Mortal Instruments

Have you ever felt like you keep seeing things that NOBODY else is noticing?

Clary Fray feels that way too. Except, when she witnesses a murder at Pandemonium Night Club in NYC – nobody notices AND the victim vanishes into thin air. How do you call the police when there is no victim or evidence?

After her mother’s disappearance and witnessing the murder, Clary is thrown into an underworld filled with demons and demon hunters. Including one Shadowhunter, Jace, who “looks like an angel and acts like a jerk.”

City of Bones (the book) is so good that it’s a series AND movie. Coming August 23rd! Check out the trailer and order the books from the library!

Coming in March 2014: The sixth and final book of the Mortal Instruments series. City of Heavenly Fire!

Did you know there was a prequel too? The Infernal Devices takes place in the same universe as Mortal Instruments, just in the Victorian era! Read Clockwork Angel to get started!

What do you think about the upcoming movie? Excited? Worried it won’t live up to the books?

Michael @ CLP-Hazelwood

Summer time is travelling time!

Summer time is almost here!  It has been a long, long, long winter, but we finally have some nice weather and (hopefully) some time off to enjoy it!  Whether it is summer vacation for teens or a few days off for librarians, I think everyone is looking forward to this summer.

One of the best things about summer is the chance to get away for a few days or even longer if you are lucky.  I always like to travel to Moraine State Park and enjoy the beach and a picnic.  It’s one of my favorite places to go.  Another place I love to visit is Cook Forest, where you can go hiking, rent a cabin, and go canoeing or fishing.

If you can’t get away or can’t get away anyplace far, you can always escape somewhere through a good book.  Some of my favorite books explore travelling and visiting new places.  These are a great way to travel to new places without leaving your house or spending a cent!

 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson is one of my favorite books despite the super girly looking cover!  It is about a 17 year old girl named Ginny whose free spirited artist aunt Peg passes away and leaves her an unusual gift of a plane ticket to London and 13 blue envelopes with different clues in them.  Each envelope can only be opened when Ginny reaches a new destination in Europe.  Ginny gets to visit lots of cool places all over Europe and she meets lots of interesting people.  This is a great book for anyone who has ever wanted to visit some of the fascinating locations of Europe!

 The Name of the Star is another book by Maureen Johnson (who you might be able to tell is one of my favorite writers).  This one is also about travel, but it is a lot different than 13 Little Blue Envelopes.  In this book, Rory Devereaux moves to London with her parents and has to attend an English boarding school that is totally different than her regular American high school.  The first part of the book is all about the difficulties Rory has while trying to fit in and adapting to living in England.  She has to learn how to play field hockey, eat new foods, and deal with the cold and damp weather.  But then just as she’s getting used to everything, she becomes the target of a serial killer who is re-enacting the Jack the Ripper murders!  This is both an exciting mystery and a great travel tale about the city of London.

 Not primarily a travel story at all, but John Green‘s The Fault in our Stars does involve travel!  It is the story of Hazel Lancaster, a 16 year old who meets Augustus Waters at a therapy session for cancer survivors.  The two get close and fall in love as they deal with the strong emotional issues they are both dealing with.  But Augustus does arrange for Hazel to travel to Amsterdam to meet her favorite author.  It’s a great book that happens to have a bit of travel in it.

New Slang

Slang, especially as an indicator of the evolution of language, is fascinating.  Slang is defined as “the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker’s language or dialect but are considered acceptable in certain social settings. Slang expressions may act as euphemisms and may be used as a means of identifying with one’s peers.”  Needless to say, slang changes as the times change.  Dude, the slang used when I was growing up is way different from the slang used now.  Slang also varies epically by region.

I recently came across two different articles about current American slang.  One described how the punctuation slash (/) has not only entered our vocabulary to mean two or more of the same thing, but is now being written out as “slash” to mean the same thing as “/”.  Example:  “Does anyone care if my cousin comes and visits slash stays with us Friday night?”   Not only has this piece of punctuation turned into a spoken word, but its written form is now being used.  More confusingly, the word is now being used to add something as a follow up phrase.  Example:  “I really love that hot dog place on Liberty Street. Slash can we go there tomorrow?”

The second new slang phenomenon is how young people in Baltimore are using the word “yo” to replace “he” or “she” in instances where the gender of the person is unknown.  A study ‘found the kids used “yo” instead of “he” or “she” when they didn’t know the gender of the character. But they also used “yo” as a substitute even when they did know the gender.’  For example: “Yo threw a thumbtack at me” (instead of he/she threw a thumbtack at me).

It takes a wickedly talented author to convincingly incorporate slang into yo books without sounding like a derp (like I do in this post).  These sick books explore slang in all its fantastic glory.  Grab a book, sit back, and just moss.  YOLO, right?

National Autism Awareness Month

Did any of your neighbors swap their white outdoor light bulb for a blue bulb on April 2?  When you drove past the CONSOL Energy Center did you notice its screens and LED pucks were blue instead of black and gold?  Your neighbors, the Penguins, and others around the took part in Light It Up Blue to commemorate World Autism Day (April 2) and kick off National Autism Awareness Month!

Autism is a disorder that is usually diagnosed in early childhood. The main signs and symptoms of autism involve communication, social interactions and repetitive behaviors.

Children with autism might have problems talking with you, or they might not look you in the eye when you talk to them. They may spend a lot of time putting things in order before they can pay attention, or they may say the same sentence again and again to calm themselves down. They often seem to be in their “own world.”

Because people with autism can have very different features or symptoms, health care providers think of autism as a “spectrum” disorder. Asperger syndrome is a milder version of the disorder.

-source: MedlinePlus

Organizations like Autism Speaks and the Autism Society work to raise awareness about autism and issues within the autism community not only in April but also year-round.  Did you know the Autism Society teamed up with AMC Theatres to bring families affected by autism and other disabilities an opportunity to enjoy their favorite films in a safe and accepting environment every month at “Sensory Friendly Films?”  How cool is that?

As you travel around the city be on the lookout for other buildings participating in Light It Up Blue, like the Andy Warhol Museum, Carnegie Science Center and PNC Park.

Want to learn more?  Don’t forget to check Overdrive for ebooks, audiobooks, and videos about autism.

               

Teen Review-Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba

Hi my name is Abryana, I am 13 years old and I go to the west end library in Pittsburgh. I love anime and manga, and I want to share it to you:)

 

 

 

 

 

Death Note-Tsugumi Ohba

 

I love this anime series!!

It is about a straight A high school student named Light Yagami who finds a notebook outside of his class room. Being curious, he picks it up and finds what it was about. It said Death Note in the front. He skimmed though the beginning of the notebook, and he thought that it was a sick prank. But even though he thought that, he brought to his house to read more about it. It said that “The person’s name that is written in this book shall die.”

Half disbelieving, he watched the news and found out a criminal was holding hostages in a nursery home. He wonder what would happen if he wrote his name in the notebook. So then a few minutes later thinking hard about it, he decided to put his name in the note book. In exactly 40 seconds later the criminal dropped dead!

Light was stunned but still he thought it was by luck. Later on in the day he did the same thing with another criminal and the same results happened! Now he believes that the Death Note is real, and he is using it to purify the world. He said that he wanted to be the “god of the new world.”

Suddenly, Light started to write the names of criminals who are the most notorious in the world. He started to kill 5 criminals a day then later on he started to kill 25 a day!! A  Shinigami (a god of death) showed up and warned Light what will happen to him when he dies. The public started to notice and the police too.

The police are doing everything in their power to stop it, but now they are desperate and begged a legendary detective nicknamed L. Now the battle between Light Yagami and L begins.

Borne Back Ceaselessly: Happy Anniversary to The Great Gatsby

On this day in 1925, the seminal or “Great” American novel, The Great Gatsby was published by Charles Scribner’s Sons.  Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald over the course of three years, the novel is considered to be an essential fixture of the canon of modern American Literature and to have captured the essence of an era: the roaring 1920s.

Many high school students are required to read The Great Gatsby (I know I was) and several adaptations of the novel have been produced over the years for television and film.

You may know that on May 10, just one month after the 88th anniversary of the novel’s publication, Warner Bros. is releasing into theaters a new adaptation, directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Toby Maguire, and Carey Mulligan.

Personally, I’m not sure how Fitzgerald’s thoughtful and imagery-rich novel will translate to a loud and frenetic Baz Luhrmann film–think the first twenty minutes of Moulin Rouge–but I’m willing to pay the price of a ticket to find out.

Especially with how pretty the whole thing looks and with the killer soundtrack that’s apparently been lined up.

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It looks pretty cool, right?

While you’re waiting for the release date, take a look at some other books about the roaring twenties that the library has to offer:

  

Happy Reading!

Morgan,  Main- Teen

Spotlighting “In Darkness”

Earthquake, I think, cos it’s the only thing that could smash everything up like this. When we were little, my sister and me, we would make cities out of the mud in the gutters of Site Soley, and then we would say we were dinosaurs or earthquakes and stomp those cities to nothing.

The devastation I pictured in my head never got close to this, though. From above, Haiti looks like it’s been wiped off the earth by an angry god.

-In Darkness, Nick Lake

Every winter, committees of book-obsessed library folk convene in secret to discuss the hundreds of titles published in the previous year and bestow honors on the best of the bunch. The Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature (which we’ve blogged about here and there) is presented by one such committee each year to honor the best book written for teens.

The winner of the 2013 Printz Award?  In Darkness by Nick Lake—a dark tale of slavery &  freedom, voudou & reincarnation, and life & death in Haiti.

The story begins with a 15 year-old boy named Shorty who lives in Site Soley, one of the most dangerous, poverty-stricken slums in the world. When his twin sister is captured by a rival gang, Shorty finds himself drawn into the fold of the chimères—violent gangsters from his neighborhood who run their own system of law and order amid the chaos of life in the slum. Soon his dangerous activities within the gang land him in the hospital with a gunshot wound in the arm. That’s when the 2010 earthquake hits, devastating much of Haiti and leaving Shorty trapped deep beneath the rubble of the collapsed hospital—in total darkness.

Toussaint l’Ouverture, leader of the 1791 Slave Rebellion in Haiti.

As he struggles to survive among the rats and bodies around him, Shorty clutches a pwen—a stone given to him by one of the gang’s leaders, which is said to be imbued with a god’s spirit, keeping its owner safe from death. In the darkness, Shorty contemplates the voudou beliefs of his people, which hold that the boundaries between the living and the dead are not as fixed as they may appear. As hunger and thirst overwhelm him, Shorty begins having strange flashbacks into another man’s life as his story is interwoven with the tale of Toussaint l’Ouverture, a Haitian slave who led the 1791 rebellion that transformed Haiti into a free society.

How is it possible for Shorty to experience the memories of a man who has been dead for hundreds of years? Is the ghost of Toussaint l’Ouverture descending on Shorty to lead him into the land of the dead under the sea? Are their two souls linked by some strange twist of voudou magic? Or is Shorty just slowly wasting away into madness as he waits to die in the darkness?

Grab a copy of the book to see what happens. Does In Darkness measure up to your favorites from 2012?

Empathy Through Books: Reading Fiction in the Wake of Steubenville

It’s hard to read the continuing coverage of the Steubenville sexual assaults without seeing a gross empathy problem plaguing our culture. How else could these sorts of things happen? How could two teens feel that what they did was okay? How could their peers sit idly by as it happened or casually retweet the videos in its wake? Why would adults choose to enable such behavior through attempts to cover-up the attack?

It’s left me thinking hard about my role as a librarian–what I can do ensure that the young people who I am committed to serve can live in a world that allows them to build friendships and relationships with each other and their community at large based on love, trust, and mutual respect.

In turn, I’ve become even more concerned about the many dehumanizing words and messages that powerful people send through the media. These people hope to take away your ability to form the person you want to be, and the beliefs you choose to grow up with. They wish to take away your empathy–your ability to imagine the thoughts, feelings, and struggles of people in the world–and to work toward the sort of world you may wish along with it. And in doing so, they give you an easy out to dismiss these things, to do nothing as people benefit from the suffering of others–or perhaps give you enough of a benefit that you can rationalize such struggles away.

Exploring my role within our culture, I found a number of studies that combine my love of recommending literature with my hope for your future and that of Pittsburgh’s teenagers. These studies give credence to the idea that reading novels and other fictional stories can help us make ourselves more empathetic to the world around us.

This one showed that reading a fiction book increased a reader’s empathetic skills over two weeks. This one showed that readers who showed more engagement in their reading were more likely to help someone pick up some dropped pens. Finally, this one noticed decreased readers’ egos after having them read passages from Twilight and Harry Potter.

Perhaps you’re struggling to understand what happened. Perhaps you suffer no such crisis. No matter who you are, I recommend the following books. Perhaps soon we can share a world full of literature, love, and respect!

~Joseph
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Main

Teen Bestsellers and a Nerdfighter Documentary

The two things I am ridiculously, nerdily excited about these days:

• The new Teen Bestsellers Collection and
• Being selected as a screening location for A Film to Decrease Worldsuck: The Nerdfighters Documentary!

If you’re like me, you know the release dates for all the new books you want to read.  I obsessively search the Library’s online catalog to see if the books, like Requiem by Lauren Oliver, are listed so I can place a hold on them.  Sometimes a book is so popular that it seems like it will never become available.  It feels like you’ll be waiting forever to get your hands on it.  I’m looking at you The Perks of Being a Wallflower! 

We want you to be able to find some of the newest, most popular books every time you walk into the Library.  Because of this, we have created a Teen Bestsellers collection at the Main Library in Oakland.    There are mutliple copies of each of these titles (and they’re non-requestable), so you’ll always find something new, unexpected, intriguing, or coveted when you browse the Teen Bestseller shelves!  Here is a small sample of what’s available in this new collection:

   
   

Do you prefer to read ebooks?  Check here to see what’s available.

If you’re still waiting to read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, now is your chance to snag it!   Get ready for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s August screening of A Film to Decrease Worldsuck: The Nerdfighters Documentary!  The date and time will be revealed very soon.

National Read Across America Day

Dr. Seuss from quickmeme.com

Tomorrow is National Read Across America Day!  This date was chosen to coincide with the birthday of Dr. Seuss (pictured in the meme above).   The whole point of this day is to promote reading (derh!).

Seeing as how my coworkers are avid readers (working in a library and such), I figured I would ask them what they plan to be reading on Read Across American Day.  Below are recommended reading by CLP-Lawrenceville staff:

**Karen’s a cheater because she’s reading an ARC of The moon and more!**

I hope to catch you all reading on Saturday, March 2!  Leave us a comment about what you plan to read on National Read Across America Day!

 

Happy reading!

-Amy, CLP-Lawrenceville