soon will be!****
*Midnight at the Dragon Cafe, by Judy Fong Bates
*Upstate, by Kalisha Buckhanon
Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
As Simple as Snow, by Gregory Gallaway
*Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
*Gil's All Fright Diner, by A. Lee Martinez
*The Necessary Beggar, by Susan Palwick
*My Jim, by Nancy Rawles
*Jesus Land: A Memoir, by Julia Scheeres
*The Glass Castle: A Memoir, by Jeanette Walls

Well. That took forever. And now I have to read them all...

If any of you read these books, please let us know what you think! Remember, you can place requests on anything that I've posted by clicking the link and choosing "request this item" at the top of the screen.

My fingers are tired. More later.

Meg Cabot ROCKS

As you might have gathered from the subject line of this post, I've been reading a fair amount of Meg Cabot. Well, not that much, really...but when an author you really enjoy reading has two books that come out practically simultaneously, it's hard not to get excited.

The new books are: Size 12 is Not Fat, about an overweight former pop singer who works in a dorm (excuse me, residence hall) where freshmen girls suddenly start turning up dead; and Avalon High, which is a contemporary version of the King Arthur legends, set in Maryland. They're both very fun, a little silly, a little frothy, and quick reads. Although Size 12 is Not Fat is written for adults, I liked it anyway.

Of course, after reading two Meg Cabot books in quick succession I had to check her website to see if anything else is coming out. The good news is, the answer's YES! There's a new Princess Diaries book coming out in March. It's called Party Princess, we've ordered it, and you should be able to request it via our catalog pretty soon.

And especially cool, Meg Cabot has a blog! And as you know if you've read any of her books, she's very funny. So read it here.

Top Book Awards Announcement - Jan. 23, 2006

Many of you've probably heard of the Newbery Award (an award given to the best children's book every year) or the Caldecott Award (which honors the best picture book). Unfortunately, a lot of people don't know that there are several awards for teen books, too.

On January 23, 2006 at the ALA Midwinter Conference (a big conference where librarians from all over the world get together to talk about libraries, services to offer, books and other media, etc.) the winners of all of the award will be announced. For the first time ever, the announcement will be webcast! To view the announcement, go to www.ala.org and follow the links -- the press conference will start at 7:30am (I know, it's early).

Here are the awards for Young Adult Literature that will be awarded:

The Michael L. Printz Award: For excellence in literature written for young adults

The Alex Awards: For the best adult books that appeal to a teen audience (this one's my favorite)

The Margaret A. Edwards Award: For lifetime achievement in writing for young adults.

Want to get in the mood for the announcement, and get an idea of the quality of books that win the awards? Go to YALSA's award website for lists of previous award winners.

And just because I'm curious: anyone reading this have thoughts on what books or authors might win awards this year?

I think one of the coolest things about these book awards is the secrecy that surrounds them. No one except for the committee members even knows what books are nominated, except for the book that wins and any honor books that are selected. Seriously! Even after the award is announced, the people that choose the award can't tell anyone what other books they were thinking about. It makes me think of old episodes of Get Smart, when Smart and his boss would go under the glass dome (I can't remember what it's called) and no one else could hear what they were saying. Of course, if I'm remembering correctly they couldn't hear what each other were saying, either, which is not the case for the members of award selection committees.

KB

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

I'm not sure how to classify Elsewhere, the first novel screenwriter Gabrielle Zevin has published -- is it fantasy? Is it realistic fiction? I think it might be one of those things that you have to read and judge for yourself...all I know is that I really liked it.

Elsewhere is a book about death, and life, and living after you die. It's about a fifteen year old girl who's hit by a taxi cab while riding her bike, and her coming to terms with her death. It's about a place called Elsewhere, where people go after they die and age backwards until infancy when they're sent down the river to be reborn again on Earth. It's about love, and hope, and learning what your passion is.

It's good. Read it.

And if you're interested in novels about life after death, you might also like The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. One warning, though: Elsewhere, although slightly sad, is ultimately hopeful and not depressing. The Lovely Bones, on the other hand, is very sad and rather disturbing. In fact, it's an adult title, but one lots of teens I know really liked.

Exciting News!

The Teen area at Main will likely be featured in the August 2006 edition of Voice of Youth Advocates, a publication consisting of articles about Young Adult Library Services and reviews of Teen books. I'm working on putting together the application materials as we speak, and I need your help! One of the things we need to include are comments from actual teens (that's you!) about the space. So, if you've got something to say, post a comment or email us at teens@carnegielibrary.org!

Getting back to work...

Well, I hope you all enjoyed your winter breaks. The lack of snow was a bit discouraging...breaks from school should be punctuated with sledding and snowball fights, I think, instead of dreary rain...but at least you got to stay home. Or go the library, which a lot of you did on your vacation. Yay! We're so glad you think of us a nifty destination!

Now that you're back to school, we hope you keep coming in to do homework, or just to hang out and play games. A couple things to remember:

EVERY MONDAY AFTERNOON we show a movie, complete with popcorn and soda.

EVERY WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON we create a Safe and Respectful Place, with games and people to talk to, where you can be who you are without fear. Of course, we hope that the library is always a safe and respectful place...

SUNDAY, JANUARY 8th at 2:00 is the next Teen Advisory Council meeting. If you have ideas you'd like to share, or just want to meet new people who love the library as much as you do, come check it out!

COMING SOON!!!

College Admissions Workshop: Financial Aid 101, at library locations across the city.

Are you are a student dreaming of life after high school? A parent concerned about paying for your child's college education? Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's Teen Services has you covered. We've gathered the best and the brightest to answer your tough college admissions questions and walk you through the financial aid process.

This program will be held at Main on Sunday, January 26th, 2:00-4:00 pm. Click here to go to the webpage with other dates and locations.