Book Bag: Friendswood Youth Services Blog

I thought it might be fun to see if our Young Adult patrons would respond to a challenge this summer. So I chose an incentive I thought you would enjoy, on top of all the prizes you already receive for joining the reading club during the summer. The Young Adult Reading Club is still relatively new. It's for ages 11-18 and instead of counting the amount of books/pages that you've read, you keep track of the amount of hours you've read. I think this works really well, it rewards people who don't breeze through books and it challenges those who do! So. Here is the challenge I'm issuing to all the teens who are planning on joining the Texas Teens Read Summer Reading Club If you read a total of 5,000 hours I will dye purple streaks in my hair. Another Young Adult, Merrit Rowley has agreed to join me in this challenge. So, we will go from looking like this: To looking something like this: (Actual results may vary) Are you up to it? DFTBA, Christina "Sti" Hick...

You know all about star-crossed lovers, don't you? You've heard of Romeo and Juliet. You've heard of Jack and Rose. You know all about Bella and Edward. All couples who are kept apart by warring families, different social statuses, natural disasters, and even life and undead-ness. On this day in 1536, Anne Boleyn second wife of King Henry VIII of England was beheaded by her husband. Not exactly romantic, right? Most people would agree. It had only been a few years since Henry had split with the Catholic church and started his own religion The Church of England so that he could divorce his first wife Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne (who refused to become his mistress, she would only be his queen). That's a little more romantic, right? To some people, maybe. Other people through out history have hated on Anne Boleyn for being a home wreaker, but she ended up just being the first in a long line of ill-fated women to marry Henry VIII-- all in his pursuit to have a male ...

Thought I'd post a video of the food challenge we had a couple weeks (or was it months?) ago. This is our attempt (successful by a few people) to eat 6 Saltine crackers in 60 seconds. We also attempted to eat a spoonful of cinnamon, eat a piece of white bread in under 45 seconds and we played Fluffy Bunny. It was a fun, messy, and hilarious day that I'm getting hungry just thinking about! As a segue into books, here are a few YA books that deal with food: Cooking Up a Storm by Sam Stern What's cooking? An enthusiastic young chef shares his teen-tested tips and recipes for everything from breakfast to dinner, desserts to brain-boosting snacks. A kid's gotta eat -- and what better way to make sure that the food on your plate hits the spot than to make it yourself? Dear, Julia by Amy Bronwen Zemser Shy sixteen-year-old Elaine has long dreamed of being the next Child, to the dismay of her feminist mother, but when her first friend, the outrageous Lucida Sans, con...

If you loved Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, which was featured in our March Madness book tournament, you should give his newest YA book For the Win a try. We don't have it here at the library yet (though we will soon!), but you can also read it for free online here If you want to know more about it first, here's a quick summary: "In the virtual future, you must organize to survive At any hour of the day or night, millions of people around the globe are engrossed in multiplayer online games, questing and battling to win virtual “gold,” jewels, and precious artifacts. Meanwhile, others seek to exploit this vast shadow economy, running electronic sweatshops in the world’s poorest countries, where countless “gold farmers,” bound to their work by abusive contracts and physical threats, harvest virtual treasure for their employers to sell to First World gamers who are willing to spend real money to skip straight to higher-level gameplay. Mala is a br...