Issue 9 2-2-11

Issue 9 is now available online!  Check out the amazing artwork and writings from recent residents.  I hope you enjoy this magazine as much as we did at the library!

Issue 9 2-2-11

Oodles and oodles of doodles!

Last night's program featured scribbles, scraggles, and drawings!  As a group, we took a look at some droodles (doodle riddles, that is), listened to read alouds of The Pencil by Allan Ahlberg and Art by Patrick McDonald.

They doodled in new drawing pads they received thanks to a grant from United Way with ideas they pulled from the drawing jar!  The residents learned about their public libraries in Lancaster and York, ate some yummy home-baked cookies, and played a silly doodle droodle game where they had to make art from their neighbors squiggles!  It was a ton of fun!

New books for the new year!

Here are some new books we just added to the YIC library!  They've already left the shelves. :) 

Guinness World Records 2011

Guinness World Records 2011 continues to build on the intriguing, informative, inspiring and instructional records and superlatives that have made Guinness World Records one of the most famous brands and an annual best-seller around the world.







Can't Get There From Here by Todd Strasser

 She calls herself Maybe. Thrown out by her abusive mom, she struggles to survive on the streets of New York with homeless teens who become a family in the asphalt jungle. They try to care for one another, but it doesn't help much. They beg and forage for food. Maybe knows some of them work as prostitutes and deal drugs. One or two do find loving homes, but most will die--from AIDS, violence, exposure, suicide. Without sentimentality or exploitation, Maybe's disturbing first-person narrative lets readers know exactly what it's like to live without shelter, huddling in nests of rags, newspapers, and plastic bags.



Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser

 High school sophomores Gary Searle and Brendan Lawlor have had enough. Day in and day out, for more than two years, they have been harassed, beaten up, and cursed out by most of the jocks at Middleton High--especially by football player Sam Flach. Armed with guns they've stolen from a neighbor's collection, Gary and Brendan storm a school dance, booby trap all the doors with homemade bombs, and prepare to turn their high school caste system upside down with a violent show of force.





Last Chance in Texas by John Hubner

 It's hardly surprising that Texas, with its reputation for being big, brash and tough, would run one of the country's most aggressive programs for criminal youth. Teenagers who commit violent crimes are confined to a secure campus, but the Texas Youth Commission also provides them with an opportunity to reclaim their future. In this important book, Hubner, an editor for the San Jose Mercury News, expertly examines the big picture: the spike in juvenile crime from 1984 to 1994, and the legislative initiatives that led to the creation of the TYC. It's his ability to tie those facts to the reality of daily life at the Giddings State School through the eyes of the students, therapists, teachers and athletic coaches that gives this book its power. Hubner focuses on Elena and Ronnie, two young offenders at Giddings, as they are forced to confront and make sense of their pasts, re-enacting the most traumatic scenes of their childhoods and their crimes.


Street Love by Walter Dean Myers

 In short lines of free verse, teens in Harlem tell a story of anger, loss, and love across social-class lines. Damien, 17, is a basketball champion and academic star, accepted into a top college. His parents want him to date middle-class Roxanne, but he falls in love with gorgeous Junice, 16, who is desperate to protect her little sister after their single-parent mom is sentenced to 25 years for dealing drugs.





  
The Rose That Grew From Concrete by Tupac Shakur

 A collection of poetry written by the rapper between 1989 and 1991, before he became famous. The poems are passionate, sometimes angry, and often compelling. Selections are reproduced from the originals in Shakur's handwriting, personalized by distinctive spelling and the use of ideographs (a drawing of an eye for I, etc.), and complete with scratch outs and corrections.



 


You Don't Even Know Me by Sharon G. Flake

en portraits interspersed with poetry draw readers into the lives of a variety of African-American teens. In "Getting Even," a boy copes with his grandfather's death and the desire to find who killed him. Jeffery, 16, gets thrown out of his Auntie's house with nowhere to go. Eric goes against his dad's command to stay home with his siblings and instead finds a girl, some fun, and some trouble; Justin writes in his journal about death, suicide, and sexual abuse. La'Ron is too afraid to tell his father he is HIV positive, so he writes him a letter, and his father writes back.

Bringing Bill Behind Bars

Bill Shakespeare that is.  Or as most of you know him, William.

That's right, last week I hosted the Shakespeare program with the students at the YIC.  We kicked off the night with a Shakespeare trivia game to get some facts down about Bill's life, work, and time.  Smarties were the prize for the winner... 'cause the winner had to be pretty smart to get those answers right!

Next, the teens played a homemade version of Nine Men's Morris, a checkers-like game Shakespeare himself may have played in the Elizabethan Era.  The game board, authentically, looks like this.

But the teens played a paper version with swedish fish and m&ms as their game pieces!

We watched a video clip from the lovely Reduced Shakespeare Company.  These guys ROCK and the teens were laughing SO HARD.  See for yourself!



The teens lastly got a taste of acting themselves, learned about their public libraries in Lancaster, and learned how to use the library in the center.

Issue 8 of What's Up? Magazine wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving!

Check it out!!

Issue 8 11-3-2010

Thank you to William "Mickey" Beck for his continued support by making these AWESOME covers for the magazines!!