Book Bag: Friendswood Youth Services Blog

A little explanation of the Dewey Decimal System for those of you interested. Verry funny! DFTBA, Sti

A Battle of the Books video made by the Everdeen sisters to the tune of that song from High School Musical 3: Also, a clip from one of the best 80s sitcoms ever-Designing Women. If any of you have siblings, you probably understand what I mean when I say only you can make fun of your brother/sister. Julia Sugarbaker shows us what happens when you badmouth her sister! DFTBA, Sti

What you guys said, as edited together by Lisa! You're all brilliant and legendary! And you didn't forget to be awesome! Love and peaches, Sti

Five Reasons Why YA Librarians are Better than Google: (and you guys know I love Google!) 5. Google locates only web sites, while YA librarians find all types of resources in any format. 4. Google requires you to design your own searches, but YA librarians help you plan an effective search strategy. 3. Google leaves it up to you to sort through the mountain of results, while YA librarians assist you in selecting information to meet your specific needs. 2. Google provides no quality control, but YA librarians always have a Plan B if your search yields no results. AND 1. Google is an inanimate web site with no ability to offer moral support, but YA librarians are real people who can dispense things like encouragement, high fives and even hugs.

I took a little break over the long weekend, sorry! I hope you all had a great weekend with your families, Easter Egg hunting, eating, etc. I know I did. We're all too old for Easter Egg Hunting at my house (my youngest sister, Robin is 18), but we did buy an hilarious chocolate bunny who's name is Dude 'da' Bunny. He has bling. It is awesome. Have I mentioned the Poetry Contest yet? I forget...Well the 5th Annual Friendswood Library Poetry Contest is taking place RIGHT NOW! We're taking entries until April 21st and we'll announce the winners on April 24th at a special Coffee House Poetry Reading. The winners (and anyone else) are invited to read their poetry. And snacks, did I mention snacks? Mmmm snacks! :) In other news there is a TAG meeting tomorrow! For a non-library related post head over to my page on Maureen Johnson's Ning DFTBA, Sti

I missed yesterday's blog. Maybe I'll blog twice today to make up for it. Maybe not. Yesterday just wasn't that interesting. Ashley thinks I should blog about global warming. Do you believe in it? I'm pretty green, and I do for the most part, she likes to argue the other side. She says "I'm with the whole 'go green' but I not with the whole live in mud huts thing.' What are your thoughts? I noticed today that I don't know how to spell meerkat. I always want to spell it meercat. Meerkat sounds like lolspeak to me. Why is it spelled with a K???? This afternoon I taught Jenny and Ashley the word ineffable, which always reminds me of my favorite Douglas Adams quote: "Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all." Lovely man Ready for a lolcat video? Awesome, here you go:

As much as I hate to admit it, I am an adult. I'm 24, I have a college degree, a full time job. Don't get me wrong there are a lot of perks about being an adult: having your own car, no curfew, being able to vote, etc. But there are some other things that are not so fun. And by this I mean taxes. Many of you took the TAKS test today, well I handled my taxes. If you've ever asked me for help with a math problem and gotten no help, you may understand that I have little to no math skills. This isn't because I dislike math, on the contrary I like counting things and making little calculations, and because algebra and geometry problems are kind of like puzzles to me, I usually enjoy working them out. The difficulty arises when grading time comes around. Because no matter how well I thought I understood something, I will usually get the wrong answer. Wrong answers lead to frustration lead to me not wanting to mess up other people's homework or do math very often. Okay, so...

Welcome to Monday, ah the beginning of a week. Today has been pretty normal. I walked back and forth from one end of the library to the other so many times that I was told to stop as I was making one of the librarians at the Circulation Desk dizzy. She said it was like watching a tennis match. I read stories to the little kids at Kandiland. My google searches included "building trebuchets" "paintballs" and "why are people who are good at Math not good at English?" Two of these three things were completely work related too. The third one has applications to the job though. Something I don't understand. Talking first thing in the morning. Why? Usually I wake up to an empty house (I mean, my dog and cat are there but they aren't too talkative unless they want something). But some mornings my dad or my sister go into work/school late and they're in the kitchen when I zombie-walk in to make a fresh pot of coffee just the way I like it (with cinnamon...

Already I have missed a day! How lame is that? Though I did spend the whole day (or most of it) finishing the most excellent City of Glass by the legendary Cassandra Clare. Read it. Now. Did I mention how good it was? Totally wrapped the trilogy up amazingly. Complete with demons, downworlders, Shadowhunters, twisty storylines, and snarky comments! Yay! In other news...well I don't really have any other news right now...Do you?

It's 10:15, and I almost forgot to blog today! How sad would it be if I messed up on only day 3 of this challenge? But never fear, I live to blog another day! Well, Texas Teens 4 Libraries (TT4L) was yesterday, and it was wonderful! I got to meet Meg Cabot and didn't embarrass myself too badly. :) I got to talk to Cassandra Clare again, this time a normal conversation as she was sitting outside the Teen Room before giving a talk, we talked about being nervous talking in front of people, the strange questions kids ask at Q&A sessions, and traveling in England (she said I should go to the British Library and the Tate Modern-will do!) I also got to attend the Bluebonnet Award Luncheon, where they awarded Bluebonnet Award to Cynthia DeFelice and Andrea U'Ren for "One Potato, Two Potato". There was yummy food and wonderful speeches. We went to a great session about intellectual freedom and a wonderful school that didn't bow down to The Man (aka a rich family wh...

Good morning all, and it definitely is morning. The sun isn't even up! I am never awake before 6! Just wanted to share a few things with you. Yesterday, as you know I went to TLA. It was so much fun! I met a few authors: Cassandra Clare (author of the Mortal Instruments series!!!!!) and she was sooo cool, and remembered me from when we had talked on twitter a week ago! Jacqueline Kelly who gave out not only free copies of her book, but also pens and coffee cups! Aaaand Joan Bauer! Author of Hope was Here, Best Foot Forward, Peeled and a lot of other amazing books. And she was the most gracious celebrity I've ever met! She shook my hand and chatted with me about my best friend (who she dedicated my book to--presents!) And today offers even more awesomeness, because group of you all are coming with me and MEG CABOT WILL BE THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which book should I take to have signed??? DFTBA, Sti

Welcome to April everyone! I'm so glad people have been reminding me that it's April Fool's Day because there are some upsetting spoofs floating around the internet, including an article claiming my very dear Neil Gaiman could lose the Newbery Medal ! I would have cried if I'd seen that without warning. Anyway, also welcome to Blog Every Day April! We'll see how this goes because I am very bad at writing in this blog regularly. Hopefully this will make me better. This afternoon I will be attending part of the Texas Library Association's (TLA) Annual Conference here in Houston. That's why there aren't any programs this week, we're short on staff a lot of the time. Sorry! But today I shall be seeing The Book Cart Drill Team State Championship! What's a Book Cart Drill Team you ask? This, my dear friends is a Book Cart Drill Team: It's exactly what it sounds like, Librarians doing choreographed dance moves with book carts. Awesome, right? So I k...