The Summer is upon us! That can mean only one thing, it is time for the beginning of the Vacation Reading Program. This year the big prize is a Kindle reader. (We have three to give away!)

Starting May 25, 2013 you can participate in the Teen Vacation Reading Program. You can can read for hours read or participate in an approved literacy activity. For every four hours read,  four activities or combination of these, you earn a raffle ticket. You can earn up to twelve raffle tickets to try and win prizes . The Vacation Reading Program will end on July 31st. You can pick up your logs at your local branch or register online on the Teen Page.

Don’t forget to check out the Teen Page for a list of all of the approved literacy activities. New this year, you can earn one activity by just liking us on our Teen Facebook page. If you register online, don’t forget to stop by a branch to pick up a Reading Make Cent$ College Sweepstakes bookmark to find out how to enter the sweepstakes. You could win $5,000 to apply towards college.

We would like to thank the following Sponsor: DeKalb County Library Foundation.

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Celebrate Haitian Heritage Month

by DCPL on May 17, 2013

May is not only Asian Pacific Heritage month but also Haitian Heritage Month. There have been a variety of teen novels written with Haitian characters. Here are a few you might try to celebrate this heritage:

In Darkness By Nick Lake

In the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, fifteen-year-old Shorty, a poor gang member from the slums of Site Soleil, is trapped in the rubble of a ruined hospital, and as he grows weaker he has visions and memories of his life of violence, his lost twin sister, and of Toussaint L’Ouverture, who liberated Haiti from French rule in the 1804.

 

Taste of Salt: a story of modern Haiti by Frances Temple

In the hospital after being beaten by Macoutes, seventeen-year-old Djo tells the story of his impoverished life to a young woman who, like him, has been working with the social reformer Father Aristide to fight the repression in Haiti.

Touching Snow by M. Sidni Felin

After her stepfather is arrested for child abuse, fourteen-year-old Karina’s home life improves but while the severity of her older sister’s injuries and the urging of her younger sister, their uncle, and a friend tempt her to testify against him, her mother and other well-meaning adults pursuade her to claim responsibility.

Safekeeping by Karen Hesse

When Radley returns to the United States after volunteering abroad, she comes back to a country under military rule with strict travel restrictions, and she must find her way back to her Vermont home through the New England woods.

 

Fresh Girl by Jaira Placide

After having been sent, at a very young age, from New York to live with her grandmother in Haiti, fourteen-year-old Mardi returns to join her parents and try to shape a new life in Brooklyn.

Stormwitch by Susan Vaught

In Pass Christian, Mississippi in 1969, sixteen-year-old Ruba, trained by her Haitian grandmother in both voodoo and Amazonian warrior tactics, uses her skills to fight against racism and the African witch Zashar, now coming ashore in the form of Hurricane Camille.

The Broken Bridge by Philip Pullman

Over the course of a long summer in Wales, sixteen-year-old Ginny, the mixed-race, artist daughter of an English father and a Haitian mother, learns that she has a half-brother from her father’s earlier marriage, and that her own mother may still be alive.

 

To celebrate Asian Pacific Heritage month the Chamblee library has a program on how to make dough figurines on May 18, 2013. If interested, please call the branch to register.

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Last week the author ofPeter Pan, J.M. Barrie would have celebrated her 153rd birthday if she was alive. We all have either seen the movie or read the book as a youngster. Fairy tales have been told in many teen books over the last few years. Below is a list of some books showcasing fairies.

Tithe by Holly Black

Sixteen-year-old Kaye, who has been visited by faeries since childhood, discovers that she herself is a magical faerie creature with a special destiny

 

Valiant by Holly Black

Seventeen-year-old Valerie, who has befriended a unusally group, now is bound into service with a troll. When seventeen-year-old Valerie Russell runs away to New York City, she’s trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city’s labyrinthine subway system. But there’s something eerily beguiling about Val’s new friends. There’s the impulsive Lolli who talks of monsters in the tunnels and shoots up a strange amber-colored powder that makes the shadows around her dance. There’s the severe Luis who the others claim can make deals with creatures that no one else can see. And then there’s Luis’s brother, timid Dave, who makes the mistake of letting Val tag along as he makes a delivery to a woman who turns out to have goat hooves instead of feet. When a bewildered Val allows Lolli to talk her into tracking down the hidden lair of the creature for whom Luis and Dave have been dealing, Val finds herself bound into service by a troll named Ravus. He is as hideous as he is honorable. And as Val grows to know him, she finds herself torn between her affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming.

The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

“Meghan Chase has a secret destiny–one she could never have imagined. Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan’s life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she’s known is about to change. But she could never have guessed the truth–that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she’ll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart.”–p.[4] of cover

 

Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev

Seventeen-year-old Bertie strives to find a useful role for herself at the Theater Illuminata so that she won’t be cast out of the only home she has ever known, but is hindered by the Players who magically live on there, especially Ariel, who is willing to destroy the Book at the center of the magic in order to escape into the outside world.

 

Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner

Fifteen-year-old Liza travels through war-ravaged territory in a struggle to bridge the faerie and human worlds and to bring back her mother while learning of her own powers and that magic can be controlled.

Impossible by Nancy Werlin

When seventeen-year-old Lucy discovers her family is under an ancient curse by an evil Elfin Knight, she realizes to break the curse she must perform three impossible tasks before her daughter is born in order to save them both.

 

 

The Treachery of Beautiful Things by Ruth Frances Long

Seven years after the forest seemingly swallowed her brother whole, seventeen-year-old Jenny, whose story about Tom’s disappearance has never been believed, sets out to finally say goodbye, but instead she is pulled into a mysterious world of faeries and other creatures where nothing is what it seems.

The Faerie Ring by Kiki Hamilton

The year is 1871, and Tiki has been making a home for herself and her family of orphans in a deserted hideaway adjoining Charing Cross Station in central London. They survive by picking pockets. One December night, Tiki steals a ring, and sets off a chain of events that could lead to all-out war with the Fey. With the ring missing, a rebel group of faeries hopes to break a treaty with dark magic and blood–Tiki’s blood. . “– provided by publisher.

Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

When Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, she is exiled to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.

 

Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr

Seventeen-year-old Leslie wants a tattoo as a way of reclaiming control of herself and her body, but the eerie image she selects pulls her into the dangerous Dark Court of the faeries, where she draws on inner strength to make a horrible choice.

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Iron Man

by DCPL on May 3, 2013

The latest Iron Man movie comes out today. To celebrate here is a list of some Iron Man books.

 Ultimate Iron Man by Orson Scott Card

Describes the birth and childhood of Tony Stark who became Iron Man as an adult when he created his signature armor that gave him powers and saved his life in more ways than one.

 

Invincible Iron Man: the five nightmares  by Matt Fraction

Tony Stark – Iron Man, billionaire industrialist, and director of S.H.I.E.L.D. – faces the most overwhelming challenge of his life. Ezekiel Stane, the son of Tony’s late business rival and arch-enemy Obadiah, has set his sights, his genius, and his considerable fortune on the task of destroying Tony Stark and Iron Man. What’s worse, he’s got Iron Man tech, and he’s every bit Iron Man’s equal and opposite, except younger, faster, smarter – and immeasurably evil! Collects Invincible Iron Man #1-6.

Invincible Iron Man: most wanted by Matt Fraction

Tony Stark is in danger of losing his mind after his leadership role with S.H.I.E.L.D. is dropped and he is forced to go on the run when Norman Osborn’s Dark Reign declares him their most wanted fugitive.

 

Iron Man. Stark Resilient. by Matt Fraction

“When Justine and Sasha Hammer said they were going to take on Iron Man and the nascent Stark Resilient, they weren’t bluffing. Their implementation of Detroit Steel led to worldwide embarassment for Tony Stark. The whispers of his irrelevance in the tech industry added insult to injury. But for the Hammer girls, that was merely the opening salvo. With War Machine grounded by the Pentagon, Pepper missing the RT-charged heart that made her Rescue and Tony’s Resilient team struggling to put their clean-energy tech into production, they’re about to up the ante. Now, Iron Man’s going to find out just what ‘resilient’ really means” — dust jacket back cover.

 

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Georgia Peach Awards for Teen Readers Nominees 2013-2014

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Celebrate Teen Literature Day… Georgia style

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Prom Season is Here!

  Spring is here so that means proms are right around the corner. The hair, makeup, dresses, tuxedos and dinners are the activities leading up to the big day. Well of course, there is the Who are you going with? Did you ask so and so? What about going solo? and all of the drama [...]

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