Teen Job Fair

We are so happy to report that our very first Teen Job Fair was a success!  Nearly 150 teens looking for employment and volunteer opportunities descended upon the Central Library in downtown on Saturday, April 28th.  Some of them had waited since 8AM--3 hours before the start of the event! 

Fair schedule

Teens talking to recruiters from Chipotle

Learning about how to write a resume from Workforce Solutions of Greater Dallas

If you missed out this year, don't worry, we plan on doing this again next year.  In the meantime, check out the resources offered by the Dallas Public Library for job seekers and the helpful programs offered by Workforce Solutions of Greater Dallas. 

Thank you so much to all of the volunteers, employers, and of course teens that made this event great!   We can't wait to do it again next year!

Guadalupe Garcia McCall Appearance

Upcoming Event: Teen Job Fair!

We are excited to announce that we are going to hold a job fair for Dallas teens on April 28th at the Central Library!  Stay tuned for more information!

***UPDATE***

Sample of employers that have signed up so far: 

-Six Flags Over Texas

-SpeedZone

-AmeriCorps 

-Chipotle

Want your business or organization to be a part of the job fair?

  Contact Teen Coordinator, Nora Nagel, at nora.nagel@dallaslibrary.org 

The Hunger Games Party!!!

Excited about the new The Hunger Games movie?  So are we!  On March 15th, we celebrated by holding a Cornucopia Chef contest.  

If you haven't read the books (and you should!) the cornucopia is the place where all of the weapons and survival gear are kept inside the arena where the participants fight to the death.  At the beginning of the game, they must hurry to the cornucopia and fight each other off to get the supplies they need to compete.  

Awaiting judgement...

Cornucopia Chef is our MUCH less violent version of the same idea.  Different ingredients were concealed under a table cloth in the middle of the room.  Once the table cloth was removed, our "tributes" (participants) had 10 minutes to choose 5 ingredients and make a delicious dish.  

 The top three placers won a pair of tickets to see The Hunger Games movie on opening night.  The first place winner also received all three books and the movie companion.  The winner was very excited about the books because he has only read the second book as it was the only one he could get his hands on!

First place winner!

Teen Tech Week 2012 in the Big D

Okay, so TECHnically speaking, Teen Tech Week is supposed to be March 4th - 10th.  We, however, have made the bold and (I think) wise decision to move our observance to the following week--which happens to be Spring Break around here.  


Teen Tech Week is when teens celebrate the tech side of the library and all of the cool non book materials we have to offer.  We already have a ton of programs scheduled throughout the city and all will be a blast! 

Look out for Wii Gaming, XBOX tournaments, a March Madness watch party, a blogging workshop, and a MuVChat showing. 

 

Upcoming Event: Freedom to Smile

The Dallas Public Library is proud to announce our partnership with the Teen Board of the Contact Crisis Center to bring you a fantastically fun day of learning to cope with bullying and stress.  There will be a family resource fair and activities are being planned for all ages.  We'll have storytimes, crafts, games, speakers, and performers.  These teens have some really great ideas!  A free lunch will be served to all participants.

When:  Saturday, April 14th

            10:30AM to 1:30PM

Where: Central Library, 1st and 2nd floor

1515 Young Street

 Dallas, TX  75201

           

Book Worth Reading: WITHER by Lauren Destefano

Okay, this was not the best book that I have read this year.  BUT, I read the whole thing from cover to cover in less than a day and I think that really says something.

Pros:  I found the storyline to be seriously interesting and entertaining.  It's a dystopian book (my favorite genre) and we are wrapped in a world where in an attempt to create a generation of artificially engineered babies that are immune to cancer, something has gone terribly wrong with the next generation.  When the children of this perfect generation reach a certain age, they die.  25 for boys, and 20 for girls.  I know, this part sounds sort of like that movie that came out last year with Justin Timberlake but the rest of the book is totally different.

Some people in this world think that if everyone is just going to die so young, then the human race ought to just give up and die out.  Other people want to continue procreating new generations of children in the hopes of someone finding a cure.  Of course, this means that childhoods must be very short because girls don't have much time to bear children before they die.

In order to get the best chance of procreation in the quickest amount of time, wealthy people have turned to kidnapping pretty girls and forcing them into polygamous marriages.  That is exactly what happens to the main character in this book.

The action starts right away and really never stops.  I never found a boring part of the book so I never had a chance to set it down and get on with my day.

Cons:  There are some loose ends that might bother some readers and the author could have done a lot more in the character development department.  Some of the main characters were very well developed, but others we knew little about.  Most annoying to me was how little the reader knows about the love interest by the end of the book, even though he was part of the story from very early on.  Of COURSE this book is part of a trilogy so I am thinking that the author will develop the characters more in the second book.

Best book I have read this year or not, I really am looking forward to reading the next one.  Book 2 in the Chemical Garden Trilogy is called FEVER and it just came out last week.  I am already on the waiting list at the Dallas Public Library and am excited to see what happens next!

P.S.  It was recently announced that WITHER is going to become a movie!  I love it when that happens with good YA books!