Book Bag: Friendswood Youth Services Blog

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

"It's exciting! You should participate!" ~Lisa, our video editing guru Here's how it goes, the Teen Advisory Group has chosen their 16 favorite YA books and we're going to find out which is the rest of the library's favorite! The books are paired up, vote for your favorite of each pair and turn it in in the ballot box. If you haven't read the books, no worries! We've got 'scouting reports' with some info about the books as well as some reviews by TAG members for you to watch (I'll be posting those here soon)! So come in and vote every week as the books battle it out! Here's the list of contenders for this week: Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater vs . I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick vs . Graceling by Kristin Cashore Cezanne is Missing by Frank McMillan vs. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan Maximum Ride: The Angel Experi...

On the day of an important music competition, talented but painfully introverted and nervous Deirdre Monaghan is helped to perform by the compelling and enigmatic Luke Dillon and finds herself inexorably drawn into the mysteries and dangers of the faerieworld. I've been reading about this book for several weeks/months and I was so excited when it came in that I put it in my bag to read while I was in St. Louis last weekend. Turns out it was an excellent choice, this book was full of romance, suspense, magic, best friends, some seriously scary faeries, and even some funny bits. Deirdre plays the harp (who plays the harp? Awesome), but she has horrible stage fright, right before a big competition she meets up with the mysterious and super-hot Luke and learns that she is a Clover Hand--someone who is able to see faeries. On top of this her awful aunt is in town and the Faerie Queen is out to get her. Deirdre is a great character, she's smart and funny and though she's overwhe...

So, the word is the publishing corporations aren't doing so hot. It looks like people aren't buying enough books! This is very sad because this means that people who work in publishing are losing their jobs, good authors aren't getting their books published, and sometimes libraries even have to close! *GASP!* So with the holidays approaching I wanted to point out this campaign that's begun. For presents this year, consider giving books away! The link below gives some excellent reasons for giving books as presents, and I know I alwyas love getting books. Big surprise right? http://www.buybooksfortheholidays.com/ I have knocked 2 more books off my tall-as-I-am pile o'books! The first was Let It Snow by Maureen Johnson, John Green and Lauren Myracle. This is an excellent book which is really 3 awesome short stories by 3 really funny YA authors. Some of you may know of my obsession with the great Maureen Johnson (if you don't just ask!), and now I think I'll ...

Hmm, where to start. This Friday we'll be finishing the most awesome (and one of my favorite) movies of all time: Howl's Moving Castle ! It's the extremely strange story of a girl named Sophie who has a spell put on her that makes her look like an old lady. Sophie sets out to find the Witch of the Waste who cursed her and becomes housekeeper to the mysterious Wizard Howl in his moving castle. There is a little boy apprentice, a bespelled scarecrow named Turnip Head, a fire demon named Calcifer, and many more crazy characters we have yet to meet, while Howl tries to avoid becoming part of a war and Sophie attempts to get rid of the spell on her as well as the spell that binds Calcifer to Howl. Come join us! = totally awesome movie. Try the book too! In other news, I stayed home from work yesterday because I was sick (I feel much better today, think I just needed to rest), but that meant I had a chance to catch up on some reading I've been meaning to do (you should...