Congrats to the 412 Brawl Team for an Impressive Showing

On Friday, August 22nd the 412 Brawl Team faced off against teens from the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. We kept up with them match for match, going down 0-1, evening the score 1-1, going down 1-2, then evening the score again 2-2. In an impressive come from behind victory, the 412 Brawl Team rallied behind Jelani and Aaron to go up 3-2.

While we eventually lost 5-3, I'd like to thank all the members of the 412 Brawl Team for putting up a respectable showing. We had a number of exciting moments, from Shing narrowly missing his own single-handed come from behind victory to the Webbs just utterly dominating the competition. We'll definitely be taking the 412 Brawl Team's first squad on the road with more tournament matches against other libraries, so keep your eyes open. Until then, scope out a replay of all the action below.



~Joseph
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh - Main

Banned (or Challenged) Books Discussion

What is a banned or challenged book, you ask? A challenged book is a book that someone has asked to be removed from a library or store because they object to its content. A banned book is a book that has actually been removed from a library or store. Teen books are particularly vunerable to challenges because, well, they are read by teens. Some adults believe that teens don't have the ability to choose what book is right for them. They may believe that books with objectionable content will corrupt your young minds.

According to the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, the most challenged book of 2007 was And Tango Makes Three. This is a children's book about two male penguins raising a baby together. Another title that is often on the annual Most Frequently Challenged Book List is The Perks of Being a Wallflower. This book is by Stephen Chbosky, a Pittsburgh native. Some reasons that are cited for the banning of this book include homosexual characters and offensive language.

Please choose a title to read from ALA's 2007 list of most challenged books and join us on Sunday, September 21st at 3 pm for a lively discussion about intellectual freedom.

Here are a few other web resources about Intellectual Freedom:

AS IF! Authors Support Intellectual Freedom
This blog features many teen fiction authors, such as Cecil Castellucci Brent Hartinger, David Levithan, E. Lockart, Jordan Sonneblick, and many, many more!


The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund started in 1986 and its purpose is to fight for the First Amendment rights of graphic novel artists.


National Coalition Against Censorship
This group is literally a coalition of 50 different non-profit organizations who have aligned to fight censorship. They are an Intellectual Freedom voltron of sorts.

Happy Banned Reading!

Holly

Who's Ready to Brawl? CLP Is Ready to Brawl!

CLP Teen is still gathering players from the Pittsburgh area to take on the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. The tournament takes place at the Main library Teen section before moving to the basement for the Teen End of Summer Party. If you can't make it, we will be broadcasting the tournament LIVE at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Teen Media Page (if you can make it, still be sure to tell all your friends).

Here are the rules:

• The tournament will consist of eight matches of two-person teams, one from each library.
• Whichever team notches the most wins at the end of the eight matches will be declared the winner. In the case of a tie, the winner will be determined by a match up of librarians.
• Matches will be stock five matches to take place on the Final Destination board.
• Items and friendly fire will both be OFF.

Meanwhile, check out the video for "Brawl Beat," featuring members Shing and Spig C of the 412 Brawl Team:


or download the MP3.

Until then, I remain...

Joseph
proud member of the 412 Brawl Team
Carnegie Libray of Pittsburgh, Main

Volunteer Services

By: Ashley


Hi, I’m Ashley and I had to complete 20 hours of community service at the Main Carnegie Library in the Teen section.
My experience volunteering was a lot more exciting than I thought the staff had me do some hard tasks but there were also many fun tasks that made it a lot easier to work there and complete my hours. Also working here made me realize how fun and cool libraries can really be, I was never really someone to sit down and read a book, but here at the Carnegie Library there are thousands of Teen novels, comics and magazines. I realized reading could be really fun and exciting when you’re at the right place. The Carnegie Library has a fun and inviting environment for kids of all ages. The library has 11 computers, several beanbags, a wide variety of board, and card games which are also educational.
Many kids and Teens come in and out of the Carnegie Library each day and they all seem to be satisfied with the libraries books, computers, and fun creative activities. For instance, every Wednesday the Carnegie Library holds an art club, where kids and teens come to enjoy arts and crafts and hanging out with friends. My experience here was really inspiring and I enjoyed completing my community service at the Carnegie Library. Not convinced a library can be fun? Maybe you should check it out for yourself.

Vampire Plagues (book 3) Mexico, 1850

The following is a review from Igor, who read this title and wrote the review for us in order to reduce his fines at the library. In some instances we allow teens to work off their fines at a rate of $5.00 per hour. Please contact the Teen staff at the Main library in Oakland if you are interested!


I haven't read the first book or the second book, but after reading this book I wanted to read all 3 books, the book is about three children who have this "mission" to stop this vampire lord (camazots) and he wants to rule the world with his vampire demons, as I had discovered he is a Mayan god and eventually was sealed for one thousand years, that was a thousand years ego, and now he has a small army of minions to do his bidding, he wants a amulet that will grant him power beyond all others so he must collect the 4 parts to it: the bat, the eye, the crown, and the moon, the bat is the form he takes, the crown is his rule over earth, the eye is to make him all seeing and the moon is to turn the world into full darkness, so after getting that understood the book is not bad but I got to admit I did not like the ending for there was not a battle but a trick, the vampire lord was tricked into assembling the amulet the wrong way and so he and his followers died by lightning...

good or bad? The book was good for it had me interested, but the plot was not good and the ending was a turnoff so I would say the book has a 4 star review from me

-Igor

Calling all Super Smash Brothers BRAWLERS!

What happens when you take the winners of the CLP Teen Super Smash Bros. Tournament and pit them against the winners of the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County?

Intensity. Chaos. Pain. Punishment. Brawl.

We’re kicking off the Main library’s Teen End of Summer Party in style, by battling for respect in two person teams. The party will take place on August 22nd, and the tournament will be starting at 3:00 PM--broadcast LIVE on the internet on the Teen Media Page.

This is where we need YOUR help!

While we've got a few great players, we're short of recruiting the 16 we need to make a tournament. We need AMAZING Super Smash Bros Brawl players to help us in the final showdown.

Do you know anybody who fits this description? Please have them get in touch with Joseph about repping CLP! Joseph can be reached by calling 412-622-3121.

Thanks!

~Joseph
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Main

Breaking Dawn Party

Sparkling vampires, frozen hands, a pizza ripped to shreds- no this was not a scene from a horror film, it was the Breaking Dawn Party. We listened to vampire music from the Bella Cullen Project, sank our teeth into some Twilight Team Trivia, and a few vamp-ish souls even dressed in costume. Whether you were Team Jacob or Team Edward, Pro-Vamp or Pro-Wolf, a good time was had by all!Thank you to all the teens who participated (pictured above) and to Holly for putting it all together!!

Feel free to comment on the new book and/or your feelings about the Twilight the movie.

-Cat

SAGDA Meeting Minutes - 8/02/08

Welcome to the new minutes of SAGDA, Pittsburgh's Teen Sexual & Gender Diversity Alliance. SAGDA's job is to give a laid-back conversational space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersex, genderqueer, queer, asexual, questioning, straight-allied, and all the other permutations within the spectrum!

We chose the date to the SAGDA "Living History" party. It will be October 11th. The time is still to be determined (what works for you)?

Why call it the "Living History" party? Because while we often read history, we never think of ourselves as the history of the future. Let's change the world! And make art! And read! And dance dance dance!

On the reading tip, one of the portions of our party will be to make a video of us talking about our favorite books and how we're going to take the lessons of those books into the future.

We then watched the music video for Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" (video | lyrics) for our monthly discussion, after reading some interesting biographical information about Katy Perry. SAGDA members felt that the song is way too formulaic, just a catchy pop tune with just enough controversy to make it big. Adding the words "I kissed a girl" to the regular pop standard isn't anything special or interesting. One SAGDA member thought it was like a "gay jingle," while another thought it did anything but put a positive spin on sexual diversity. In the song, kissing girls is "not what good girls do." Does that mean it's only for "bad girls"?

All in all, SAGDA members decided that the video makes no sense. It's just Katy Perry dancing around in nice shoes.

Of course, you can always borrow Katy Perry's One of the Boys from your local library and decide for yourself.

We're # 2!!!!!

That's right, your very own CLP Teen Department staff came in numero dos in the annual Staff Association Quiz Night 2008. We were beaten only by Reference, but those peeps look up trivia for a living so, really the Teen Dept. kick some major booty!! Joseph, Corey and Connie helped to ensure our success by creating Team CLP Teen t-shirts!

Team Actually!, yes, that is our REAL name. -See us here in all our glory!

If you are interested in trying your own hand, or brain, at Trivia, sign-up to join our Breaking Dawn Party Monday 8/4 (that's right, tommorow, baby! Or today depending on when you are reading this.)

-Cat