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!

Fall in Love With a Good Book

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY EVERYONE!!!

"Greeting card holiday" or not, chances are that you are in the mood for a good love story today.  Love was certainly on our minds this morning as we pulled this list of love stories just for you!

DELIRIUM by Lauren Oliver

Lena Haloway is content in her safe, government-managed society. She feels (mostly) relaxed about the future in which her husband and career will be decided, and looks forward to turning 18, when she’ll be cured of deliria, a.k.a. love. She tries not to think about her mother’s suicide (her last words to Lena were a forbidden “I love you”) or the supposed “Invalid” community made up of the uncured just beyond her Portland, Maine, border. There’s no real point—she believes her government knows how to best protect its people, and should do so at any cost. But 95 days before her cure, Lena meets Alex, a confident and mysterious young man who makes her heart flutter and her skin turn red-hot. As their romance blossoms, Lena begins to doubt the intentions of those in power, and fears that her world will turn gray should she submit to the procedure. In this powerful and beautifully written novel, Lauren Oliver, the bestselling author of Before I Fall, throws readers into a tightly controlled society where options don’t exist, and shows not only the lengths one will go for a chance at freedom, but also the true meaning of sacrifice. --Jessica Schein

 LIPS TOUCH THREE TIMES by Laini Taylor

Three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers' souls:

Goblin Fruit: In Victorian times, goblin men had only to offer young girls sumptuous fruits to tempt them to sell their souls. But what does it take to tempt today's savvy girls?

 

Spicy Little Curses Such As These: A demon and the ambassador to Hell tussle over the soul of a beautiful English girl in India. Matters become complicated when she falls in love and decides to test her curse.

 

Hatchling: Six days before Esme's fourteenth birthday, her left eye turns from brown to blue. She little suspects what the change heralds, but her small safe life begins to unravel at once. What does the beautiful, fanged man want with her, and how is her fate connected to a mysterious race of demons?

 

 THE STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT by Jennifer E. Smith

 

Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?

Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan's life. She's stuck at JFK, late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon to be step-mother that Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's in seat 18C. Hadley's in 18A.

Twists of fate and quirks of timing play out in this thoughtful novel about family connections, second chances and first loves. Set over a 24-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it.

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by Jon Green

In The Fault in Our Stars, John Green has created a soulful novel that tackles big subjects--life, death, love--with the perfect blend of levity and heart-swelling emotion. Hazel is sixteen, with terminal cancer, when she meets Augustus at her kids-with-cancer support group. The two are kindred spirits, sharing an irreverent sense of humor and immense charm, and watching them fall in love even as they face universal questions of the human condition--How will I be remembered? Does my life, and will my death, have meaning?--has a raw honesty that is deeply moving. --Seira Wilson




And don't forget our vast Music and Movie collection at the library.  Be sure to check out:

• Now! That's What I Call Love 
• The Last Song
• The Notebook
• When Harry Met Sally

"You Are a Debutante" Seminar

Book Worth Reading: EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS by A.S. King

I usually don't like books when I can detect that the story is just about delivering some sort of a message.  EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS by A.S. King does have a powerful thread of anti-bullying that runs through it, but there is so much more to love about this book!

Lucky Linderman comes from a less than perfect family (don't we all?).  His father behaves like a turtle--always in his shell, and his mother is a squid--swimming laps all day instead of facing her problems.  His grandfather is a prisoner of war in Vietnam that was never brought home.  Lucky has his own problems too, like the bully that has been torturing him since he was seven when the kid peed on his feet and then got Lucky in trouble for it.

But this isn't just a simple story about a contemporary kid with bully problems.  Lucky dreams every night about rescuing his grandfather from the jungle, and the dreams actually start to get very real.  You almost get the sense that maybe he really is with his grandfather every night, which is really cool.

To me though, the best characters in the book are the ants.  After a particularly traumatic event with the bully, Lucky begins seeing these ants that provide commentary for the rest of the book.  They say the most hilarious and on point things that everyone thinks but it was so unexpectedly awesome to see them actually printed in a book.

All in all, whether you read it because of the message, or you read it just to enjoy an incredibly well written book, EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS is a great choice!

Book Trailers

If you want to know whether or not you want watch a certain movie, you might watch some movie trailers to find out.  If you want to know whether or not you might like a book, you might Google it to find some reviews--great idea!  But, did you know you can watch some book trailers too? 

Book trailers work just like movie trailers.  They introduce just enough of the plot and characters in a way that makes you want to know more.  Some of them are made by the people who publish the books, but many of them are just made by young fans.  They can be really cool and are not all that hard to make. 

Basic programs like Windows MovieMaker and Animoto work well and it can be as simple as combining pictures with music or as elaborate as actually writing a script and filming a scene.  You just have to be careful that you don't use any copyrighted material. 

Here are some book trailers for books that are just in at the Dallas Public Library:

CINDER: THE LUNAR CHRONICLES BOOK ONE by Marissa Meyer

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green

TEMPEST by Julie Cross

EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS by J. S. King

 

Want more?  Check out these other resources:

• Book Trailers for All
• Book Trailers for Readers
• Book Screening 
• Youtube  (search for the title you are looking for plus the phrase "book trailer")

If you have made a book trailer that you want to see posted on this blog, send it to me: nora.nagel@dallascityhall.com.  Happy trailer watching!

Book Worth Reading: ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD by Kendare Blake

I CONSUMED this book in less than 24 hours!  I stayed up much later than I should have and I am very sleepy now as a result.  But--not too sleepy to share with you why you should read this book.

Cas is a professional ghost hunter that moves around the world with his mom killing violent ghosts the same way his family has done for generations.  When he arrives in a sleepy Canadian town to kill Anna Dressed in Blood, everything feels different.  Cas tries to go on with business as usual, but other people get involved and things get complicated.  Also, Anna is by far the most powerful ghost that Cas has ever seen and he has to find out how she got that way before he can figure out how to defeat her, or even if he wants to...

Let me just say that no, I don't think that this book opened my horizons to a new way of thinking or will eventually find its way into classic literature.  I did learn a little bit about voodoo cultures, but mostly I was just highly entertained.  If you like a good ghost story and are not too squeamish when it comes to reading gory descriptions, I definitely recommend this book.  

Find Money for College!

If you want to go to college next year, NOW is the time to get busy with financial aid!  The key to receiving the majority of financial aid out there is getting admitted to the schools you are interested in AND filling out the Free Application For Student Aid (FAFSA) as early as humanly possible. Many schools have priority deadlines in early March, meaning that it may be too late for some grants and scholarships if you apply any later.

What is the FAFSA?  The FAFSA is an online application that you fill out your household's 2011 tax information.  The information gathered by the FAFSA helps colleges determine what types of financial aid you qualify for.

Even if you would not describe yourself as "low income" and don't expect to qualify for much help, you might as well go ahead and complete a FAFSA anyway, because you just never know until you try.  Also, if you or your parents plan to use Federal student loans to pay for some or all of your college expenses, a FAFSA will be required. 

Want more information or even some help with your FAFSA?   You are in luck!  The Dallas Public Library Teen Center is introducing a brand new workshop for high school students where students and their parents will get in depth information about the kinds of financial aid out there and how to apply.  If you and your parents bring in your 2011 tax returns, you can even get in person assistance with filling out your FAFSA!!!  Click here for a complete list of things you need to have with you when you file your FAFSA.

You have seven different chances to get the help you need:

Audelia Road Library— 1/25  @5pm

Central Library--2/2  @10:30am

Pleasant Grove Library—2/8  @5pm

Dallas West Library—2/15  @5pm

Mountain Creek Library—2/18  @2pm

Hampton Illinois Library--2/25  @1pm

Skyline Library—3/1 @4:30pm

See you there!