Super Bowl XLII! January 31, 2008

 Who do you think will win? The New York Giants or the New England Patriots?

Websites

ESPN SportsZone Comprehensive coverage from ESPN

CNN/SI CNN/Sports Illustrated

NFL National Football League

   Football Stories  

Cover-Up: Mystery at the Super Bowl by John Feinstein (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)

Bleachers by John Grisham (Dell, 2004, c2003)

The Off Season by Catherine Gilbert Murdock (Houghton Mifflin, 2007)

   Recipes for Chili and Buffalo Wings 

Cooking up a Storm by Sam Stern (Candlewick, 2006, c2005) 

Teens Cook by Megan Carle (Ten Speed Press, 2004) 

Big Snacks, Little Meals by Rose Dunnington (Lark Books, 2006)

*The above titles are all located in the Loft.

Are the days of plastic bags numbered? January 28, 2008

PROPER PLASTIC PRACTICES PREVENT PURPOSELESS POLLUTION!

PETER PIPER PICKED A PECK OF…REUSABLE BAGS!

Whole Foods recently announced that they will stop offering plastic grocery bags, effective April 22, 2008, on Earth Day (New York Times). And China also announced a ban on free plastic shopping bags by June 1, 2008 (Associated Press; CNN).

 

What do you think of this?

 

Every minute over 1 million plastic bags are used, and more than a billion plastic bags are given out for free every day, yet plastic bags take 1,000 years to decompose. And they don’t biodegrade; rather, they break down into tiny toxic bits that contaminate the soil and waterways. Find out more about the production, consumption, disposal and litter costs of plastic bags at the reusable bags website and at the sierra club website.

 

What can you do? Here are some ideas, tips and tools. 

 

Click here to see what San Francisco and Manitoba, Canada, and countries such as Ireland, Australia, Britain, Sweden, Hong Kong, Germany, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania’s Zanzibar Islands are doing (Sydney Morning Herald).

My Swordhand is Singing January 26, 2008

My Swordhand is Singing (Wendy Lamb, 2007, c2006) by Marcus Sedgwick

 

    Set in the forests of 17th century Europe, My Swordhand is Singing is a perfect winter read.  It is the tale of woodcutters Peter and his father Tomas.  Strange things are happening in the village of Chust: animals are being attacked, dead men are reportedly seen, and there are whisperings of the Shadow Queen.

 

    Peter and Tomas live on a self-made island in the forest outside of the village. While Peter works hard and dreams about Agnes, a girl in Chust, his father drinks. There is a secret that separates father and son, a wooden box that Peter is forbidden to look in.   Soon gypsies come to Chust and Tomas’s past catches up with them.

 

    This is not your average vampire book. In fact, the word vampire is never once used in the entire 200 pages. But there is little doubt as to what the “hostages” are. Vampires were not always the suave creatures of the night we imagine them to be.  Sedgwick has done his research.  Here we see the bloated forms they once took. This is a fast paced book filled with vivid imagery, and an occasional all too real smell (Bridget, The Loft).

Loft Events this Weekend January 26, 2008

 events this weekend:

Manga/Anime Inking & Toning Workshop with Addie Afable on Saturday, Jan 26, 2pm.

On Sunday, Jan 27, join us for a screening of Hairspray at 2 pm.

For Teens Only!

Cool site of the day January 24, 2008

FreeRice.com

Addictive vocabulary game! And it’s for a good cause: for every word you get right, the site donates 20 grains of rice to help end world hunger.

Manga Workshop Saturday January 23, 2008

Saturday, January 26, at 2:00 pm

Addie Afable returns for Part 3 of his Manga drawing series: Inking & Toning.

Call (847) 448-8625 or (847) 448-8610 to register.

Check out these pics of past workshops with Addie.  

Martin Luther King Jr. Day January 20, 2008

Race Matters: Janet McDonald’s Off-Color (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007)

 

It is 2008, exactly forty years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Much has changed for the better. Yet we are still a long way from fulfilling Dr. King’s dream of an unprejudiced society that considers not a person’s race but the content of his or her character. In many respects, there is a lack of sincere dialogue about race in this country. That’s why it’s so refreshing to come across a novel like Janet McDonald’s Off-Color (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007).

 

The book’s main character, Cameron, is a white teenager growing up in a predominantly white section of Brooklyn. When her mom’s financial crisis forces them to move into a largely African-American public housing unit, Cameron must confront for the first time what it means to be a minority, to be different from the prevailing norm. Or is she so different? A chance unearthing of an old photo reveals that her absent father is actually African-American. This discovery leads Cameron on an exploration of her personal identity, as she must wade through the quagmire of terms like “black,” “white,” and “biracial.” How will her white friends react? How will the black community view her? As Cameron comes to learn, she is not the only one asking such questions. One of the gratifying aspects of McDonald’s novel is its vivid portrayal of New York’s unmistakably mestizo reality, and of the many different groups that compose any big city public high school.

 

An amusing side-note: James Watson, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist who recently sparked controversy for his (ridiculous) suggestion that people of African descent are intellectually inferior, was last month revealed to have “16 per cent of his genes.…from a black ancestor of African descent”  (The Independent, UK). Go figure. I like Mozambican writer Mia Couto’s notion that “every man is a race.” And I recommend Janet McDonald’s Off-Color unreservedly (Jacob, The Loft).

 

Martin Luther King Jr. Websites

MartinLutherKingJrArchive.com

Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project

Pizza & Finals Study for ETHS Students January 20, 2008

Pizza & Finals Study for ETHS Students in the Community Room of the Evanston Public Library on Tuesday, January 22, 5-8 pm.

Pizza will be served at 6 pm. A computer will be available, and/or bring your laptop!

Show Time! 3 PM Saturday in the Loft January 18, 2008

    B.O.O.K! The Bodacious Oracles of Knowledge Theatre Troupe will perform:

Scenes from Life as We Knew it (Harcourt, 2006), the spellbinding young adult novel by Susan Beth Pfeffer, in

of the Evanston Public Library on Saturday, January 19, 3 pm. Teens and adults are welcome!

An asteroid hits the moon causing tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, forever changing 16-year-old Miranda’s life as she knew it…

There are additional copies of the book to check out, a copy of the book on CD, and you can download the eAudiobook through MyMediaMall.

Don’t miss out. Everybody is reading and talking about this book!

With permission from and in gratitude to the author.

The Teen Reader’s Theatre Troupe, B.O.O.K., is funded by a grant from the Illinois State Library (ISL) under the federal Library Services & Technology Act (LSTA). Professional actors from Promethean Theatre Ensemble in Chicago mentor the Evanston teens in this troupe.

2008 YA Literary Awards Announced! January 14, 2008

   2008 Best Books for Young Adults

2008 Top Ten Best Books

2008 Best Books 

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), the fastest-growing division of the American Library Association (ALA), today announced its 2008 list of Best Books for Young Adults.

   Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in YA Literature

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean (HarperTempest, 2007, c2005)

   Michael L. Printz Honors

Dreamquake: Book 2 of the Dreamhunter Duet by Elizabeth Knox (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007)

One Whole and Perfect Day by Judith Clarke (Front Street, 2007, c2006)

Repossessed by A. M. Jenkins (HarperTeen, 2007)

Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)

For more information, visit the Michael L. Printz Book Award Page of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)

   Alex Awards: Adult Books that Appeal to Teens

American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in New China by Matthew Polly (Gotham, 2007)

Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff (Harper Collins, 2007)

Tales From the Farm by Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf, 2007)

Genghis: Birth of an Empire by Conn Iggulden (Delacorte, 2007)

The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle (Scribner, 2007)

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2007)

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (Dial, 2007, c2006)

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (DAW Books, 2007)

The Night Birds by Thomas Maltman (Soho, 2007)

The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster, 2007)

2008 Alex Awards  of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)

   Margaret A. Edwards Award

Orson Scott Card is the recipient of the 2008 Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring his outstanding lifetime contribution to writing for teens for his novels Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow.

   Pura Belpre Award Winner for Narrative

The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Sean Qualls (Henry Holt, 2006)

   Pura Belpre Honor for Narrative

Frida: ¡Viva la vida! Long Live Life! written and illustrated by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand (Marshall Cavendish, 2007)

More about the Pura Belpre Award

   Coretta Scott King Award Winner

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (Scholastic, 2007)

   Coretta Scott King Honor

November Blues by Sharon Draper (Atheneum, 2007)

Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali by Charles Smith (Candlewick, 2007)

   The Robert F. Sibert Award

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2007)

For more news on all of the Youth Media Awards, visit YALSA’s Booklists & Book Awards or the ALSC site.