Library Game Show Tonight

Haven't you always wanted to be on a game-show? Tonight is your chance. Come to the library at 7 p.m. and put your name in a drawing to be a contestant in "Are You Smarter Than a Librarian?" (or just come and watch). You'll answer trivia questions and try to respond correctly to more questions than our 9-member library panel. Prizes will be awarded!

"Cautionary Tales for Teens"

Martin Tahse's After School Specials are a new addition to the YA DVD collection. This article does a good job of describing both the context in which these shows were created and originally received, and how they might come off now. It turns out they were never supposed to be hilarious.

Try out some of these shows (there are scads!), then see if you agree with this statement from the article:

"Indeed, today's teenagers are precociously cynical; raised on Harry Potter and MTV, Cook says, they are more accustomed to dark themes and quick cuts. They prefer TV to talk to them sideways, from odd angles. If her students today saw an After School Special, she says, 'they'd puke. . . . They would find it draggy.'"

Browse-worthiness

I'm terribly fascinated by the PostSecret books (there's also a blog and a community), compiled by Frank Warren. I wouldn't check them out, though, if you can't afford to be distracted.

Since I'm not really anonymous it's not the same, but here's my secret: I tell people that librarians don't get to read all day (and we don't), but I squeeze in all the book browsing I can.

Book Club Discussion

Let's see if we can't get a discussion going on Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin, the New Ulm Public Library's Teen Book Club selection for March. Feel free to comment on anything you liked or disliked about the book, and raise questions of your own.

If you'd like some direction to get started (and because I do like those typewriters), comment on the symbolism of Naomi being found in a typewriter case as a baby.

Pet Subjects

I like to keep tabs on my old place of employment by checking in on MADreads, featuring commentary on books read by staff members.

A fairly recent post mentioned 'pet subjects.' Do you have one? Or a few? One of mine would be wilderness living, as in Helen and Scott Nearing's Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World or Justine Kerfoot's Woman of the Boundary Waters: Canoeing, Guiding, Mushing, and Surviving.

National Poetry Month

April, National Poetry Month, is in full swing. Submit your favorite poems, original or not, to the library (or email them to me), and we'll post them on our "Poetry Wall" near the main desk on the first floor. (Be sure to give authorship credit where it's due!) Or come and browse the poems already posted.




Upstairs in the YA area, poems of particular interest to young people are on display near the rear wall.

Social Reading Online

LibraryThing and Goodreads are two sites that facilitate the social side of reading. LibraryThing allows you to organize your book collection and view the collections of others; you can use Goodreads to list books you've read and share them with friends (think MySpace but with a reading focus). Both sites have other cool features, as well.

Feel free to pass along word of any other sites like these!

April 1