Revenge is a Book Best Served Cold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please enjoy this booklist featuring characters intent on getting even.

Anderson, Jodi Lynn
Loser/Queen
High school nonentity Cammy Hall lives with her grandparents and has one friend–Gerdi, the Danish foreign exchange student–but when someone starts sending her mysterious text messages with instructions that make her more noticeable, she must decide what kind of  life she wants to lead.

Brooks, Kevin
iBoy
When Tom gets smashed in the head with an iPhone from 22 stories above, he starts using his brain in new ways to exact revenge on his attackers. See previous blog post

Collins, Yvonne.
Love, Inc.
When three fifteen-year-old Austin, Texas, girls who met in group therapy discover that they are all dating the same boy, they first get revenge and then start a wildly successful relationship consulting business. KBR blogged about this

Cook, Eileen
Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood
In eighth grade, Lauren publicly betrayed her best friend Helen and humiliated her so badly that Helen moved away, but as Lauren starts her senior year of high school, Helen returns with a new appearance and a plot to get revenge.

Downham, Jenny
You Against Me
When eighteen-year-old Mikey’s younger sister claims to have been raped and he seeks to avenge the crime, he meets Ellie, the sister of the accused, and befriends her, complicating the situation considerably for all of them.

Harmon, Michael
The Chamber of Five
When seventeen-year-old Jason is invited to join the secretive Chamber of Five, an elite group of students who run Lambert School for the Gifted, he sees how corrupt the institution is and decides to work from the inside to take it down when things go too far.

Higgins, F.E.
The Eyeball Collector
When a blackmail artist reveals a secret from the past, wealthy Hector Fitzbaudly ends up losing his social standing and fortune, prompting him to seek revenge on the man responsible for the act, the sinister Eyeball Collector.

O’Connell, Mary
The Sharp Time
In the week following her mother’s death in a freak accident, eighteen-year-old Sandanista Jones finds small measures of happiness even as she fantasizes about an act of revenge against an abusive teacher at her high school.

Reid, Kimberly
My Own Worst Frenemy
Chanti Evans moves from the streets of Detroit to the exclusive Langdon prepatory school, where her upbringing immediately makes her a suspect in the string of thefts occurring on campus, and she must find the culprit and clear her name.

Happy Reading!

Holly, CLP-Main

Survey Results: A Peek into the Mind of Pittsburgh Library Teens

We recently surveyed 100 teens at the Main Library in Oakland.   They had fun and honest things to say about the library and how we could make it better for all teens.  Here are some results.  Please leave us some comments regarding what YOU think of the library!

We asked what the library should buy if we had unlimited funding.  Lots of people suggested a slide and ball pit, so that gets an honorable mention.  But, the top answers were:

• more books (!)
• more space for teens
• more bean bags (at Main we have foofs, rather than lovesacs)
• free food

We asked what teens enjoyed most about the library.  The majority of teen enjoyed the following:

• computers
• video game programs
• library books
• bean bags/foofs

We asked: what kind of programs do you want from us? The top answers were:

• art programs
• workshops (especially for poetry and writing)
• music related programs, such as discussion groups and instrument lessons
• technology – such as computer software and robotics

Regarding eReaders and Pittsburgh teens…

21% owned or had access to an eReader.

9% owned or had access to an eReader and were aware that the library offers free access to eResources such as eAudio and eBooks.

30% of the total respondents were aware that the library offers free access to eResources.

Other random statistics

75% of teens said they used the library for its books!  Who says teens don’t read?

The average age of respondents was 15.16 years old.

One teen suggested a taco night at the library.  Whoever you are, I AGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY!

73% of teens said they visit the library a few times a month or more.

Overall, we learned that teens like a comfy space of their own in the library, with plenty of books and options for programming.  We’ll do our best to keep it coming!!

Holly

CLP-Main

If You Like That Tumblr, Try This Library Book…

So, I’ve been wasting loads of time on Tumblr lately.  To turn my waste of time into something that may be of use to you, humble CLPTeensburgh reader, I now offer a list of book recommendations based entirely on which Tumblr blogs you enjoy.

Feel free to tell me in the comments whether I’m hitting the nail on the head or if I am off in outer space somewhere.  Or you can share your own recommendations.

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Are you a big fan of Dubstep?  It originated in South London…  So did this fast-paced thriller by Kevin Brooks.  If you like DUBSTEP FRIDAY on Tumblr, then try:

Sixteen-year-old Tom Harvey was an ordinary Londoner until an attack caused fragments of an iPhone to be embedded in his brain, giving him incredible knowledge and power. But using that power against the gang that attacked him could have deadly consequences.

A Tumblr called Poem Endings seems to belive that the end is  the best part of the poem.  If you like poem endings, try this poetry book featuring talented young poets.  Bonus: the poet/editor of this book, Naomi Shihab Nye, will be visiting the Pittsburgh area on December 9th.  You can see her for free!

Young poets share their words, exploring subjects like love, family, and war.

Bread people = silly fun.  If you are a fan of silly fun like Bread People, try Glamorpuss: the Enchanting World of Kitty Wigs.

Cats.  In Wigs.  That is all.

Tumblr is a great place to go if you are a Doctor Who fan.  If you like the official Doctor Who Tumblr or any of the other many Doctor Who fan pages, then try our Doctor Who series at the library! Bonus: There is an upcoming Doctor Who Party in Teen!

It’s a whole series devoted to your favorite BBC show about a time-traveling alien-humanoid.

Are you  a fan of Table for 1, a Tumblr that features people sitting alone?    If you like Table for 1 because it’s sad and weird, yet a little endearing and sweet, then you need to try I Need You More Than I Love You and I Love You To Bits.

Morris and Betty, two teens living in Stockholm, Sweden, meet and fall in love. The darkness within each of them at times makes it hard to maintain their love affair, especially after Betty compares Morris’s behavior to that of his bipolar father.

And finally, if you are a fan of the library’s blog, Facebook, or Twitter, then check us out on Tumblr!!!

Happy Tumbling!
Holly, CLP-Main

Dorito Inventor Dies – Dorito Sandwich Eaten to Honor the Deceased.

Greetings, Pittsburgh Teens!  I’m blogging live from the Pennsylvania Library Association’s conference in sunny State College, PA!  While away from home, I tend to eat too much “road food,” such as cajun fries with ranch dressing, milk shakes, and onion rings.  So in the spirt of eating junky road food, I present this collection of short tales of  not-so-good-for-you-but-can-be-hard-to-resist foods, and junk food for thought.

The inventor of Doritos, Arch West, recently passed away, and Doritos were sprinkled on his grave.  One blogger also ate a Dorito sandwich to pay homage.

If you could sprinkle one food item on your grave, what would it be?

(I think I would go with black olives.)

Over at Laughing Squid, someone recently created a pizza-flavored pizza. That’s right, they made a pizza out of pizza flavored foods.  It looked like this –

(Special thanks to Denise for the heads-up on the pizza-flavored pizza!)

If you were to make a food-flavored food, what would it be?  Buffalo wing-flavored buffalo wings?  Cheese-flavored cheese? Ranch-flavored ranch dressing?

And at Thatsnerdalicious, they recently made a dessert out of potato chips dipped in chocolate.  Hey, if it works for pretzels, why not chips?

What salty snack do you think needs some chocolate?  Doritos?

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So, if you enjoy looking at pictures of strange and interesting food, you have some options at the library.  (Click on the covers to link to the catalog records.)

Happy junk fooding!

Holly, CLP-Main

London’s Burning: How It All Started

You may have heard that London and other parts of the U.K. are ablaze with civil unrest.  You may not have heard how it all started.

On Saturday in London, police shot and killed a  man in Tottenham, a poor area of London often referred to as a hotspot for organized crime.  The man’s name was  Mark Duggan.   As a result, there has been rioting, looting and arson.   Three days of civil unrest in London has now spread to other cities around that country.

Mark Duggan was a 29-year old engaged father of 3.  Mark also happened to be black, and news media in the US has left out the racial motivation behind the riots.  His relatives claim he was not the kind of man to get into a conflict with police, but police tell a different story.  They say he was involved with gangs and under surveillance.   After he was killed, a group from his neighborhood including family members and local civic leaders marched to the local police station.

According to Al-Jazeera:

“They said that the Independent Police Complaints Commission was not communicating with them and had not told Duggan’s relatives of his death, leaving them to discover the news when they saw his photograph on television.”

The rage over the killing of Mark Duggan, which many believe was sparked by racism on behalf of the police, is what spurred the current riots, which have spiraled out of control and been condemned by Duggan’s family and friends.

If you’d like to learn more, you can check out:

• Twitter feeds, with hash tags such as  #londonriots, #London, or #riotcleanup
• The BBC
• The Guardian

“The lines are straight and swift between the stars.”

It’s summer, so it’s the perfect time to stay up all night and stare at the sky.  Even in the city, you can still see plenty of constellations.  If you find your way outside of the city and away from all the lights, and you can see even more stars.

You can begin your star journey by taking a FREE tour of the Allegheny Observatory (pictured below) in Riverview Park on the North Side.  Tours are offered on Thursday nights from 8-10 pm, and include use of a telescope to get a closer look at the night sky.

Now, if you are ready to venture out on your own to do some star-gazing, here is collection of websites to get you going.

• The University of Wisconsin-Madison has a page that will list the constellations by month.
• The University of Illinois offers free constellation maps.
• Every year in August, you can see the Perseid meteor showers, an amazing show of shooting stars.
• NASA posts the Astronomy Picture of the Day  featuring beautiful pictures of our universe, with background information.

There are apps as well (if you are in possession of smart phone).

• Google has a popular Sky Map app.  It’s free and will work on multiple types of phones.
• Apple offers an array of star charting apps.  For example, iStellar is an easy-to-use constellation map.

The library, of course, is a also a great resource for astronomy information. Check out The Manga Guide to the Universe  and other titles listed on our STEM astronomy book list.

 

When you are not looking up in the dark, you can read about a bizillion poems about the stars, starting with the one quoted in the title of this post, Stars at Tallapoosa by Wallace Stevens.

Happy gazing!

Holly, CLP-Main

Read a Banned Book Lately?

Are you trying to decide what to read this summer?  Try picking up a challenged or banned book!   Every year, the American Library Association compiles a list of the most commonly challenged books, based on reports from libraries around the country.   “Challenged” means that a parent or other adult has asked that the book be removed from a library shelf.   The most recent list available offers some new titles, as well as books that have been challenged for years.  As usual, the majority of the books are teen titles.

Most Frequently Challenged Books, 2010.

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
3. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
4. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
6. Lush, by Natasha Friend
7. What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
8. Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
9. Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie
10. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

“If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise [men] reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all—except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty.”

John F. Kennedy

Holly, CLP-Main

What Is Your Gut’s Personality?

“You’re probably the member of a club you didn’t even know existed. According to research published this week, we all have one of three ecosystems of bugs in our guts. ”  Andy Coghlan.

The New Scientist recently published a study about bacteria in human digestive tracts.  Scientists already knew that what you think of as “you” is only about 1/10 of the real you.  90% of your cells aren’t even human!  Our bodies are made of a lot of 3rd party bacteria.  And now we know that our guts will fall into one of three bateria camps.  Depending on which of the three families your bacteria belong to, you will get your energy from different foods, such as carbs or protein.   For more weird science news about your body, check out some of our fun books.  And if you need more suggestions, you know where to find us!

Holly

CLP-Main

This Book Wrecked Me. But I Loved It.

Call me a weirdo if you want, but  I can’t get enough of books in which everyone is miserable and angsty.    So when I picked up this book:

I thought I could handle it. The cover should have been my first hint.  The creepy, visceral human heart is a warning.  It is screaming: “the raw pain of this book will make it too bleak to read!  Run away!”  After 50 pages of outright misery, I took to Good Reads to check out the reviews.   I am just over-sensitive lately, or are others finding this book difficult?  I was oddly relieved to learn that many readers had trouble finishing this book.   Now, it was a challenge.  I had to finish it!

Because in addition to often being downright miserable, The Freak Observer is also bizarre, hilarious and quite endearing.*   Those are the traits of the book that allowed me to stick with it to the end.

The Freak Observer is named after a concept in theoretical physics.   Freak observers are quite literally brains floating in the universe:  “it just pops into existence because it is hard for nature to make a whole universe.  It is easier to create bits and pieces – a boot, a planet, a naked brain floating around in nothingness.  It’s just there, and it is conscious, so it observes and it remembers and it tries so hard to understand” (pg 46).

Clearly, Loa, the main character, sees herself as a freak observer, attempting to separate from the chaotic universe, observing and trying to understand, but remaining  alone.   She loves physics and escapes into it often.  Loa  is a tough, bright, and sarcastically funny high school student whose life has become a mess of death, grief, shock,  and post-traumatic stress disorder.

On the very first page we learn that a friend of Loa has just died in a most horrific way, and Loa witnessed the accident.   Not only did Loa see Ester die, she also saw what a person’s body looks like after being mangled by a log barreling off of a truck at 70 miles per hour.   Loa has no idea why her friend went racing toward the highway.  Did she see the truck coming?    Did she mean to do it?

Ester’s death came on the heels of multiple tragedies.  Loa and her family were already grieving another loss.  How can she make sense of the chaos and move forward?

Don’t give up on this book.  The main character is so likable that you’ll want to root for her the whole way through.  And you’ll find glimmers of hope if you stick it out.

*As Karen mentioned previously, The Freak Observer  won the Morris Award, which was created to honor a first-time YA author.

Holly

CLP-Main

Spring (Fashion) is here!

Spring!  Bird are singing, flowers are blooming, and your wardrobe is welcoming the change from bulky sweaters to light t shirts.

To find out what’s new for this season, you can always check with the mothership, Vogue to see what’s going on.  You can also  find a local fashion voice on the Post-Gazette website.  They claim that orange will be big, as well as shiny, jewel tones.

 

Looking for something a little more avant-garde?  There are a ton of good, global street fashion blogs. Check out The Locals, which features street styles in Copenhagen, photographed by an Icelandic photag.  Street Peeper collects photos of amazing fashion from all over the world, from New York to Jakarta.   Style Scout is London-based, and offers up more unique (less Prada and Versace, more thrift store) fashion plates from London sidewalks.

You can always go your own way.  ReadyMade is a great place to start looking for ideas outside of the fashion box.

Or, you can try out looks online before sporting them on the street.

At Polyvore, you can sign up for a free account, and sift through thousands and thousands of clothes, jewelry, bags, and shoes.   You get a blank template to create outfits and collections.  I pieced together this little simple outfit in about 5 minutes. Of course, I’m not actually going to buy these things.  But it was fun nonetheless.

And the library has tons of fashion books to inspire you, starting with the New York Look Book.  Click on the covers below to check our catalog for these titles.

 

 

 

Here’s to welcoming spring with a fresh, new look!

Holly

CLP-Teen