Saint Paul (MN) public schools and the Saint Paul Public Library have teamed up to provide library cards and library resources to incoming freshmen with their Wild Cards! summer school program.
Saint Paul (MN) Schools and Public Library’s Wild Cards! Partnership
By on July 10, 2013 Leave a Comment
Augmented Reality with Aurasma | Tech Tidbits
By on July 9, 2013 3 Comments
Aurasma is an augmented reality tool which allows you to overlay images and videos on to static content, sort of like “QR codes on steroids.” The Guybrarian has incorporated it into his back-to-school library orientation plan, and thinks you should too.
Marie Lu and Alex London Talk About Debt, Society and ‘Proxy’ | SLJTeen Interview
By on July 8, 2013 Leave a Comment
Marie Lu, author of the “Legend” series (Putnam) knows a thing or two about dystopian worlds. That made her the perfect person to sit down with Alex London to talk about some of the observations he draws about society in his YA debut novel Proxy (Philomel).
Owen David Campbell | From the Trenches
By on June 19, 2013 2 Comments
Sara Grajek Campbell, our former From the Trenches columnist, got married while writing for SLJTeen. She gave up working on the column in order to pursue another project. Here’s a glimpse of what that “project” looks like.
Youth Ethical Fashion Show | Teen Programming
By on June 18, 2013 Leave a Comment
On June 22, The Alameda Shore Center will be hosting The Alameda Youth Ethical Fashion Show. As a way to advocate recycling and sustainability, the fashion show challenges area teen designers to create high-fashion wearables using only clothing purchased at second-market outlets, such as used clothing stores and thrift shops.
National HIV Testing Day | Resources for You and Your Teens
By on June 18, 2013 Leave a Comment
National HIV Testing Day (NHTD) is June 27th . First established in 2005 by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, NHTD seeks to bring attention to the importance of HIV testing, and through its website, make resources readily available to those who are looking for testing locations, disease facts, and more.
LEAP Grants for Libraries – Last Days to Vote
By on June 18, 2013 Leave a Comment
Only a few nonprofit organizations will get up to $7,500 in funding from Better World Books, and the public can decide which one will get the prize. In 2012, approximately 3.5 million dollars worth of grant requests and more than 50 applications were reviewed by the Better World Books Literacy and Library Council, and three very worthy projects were selected. Now the clock is ticking for 2013—voting closes in just a few days!
Good News for Custodians Everywhere: Gum is Losing Its Popularity with Teens
By on June 5, 2013 Leave a Comment
Tired of scraping the sticky stuff off desks, shoes, and water fountains? According to a report in Crain’s Chicago Business, gum no longer has a hold on teen tastes, despite experiments with wild flavor combinations and smaller, less expensive packages. Apparently, with the cost of a pack of chewing gum hovering close to $2.00, teens are choosing other snacks to get them through the day.
Teens Review ‘Charm & Strange’, ‘Since You Asked’, ‘The Beginning of Everything’ | Books
By on June 4, 2013 Leave a Comment
Bookmarked, SLJ’s teen review group, comes up with three terrific titles to recommend, each completely different from each other, but all compelling stories. Get Stephanie Kuehn’s Charm & Strange, Maurene Goo’s Since You Asked, and Robyn Schneider’s The Beginning of Everything on your library shelves-your teens will thank you for it.
Project:Connect | Summer Youth Programming Competition Now Open
By on May 15, 2013 Leave a Comment
The Project:Connect Summer Youth Programming Competition is now accepting proposals for its fifth Digital Media and Learning (DML5) event. DML supports single or multiday participatory and hands-on learning experiences, such as labs, hackathons, and pop-up events which will be held at U.S.-based organizations from July-September, 2013. Proposals must be submitted by June 10, and selected programs are eligible for awards of up to $10,000.
The Debut: Evan Roskos’s ‘Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets’
By on May 14, 2013 Leave a Comment
Author Evan Roskos digs deep into real-life adolescent issues in Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets , including high school expulsion, self-abuse, stalking, and cliques. SLJTeen talked to Roskos about his emotionally moving and ultimately redemptive debut YA novel.
National Book Foundation Announces 2013 Innovations in Reading Winners
By on May 14, 2013 Leave a Comment
The Innovations in Reading program recognizes institutions and individuals who strive to nurture and promote love of books and reading. Sponsored by the National Book Foundation, prize winners are awarded up to $2500 each to help fund their initiatives and serve even more readers. This year’s winners span the globe, delivering truly unique programs to readers of all ages.
Blast Off with ‘Astronaut Academy: Re-Entry’ | Win a Free Comics Workshop
By on May 14, 2013 Leave a Comment
The long-awaited sequel to Dave Roman’s Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity has finally been released! And because there should always be prizes, Dave has created oodles of ways to win stuff. Get your hands on the new title, and blog about it, create fan art, or write a review, and you can win a chance to interview Dave, get a gigantic digital comics collection or original artwork. There’s even a special prize just for librarians and educators—one classroom or library will win a free comics workshop (held over Skype) by Jerzy Drozd, creator of Comics Are Great!
Burn Note: The Snapchat of Texting
By on April 30, 2013 Leave a Comment
Burn Note gives users the feeling that they can talk to anyone about anything because each text conversation “self-destructs,” much like Snapchat (the real-time picture chatting application) does with images.
Teens Review ‘If You Find Me’,'Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong’, ‘Burning’, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Scream’ | Book Reviews
By on April 30, 2013 Leave a Comment
Emily Murdoch explores kidnapping, selective mutism, and drug abuse in her debut novel ‘If You Find Me’. Which group will get school funding, cheerleading or the robotics club? In Prudence Shen’s ‘Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong’ the two cliques take the fight to the school election. If you never thought the Burning Man Festival would show up in teen fiction, think again—a local boy and a gypsy girl connect there in Elana K. Arnold’s ‘Burning’. Does R.L. Stine still have his horror chops? Read our reviewer’s take on ‘A Midsummer’s Night Scream’, and decide for yourself.
Sullivan Award Goes to Kathleen Reif
By on April 29, 2013 Leave a Comment
Kathleen Reif, director of St. Mary’s County Library, Leonardtown, MD, is the 2013 recipient of Peggy Sullivan Award for Public Library Administrators Supporting Services to Children. The Sullivan Award, administered by the American Library Association (ALA), is presented annually to an individual in a library administrator role who has shown exceptional understanding and support of public library service to children. The award will be presented at the ALA President’s Program, Sunday, June 30, at the Annual Conference in Chicago.
‘I Could Pee on This’ Cat Poetry Inspires Teen Orators
By on April 15, 2013 2 Comments
Fred Smith, a junior at Vidor (TX) High School, needed to find something written by an author after 1960 for the Oral Interpretation portion of a prose and poetry competition. He found Francesco Marciuliano’s I Could Pee on This, and Other Poems by Cats (Chronicle Books, August 2012) fit the bill. Smith’s drama teacher, Adam Conrad, reports that his student recently placed first at the District 20 AAAA level Oral Interpretation contest and has advanced to the Regional level that will be held April 20, 2013 at Sam Houston State University, as part of the Texas UIL (University Interscholastic League) Prose and Poetry Competition.
Book Reviews from Young Adults: The Moon and More, Love in the Time of Global Warming, A Corner of White
By on April 3, 2013 Leave a Comment
Teens from the Patrick F. Taylor Science and Technology Academy review new entries from YA author standbys Sarah Dessen and Frances Lia Block, and Aussie writer Jaclyn Moriarty’s quirky new novel.
Tech Tidbits: Testing, Testing, One, Two, Spring! ACT and SAT Prep Help
By on April 3, 2013 Leave a Comment
It’s spring! Just like the narrator says in the 1947 educational film Body Care and Grooming, “Ah, spring. When birds are on the wing, when flowers bloom… Spring, when a young man’s fancy likely turns to….”—Author unknown. The answer has to be testing! High-stakes testing! Advanced Placement testing! American College Testing or even the SAT! Students feel pressured to work hard to prove themselves in this world of achievement.
ThingLink and Rosen Digital Launch Interactive Image Contest for K-12 Students
By on April 2, 2013 Leave a Comment
Encourage your students to harness their creative energies, follow their interests and passions, and put their 21st-century skills to good use. That’s exactly what a contest for K–12 students from ThingLink and Rosen Digital aims to do. Thanks to the new contest, kids have an opportunity to create interactive ThingLink images, connect multiple resources into a cohesive presentation, and share their projects with a large community. And even better, they can win an iPad Mini or an annual subscription to one of Rosen Digital’s online databases.
