Happy Hunger Games Day!

Has anyone seen The Hunger Games yet? How did it compare to the book? Was it too scary for little kids? I'm seeing it tonight at 9:00 pm and I can't wait!

While you wait for your chance to see the much-awaited movie, why not play Hunger Games games!?

Scholastic has created two of these: The first is called "Trial By Fire," where you can find out if you're ready for the Hunger Games and test your abilities to see if you'd be able to survive the real thing. The next is called "Tribute Trials," where you can see if you can survive being in an arena like the one in the Hunger Games, then try to discover how you might improve your chances.

Click here to play!

And let me know when you've seen the movie!

Waiting for the Hunger Games...

With the Hunger Games movie coming out in just THREE days, Figment.com has created a few funny charts to keep us entertained while we wait for the big night.
Click here for the rest of the Hunger Games related charts and graphs.

It's almost here! And if you haven't seen it yet, get yourself pumped up with this trailer:


May the odds be ever in your favor!

A Wrinkle In Time's 50th Anniversary

I just found out from YALSA's The Hub that this year is the 50th anniversary of one of my favorite books, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time!

As one of the earliest books with a female heroine, A Wrinkle In Time is not only a classic story but kind of a ground breaker for women!

Meg Murry, our protagonist, is a regular girl... not too pretty, not too cool, and totally anxious, fussy, and short-tempered. But it's this collection of faults that (a) get her the popular boy in school and (b) ultimately save everyone she cares about.

A Wrinkle in Time, however, almost wasn't published! The publishers had a hard time determining just who this book was for. They felt it would be too difficult for children to read but with all children characters, it wouldn't interest adults. Many also didn't like how L'Engle dealt overtly with the idea of good and evil.

But eventually (luckily) A Wrinkle in Time was published and thank goodness it was! Even 50 years later, it's still going strong as a popular favorite!

Put a hold on A Wrinkle in Time if you've never read it before (and even if you have!) and, for more A Wrinkle in Time fun, check out a few book trailers below:

Read Across America Day!

Today is Read Across America Day and, to celebrate, the cast of the upcoming film, The Lorax (which is out TODAY!), wants to share their love for reading:



National Education Association's Read Across America Day is an annual reading motivation program that brings thousands of kids and teens in schools, libraries, and community centers together with books. Each year, it's celebrated on Dr. Seuss's birthday, and today Dr. Seuss would have been 108!

So, what are you reading today to celebrate?

This year's Read Across America theme is "Read for the Trees." NEA's campaign will showcase The Lorax book as well as the upcoming movie, The Lorax.

To download a printable The Lorax Reading Certificate, click here!

And for more Dr. Seuss fun, check out Seussville.com or TheLoraxMovie.com

Happy Leap Day!

It's Leap Day!... or, February 29th. I don't know about you, but I find having a bonus day kind of exciting!

Here are some fun facts about Leap Years:

2012, as well as all leap years, consists of 366 days, as opposed to 365. Leap Years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun. It takes the Earth 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds (a tropical year) to circle once around the Sun. However, the Gregorian calendar (ours) has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn't add a day on February 29 about every 4 years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. That means that after only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days!

Leap years can't just be decided at random though! In the Gregorian calendar, there are 3 criteria that must be met to be a leap year:

1. The year must be evenly divisible by 4.
2. If the year can be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless...
3. The year is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.

Don't worry if this doesn't make sense. Someone's already done all the work for us, but did you have any idea there was so much behind it? I sure didn't!

Julius Caesar introduced Leap Years in the Roman empire over 2000 years ago, but the Julian calendar had only one rule: any year evenly divisible by 4 would be a leap year. This lead to way too many leap years, however this issue didn't get corrected until the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar more than 1500 years later.

So, that leaves one more question...where does the word "leap" come in to play? This is another complicated explanation but in a normal sequence of years, a calendar date (say February 28th) falls on Monday one year, Tuesday the next year, then Wednesday the year after that and so on. But every fourth year, thanks to the extra day in February, we "leap" over the expected day of the week. So February 28th was a Monday last year, a Tuesday this year, and will be a Thursday in 2013. We "leaped over" Wednesday! Get it?

Happy Leap Day! Enjoy the extra 24-hours!

Teen Tech Week 2012

March 4th starts Teen Tech Week! And this year's theme is Geek Out @ your library.

The purpose of this week is to make sure that teens are competent and ethical users of technologies...especially the ones that are offered through libraries, like DVDs, databases, audiobooks, and video games, etc.

Remember that the library is a good resource for accessing information. Librarians (like me!) are the experts who can help teens (like you!) develop the skills necessary to use electronic resources effectively and efficiently. This, in turn, can help you get more out of the technology that you use.

So stop by the library during Teen Tech Week and ask us a question about ebook readers, homework help, video games, or any other technology you might be curious about. We're here to help!

Merrylands Central Library

Ask me where I've disappeared to. Go head, ask.

I've been away in Australia!

While I was gone, I had the pleasure of visiting a few area libraries, including the Merrylands Central Library, which is a regular, not-too-fancy library slapped in the middle of suburbia, about a half-hour outside of Sydney.

Here I am at the library's MASSIVE entrance, looking super excited to get inside and see what a library on the other side of the world looks like!

I learned that the Merrylands Central Library is part of a library system called the Holroyd Council, which operates the Merrylands Central as well as two other branch libraries.

Inside, the library resembles a combination of a big city library and a small town library, with lots of open space and natural light, but book collections that are substantially smaller than an American library's counterpart.

Here I am in the children's nonfiction section, taking a look at the collection.

If you find libraries on the other side of the world (literally) as interesting as I do, take a look at BootsNAll's list, "10 of the Most Beautiful Libraries and Bookshops to Visit on Your Travels" and make an effort of visit one of THOSE libraries.

Or why not visit the Holroyd City Library website and marvel at the similarities and differences between American libraries and Australian libraries right from home?