Book Bag: Friendswood Youth Services Blog

If you know me, you know there are several different days I would hyperbolically refer to as The Best Day of the Year. You also know that I mean it wholeheartedly every time I say it. So when I say that Teen Book Con is the Best Day of the Year, know that I am telling you the truth. Imagine a day designed for teen readers. A day where there are photo booths for selfie-taking, a tree to hang your poetry on, 3D printers to gawk at, buttons to make, books to buy, food trucks in the parking lot, and authors. Lots and lots of authors. And admission is free (you have to pay for the books and the food, unfortunately)! That day is Teen Book Con. It happens every year in April and is put on by a committee of amazing librarians and the coolest independent book store. I love going to Teen Book Con because, even though there are lots of librarians and other adults around, it's really focused on the teens. During the panels, teens are given priority seating and only teens are called...

Welcome to the Final Four! Just two weeks left of this tournament of pets and familiars! In a lot of the categories it was a close race! Come in to the YA section for the final scores.  So here is your tough decision for this week! Crookshanks VS. Iko Cranky cat or hilarious android? Saphira VS. Hedwig DRAGON or AWESOME OWL This is too difficult. I might abstain from voting (just kidding, I'm totally voting)...But you shouldn't! Come in to vote or vote in the polls to the right of this post! DFTBA, Sti

Hey y'all! It's Week Three of our annual YA March Madness and I'm only now blogging about it. That's mostly because I've been out of town, and a little because until this week there were SO MANY characters to talk about.  But now that's we've moved onto Week Three there are only 8 contenders to worry about, and many of my favorite have been dropped (*sobs*) so I'll spend less time trying to sway your vote if I write about them! So this year we've gone a new route. All our contestants are Pets/Familiars/other not human sidekicks in our favorite YA books (with a few children's and adult books thrown in). The Teen Advisory Group and I had a lot of fun coming up with all of these characters and I hope you see some of your favorites up on the bracket when you visit the YA area! Now, let's get down to who you can vote for this week! Cat VS. Cat Starting off, we have two fierce felines.  Hermione Granger's Crookshanks or Pr...

A few months ago I decided (with the help of several teens) that I wanted to make my own booktube channel of youtube and now it's a reality! If you don't hang out in the bookish community on youtube I'll explain, booktube is basically what it sounds like. Youtube channels dedicated to people reviewing and talking about books. Lots of them focus on new YA books but really people read across all genres. That's what I want to do. I'm a Youth Services librarian, so I read and love a lot of YA books, but I also read didn't genres/age groups etc. and I'm going to talk about all of them on my channel. BUT I won't just be talking about books by myself, some episodes will feature guests stars! First though, I recapped my favorite books from 2014 in two episodes (I talk so much we had to cut it in half). Watch them! Do all those nice things you can do to a youtube video: Like, Comment, Share, Subscribe! Stay posted for more! DFTBA, Sti

You know you can always listen to free audiobooks from Overdrive, but this summer a program called  Audio Sync  is also sponsoring two complete YA Audiobooks a week! If you're interested in audiobooks, but aren't sure where to start, this is a good way to get into them. Here's a list of this summer's selections: SUMMER 2014 SYNC TITLE LINEUP May 15 – May 21 WARP: THE RELUCTANT ASSASSIN by Eoin Colfer, Narrated by Maxwell Caulfield (Listening Library) THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells, Narrated by Derek Jacobi (Listening Library) May 22 – May 28   CRUEL BEAUTY by Rosamund Hodge, Narrated by Elizabeth Knowelden (Harper Audio) OEDIPUS THE KING by Sophocles, Performed by Michael Sheen and a full cast (Naxos AudioBooks) May 29 – June 4 CONFESSIONS OF A MURDER SUSPECT by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, Narrated by Emma Galvin (Hachette Audio) THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE by Agatha Christie, Narrated by Richard E. Grant (Harper Audio) June 5 – June 11   ALL OUR Y...

On April 26th a group of teens, Lisa, and I attended Teen Book Con hosted by Blue Willow Bookshop at Alief Taylor High School. It was a day full of lots of interactions with lots of amazing authors. I was in awe most of the time, sometimes in awe of the authors (I mean, Laurie Halse Anderson, you guys!) but mostly in awe of all the teens and the excellent questions they had and how excited they were to see and meet the authors. Basically, I love when anyone loves something.  We took tons of pictures so I thought I'd post some here and over at the TAG facebook page!  Yeah that's THE Laurie Halse Anderson talking to us (except I was in the bathroom!) Cecil Castelucci and Paige Jackson took a picture of me taking a picture of Kayla taking a picture of Andrew with Marcus Sedgewick Andrew and John Corey Whaley Jackson was brave and tried Peruvian soda! Keenan and Eliot Schrefer Paige and Shannon Hale Shannon Hale was just v...

Yes it is almost the end of April and we're just finishing the YA March Madness. Because that's how we roll.  So...the winner of the 2014 YA March Madness is.....  I know, I know, it's all a big shock. That this book, an underdog really, came out on top of all the other worthy contenders was a big surprise to all of us here at the library.*  Raven Boys  by Maggie Stiefvater was our second place. If you haven't read it yet, you really, really should! It might not have a movie deal, but Maggie Stiefvater is an excellent writer and a really weird human being and the book is so good. When you've read it, come and tell me which character is your favorite. You know, if you can choose just one. I know I can't.   And now, have we talked about The Fault in Our Stars movie yet? Because I'm pretty sure it's going to break all of us. If you want to see the new trailer you'll have to go watch a movie about a wife and two mistresses getting reven...

Yep! March Madness strikes again! If you've been in the library in the past week, you can't have missed the GIANT BLACK MONSTROSITY blocking your view through the library. I don't even know what to call it besides a wall. A wall made of fuzzy velcro-y material to which we can attach things. Anyway, I'm getting off topic. Attached to said giant black wall is this year's bracket of YA books. We chose to go alphabetically first. So the first round pitted Airborn against Allegiant , Hold Me Closer, Necromancer against The Hobbit etc. But that was last week. This week is EVEN HARDER. Seriously, I'm getting hives just thinking about having to choose between some of these books. So here's the deal, all you have to do to help choose the winner is vote! We've got physical ballots conveniently located on the table in front of the aforementioned giant black wall and soon you'll be able to vote online as well! Stay tuned for more info! ...

It's that time of year again. When the weather turns (just a little bit) cooler and night comes early. When things begin going bump in the dark and you see mysterious shapes out of the corner of your eye! That's right, it's All Hallows Read!  I know it's been a year, so here's a refresher, All Hallows Read is the holiday started by my close personal friend Neil Gaiman in order to share books with people! The official day is October 31st so as you can imagine the books we share are usually scary!  You know you can come in any time to get a good book from me, but I'll be pushing really good creepy/scary books until 10/31, so be on the lookout. Below are a few to get you interested. Seventeen-year-old Evie O'Neill is thrilled when she is exiled from small-town Ohio to New York City in 1926, even when a rash of occult-based murders thrusts Evie and her uncle, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, into the thic...

When I was in the 5th grade I had a history teacher who told us that his idea of Heaven would be to sit in a movie theater and watch all of history like it was one long, epic movie. That was he wanted, well that and really buttery popcorn! Much later, I went on to st udy history in college. W hen I think back , it's that little story that partly inspired my love of history.  Rathe r th an think of history like a movie, though, I 've always consider ed history to be one long, epic story. And I love stories. So historical fiction has always fit in perfectly with my interests. I enjoy many different genres but hist orical fiction has always given me a sense of understand ing of and connection to the past. Whether it s Vikings or pioneers . S ervants or princesses . O rdinary people living or dinary lives or famous people changing the world. Th rough these books I have lived hundre ds of different lives in hundreds of different times, it's not unlike time travel...