Teen Photo Contest Entries

Teen Photo Contest Entries

First place picture teen photo contest
Amber Mueller

Photo Contest

The deadline for submitting entries for our first teen summer photo contest ended on July 14. Stop in the teen dept. to view the fantastic photos by 8 creative photographers. Winners will be announced on July 30th.

Are you looking for a great book to read this summmer?  Check out Teenreads, a website dedicated to teens and the books they read.
Click here to visit the Teenreads website

Rosie's Reviews

Surface Tension by Brent Runyon

For Luke, his family’s annual trip to their house on the lake each summer is something to look forward to. He swims in the lake, hikes to the waterfall, goes canoeing with his dad, and looks on the beach for luckystones, a special type of stone with a hole through the middle. During four summers when he is ages thirteen to sixteen, many different things occur. For instance, a pastor moves into a cottage by Luke’s family. He is incredibly rude and flies a confederate flag on his dock. The family on the other side of Luke’s families cottage hates the minister and forms a friendship with Luke’s family. On a later visit, the minister’s house catches on fire, and Luke, having seen a girl in the house, saves her while the minister is not there. At another point, Luke cuts his leg on some shale and has to get stitches. In addition, Luke brings a friend on a visit, breaks up with his girlfriend, exchanges fruit with a girl in a nearby cottage, and patches up his relationship with the daughter of a family friend.

This book was a bit interesting to read just because of the sheer number of different things going on- the minister hatred, friendships, relationships, lake-related activities, and heaps of other stuff. It did, however, contain a lot of frank dialogue and included teenage drunkenness, so I would question this book’s overall influence. It’s a good book if you get past the not-so-appropriate parts. Throughout the book, Luke gets a better understanding of who he is during his visits to the lake. Because of these factors, this book receives a score of ‘cool’ on the Teen Reading Scale. It is a good read for boys who like realistic fiction.

Rosie's Reviews

The Goodbye Season by Marian Hale

Mercy’s family is very poor, so her father goes to the city to work and she is sent to the Bonner farm to stay and help out. However, when an influenza epidemic kills one of the hired hands and Mr. Bonner falls ill, Mercy is sent back home for her health. When she gets there, she finds that her family has died from the flu as well, and she goes to the city to look for her father. She meets Emma Sayers, who lets her stay in the back room of her café. Eventually, she gets a job helping Cora Wilder take care of her children. She notices that Cora seems disturbed, and Cora’s stepson Daniel tells her that it most likely has to do with the fact that her mother and brother were both trampled by horses. Around Christmas, Cora learns that her father is coming, which seriously puts her on edge. When Mercy leaves on Christmas, she visits Emma and she pieces together that Cora’s father killed her mother and brother because he wanted land. She and Daniel go after Cora and her father, who went for a horse and buggy ride. They get there and try to stop Cora’s father, but he shoots Cora before being run over by the buggy himself. Cora dies, and Mercy leaves because there are no adults staying there, which would cause rumors if she stayed. Daniel proposes to her, but she says no because she doesn’t want to end up like her mother. She gets a job at an inn, but after one night she realizes what she wants, and it has been right in front of her.

This book was really interesting- there was a mixture of different emotions throughout the story: sadness, concern, love, anger, and confusion. I liked the romance between Daniel and Mercy because it helped Mercy see that sometimes, the very thing that you don’t want in life is actually the thing you want the most. Daniel is a good character, because he really cares about his stepbrother and stepsister, and even though he has a bad leg, he still puts himself to use fixing cars and buggies. On the Teen Reading Scale, I give this book a score of ‘mega-awesome’ and recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction.

Rosie's Reviews

Itch by Michelle D. Kwasney
Itch is living a normal life with her grandparents when her grandfather suddenly dies and her grandmother decides to move to Ohio. At first, Itch hates the idea, but eventually she gets used to Ohio and makes friends with a girl named Gwendolyn who is a baton twirler with a mother who is overly serious about winning. Eventually, she notices that Gwendolyn has a number of welts and bruises, and she and her new sort-of friend Billy think that her mom beats her. Their suspicions are confirmed when Itch sees Gwendolyn’s mother beat her while she is hiding. When Gwendolyn runs away, Itch and her grandmother go get her and bring her to their trailer to spend the night. Itch’s grandmother notices Gwendolyn’s bruises and they go to her house. Gwendolyn’s mother denies everything, but Itch tells them what she saw. Gwendolyn’s father is shocked and asks Gwendolyn’s mother to leave. With just the two of them in the house, Gwendolyn’s father makes it his mission to give Gwendolyn a normal childhood without the baton twirling.

I thought this was a great book with a powerful message: it is not okay to abuse children. I also admired Itch’s courage, because she stands up for Gwendolyn. I think it was noble of Gwendolyn’s father to try to give her a normal life and I liked when her mother realized that she needed to change and sought help. Overall, this is a very well-written novel that I enjoyed. On the Teen Reading Scale, I would give this book a score of “rockin.’” I would recommend it to readers who enjoy historical fiction.

On Tuesday evening (June 22) a small but talkative group met at Tribeca to discuss the books they've been reading this summer...some of the books we discussed included
      The Mysterious Benedict Society (a 3 book series) by Trenton Lee Stewart
      My Life in Pink and Green by Lisa Greenwald
      Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Shadow Children series)
      The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
      Meg Cabot's Allie Finkel's series
      Nancy Drew mysteries
     The Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan
We have another get together scheduled in July...check the teen calendar for the specific time and day.
    

Historical Fiction

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Rosie's Reviews

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern   (YA F HAL)


This book is about a girl named Jessie who is in the smart classes in school. Her life is turned on its side when her two best friends turn punk and one of them throws herself on Jessie’s bad-boy crush. At the same time, her brother Barrett gives up being a punk, shaves off his orange mohawk, and starts dating the prom princess. Then, Jessie makes some new friends who enjoy Dungeons and Dragons and finds that it’s not so bad to be a nerd, which she had feared. She even realizes that she likes one of the boys in the group.

I thought this book was pretty good, even though it contained what I would consider to be very inappropriate language. It was an interesting plot because people always assume that all nerds are basically the same, but (as Jessie found) they aren’t. Also, I liked Jessie’s brother because he was supportive of Jessie and he really wanted to protect her, which I thought was a really good thing for an older brother to do, even though I don’t have an older brother myself. On the Teen Reading Scale, I would rate this book as “rockin.’” I don’t know if I would recommend it to my friends, but it’s an OK book to read.

Rosie's Reviews

Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz
This is the eight book in a series about a boy named Alex Rider who repeatedly finds himself involved with MI6. In this book, Alex agrees to investigate a man working at a genetic engineering lab. While he is there, he sees that there is a structure entirely devoted to poisons. He also learns that the wealthy founder of a charity known as First Aid, Desmond McCain, is working closely with the scientist. After reporting his findings to MI6, Alex is kidnapped and taken to Kenya, where he finds out that Desmond McCain is plotting to create a disaster in order to get funds for his charity, which he then will keep instead of putting them towards helping with the disaster. After escaping death, Alex must stop the disaster from happening by halting the spread of a substance that will activate a poison grown into much of the wheat in Kenya and a few surrounding countries.

I really enjoyed this book because I enjoy adventures and Anthony Horowitz is a good adventure writer. This book is just as good as or better than the other books of the series. It was a real page-turner because it was full of suspense and I finished it in one day, as I do often with books I really like. I like Alex’s character because he is only 14 but he is clever and good at getting things done, like escaping, hiding, and sneaking around, and sometimes his insolence makes me laugh. I also like the fact that he always has the good fortune to be able to escape death, whether it is by his own means or with the help of others. On the Teen Reading Scale, I would have to say that this book is mind-blowingly amazing and I would definitely recommend the whole series to those who like adventures.

Rosie's Reviews

A Kiss in Time by Alex Flinn

This is the story of Sleeping Beauty, but with a modern twist. In this book, the princess, Talia, is cursed and pricks her finger on a spindle. Almost 300 years later, a 17-year-old boy named Jack stumbles upon her kingdom, Euphrasia, after it had been hidden from the rest of the world by a dense forest of thorny plants. He finds the princess and kisses her, and she wakes up. However, no one thinks that Jack is really her ‘true love,’ the only one capable of breaking the curse. Since Talia’s family is mad at her, she runs away to Florida with Jack, causing an uproar at home. While Talia is with Jack, she learns about the modern world while secretly trying to make Jack love her. Not satisfied, Malvolia, the faerie that cursed Talia takes her back to her cottage in Euphrasia. She originally plans to kill Talia, but then she decides not to and instead chooses to have Talia prick her finger on another spindle, only to be woken up if she is kissed by her true love. Jack and his father hurry to Euphrasia to save Talia, and Jack finds the hill with Malvolia’s cottage on top. However, he must pass some tests to get to the top, and another test inside the cabin. He kisses Talia and she wakes up. They go back to her father’s castle, where Jack’s father has been talking with the king, and find out that Jack’s father and Talia’s father have decided to turn Euphrasia into a tourist attraction in order to exist in the modern world.

I thought this book was pretty good. It was a little cliched and I generally don’t like books that mimic fairy tales in this manner, but it wasn’t actually that bad. The plot didn’t really go anywhere and there weren’t really any really cool twists in the story. It was a good story, but it was also kind of lame. The characters in this book are OK, but not really awesome. Jack is kind of rude a lot of the time, and Talia is rather bratty. They get over it eventually, but it is present throughout most of the book. On the Teen Reading Scale, I would give this book a score of ‘cool.’ I probably would not recommend it to other people to read, because it’s not really worth it and there are a lot of other books out there that are a lot better.

Rosie's Reviews

Wings by Aprilynne Pike
The book Wings by Aprilynne Pike centers on a girl named Laurel who discovers that she is a faerie who has been sent to live with a human family. In the midst of many questions about the faeries and her past life , she must also stop her mother from selling the land that has been in the family for generations and holds crucial faerie secrets.

Suggestions and Ideas...

A new year brings a new book budget! I'm looking for exciting and interesting titles to add to our
teen fiction or nonfiction collection. Any suggestions?

New Books

We've added new books to the teen collection! Ten of the new books are
shown on the Shelfari widget...I hope you'll find a good book to enjoy.
Just a note...we've moved the teen non-fiction books. We've run out of
room in the teen area so we've interfiled the YA books in with the
adult non-fiction. If you need help finding a book please stop at the
Children's Room desk or the Reference Desk.