A while ago I shared with you a review of It’s a Bird, from a graphic novel review newsletter I write for my library system called Getting Graphic.  It has been a little longer between reviews than I had planned, but today I am back with two more reviews for you.  The first review is a newer title that you should definitely be aware of and the second is an older title, and is perhaps my favorite graphic novel of all time.  I will continue to post more titles here each month or so, but if you want a little more please check out the newsletter itself and feel free to subscribe if you so desire.

The Plain Janes
By: Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg

When Jane was knocked off her feet by a nearby terrorist attack in Metro City her parents decide it is time to leave.  The family moves a long way from the city to a suburban town called Kent Waters.  Jane hates it there, until she forms a secret club called People Loving Art In Neighborhoods, or simply P.L.A.I.N.   The group, which is made up of four less than popular girls, all named Jane, attempts to create meaning both for themselves and for their town by creating renegade art projects throughout the community.  While some folks seem to love the art provided by P.L.A.I.N. the community as a whole begins to fear it and starts to investigate these “crimes” very seriously.  The Plain Janes is the first of a variety of graphic novels put out by MINX, an imprint of D.C. comics that is aimed at teenage girls.  It is fun and quirky, and will certainly appeal to its intended audience, as well any adult, female or male, who can remember what it is like to be a teenager trying to find his or her way through life.

Blankets
By: Craig Thompson

At a very expansive 592 pages, Blankets has the space to cover a lot of material.  In this novel, the author relates his childhood, telling readers about his family, which consists of two very religious and strict parents as well as a younger brother who is at times the companion in his adventures but can also double as his mortal enemy.  His bizarre family life and childhood are the reasons that he often feels ostracized from his peers until he meets Raina, who soon becomes his first love. This is a coming of age tale, much akin in style to J.D. Salinger’s classic The Catcher in the Rye.  Often, Heralded as one of the best ever graphic novels and as one of the first great examples of the genre, Blankets has a lot to live up to.  Readers will not, however, be disappointed in this choice, even if they go in with the highest of expectations.  This is one title that any graphic novel fan should be aware of, and is a great title for a first exposure to the genre.

We’ve never had a great deal of success with teen book clubs at our library.  Nowadays we usually just try to incorporate books into whatever program we’re doing at the time.  So I was paying very close attention to the YALSA BOOK listserve last week which was practically on fire with all sorts of creative ideas for book clubs.  One in particular caught my eye,  the Missing Ending Book Club. 

 The Missing Ending Book Club idea originated with the Weld County Library in Greely, Colorado.  After viewing their presentation at a conference, Janet Good of North Branch Summit County Library was insipired enough to start her own.  Janet explained the concept of the book club in a recent write-up in her local newspaper:

“Each reader gets a book with a twist:  the final pages stapled off!  At club meetings, readers tell how they would end the story, and then find out the author’s take.  Besides the joy of exercising his or her creativity, the reader with the best guess gets a prize.”

Janet also includes related snacks and crafts during the program, depending on what book is being read.  When their club read The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp by Rick Yancey, the groups craft was to make a sort of self-made coat of arms shield.  The snack was mini corn dogs and Coke because that was the first meal the main character Alfred introduced the knight to in the book.  She also hands out candy to anyone who guesses the ending of the book correctly.  ”I used gold-wrapped chocolate coins that meeting.  The prize for the best guess as to the ending of the story was a DVD of Camelot.”

The model of the Missing Ending Book Club can be adapted using a variety of different books.  Mysterious would obviously be the easiest genre but any book with a twist at the end will do.  If you want to make the program more for older teens then maybe something like What happened to Cass McBride by Gail Giles or Tyrell by Coe Booth would work.  At any rate, it’s a fantastic way to jazz up a book club and help teens get a little more excited about reading.

For more information about creating successful teen book clubs, try The Teen Centered Book Club: Readers into Leaders by Bonnie Kunzel and Constance Hardesty.

*The information/quotes about the Missing Ending Book Club at the North Branch Summit Library was taken from Janet Good’s email to the YALSA listserve, with her permission.  Thank you Janet. :-) 

This Product Is Harmful To Your Health

Most of us are familiar with the mandate of women’s magazines to build us up on one page and tear us down on the next through the cult of the body, the aspirational advertorializing of products and celebrity, and the usage of stereotyped gender roles. While men’s magazines may be culpable of these offenses to some degree, they are fundamentally different. They are based on interest and experience and doing rather than shopping and adorning and being and are defined less by guilt, caution, and anxiety than by an enthusiasm for subjects like music, biking, design, naked women, business, or literature.

Of course, it is not accurate to say magazines like Rolling Stone, Wallpaper, Bicycling, Juxtapoz, Foreign Affairs, Discover, or Business Week are for men. Women read them too. But most media is intended for a white male audience unless it pronounces otherwise. Why do women need a such large airless body of literature devoted to consuming femininity? Why aren’t parallel glossies for men successful (Men’s Vogue, anyone?)

Unfortunately, this is duplicated for children’s and teen magazines and the makeup and dieting frenzy has been filtered down to children and teens, changing bodies and minds that need play and flexibility more than they need withholding and narrowness. In a public library, the available magazines for young people include CosmoGIRL, Teen Vogue, Lucky, Girls’ Life, Cheerleader, Boys’ Life, Spin, Hype Hair, and various gaming mags. This reading material is a small part of the heterosexist, classist, gendered climate in which kids are reared. Early on, children learn that the life of boys is devoted to fun while girls require regimens and advice, paeans to perfection. Aside from New Moon, I see no alternatives to the monoculture that prescribes The Way to Be for Girls and Boys.

Where are the alternatives? Where is the young adult Bitch, Believer, Adbusters, Arthur, Maximum Rock’n'Roll, Venus Zine, Utne Reader? Why aren’t these magazines in YA rooms? Sure, they have their faults, but they attempt to be sources of knowledge and criticism and enlightenment, whereas more mainstream magazines are devoted to checklists and manuals and rules. Media consolidation is locking us out of alternative choices. There is no more Punk Planet or Stay Free or Sassy or Black Girl. We are depending on conglomerates to teach us about ourselves and our culture.

If we decide to buy these titles for children and teens, we should at least provide them with alternatives. If we can’t buy indie magazines, we should encourage kids to make their own zines in the absence of counterculture print material and check out others on the Web

P.S. What do you think about Adbusters’ proposed CosmoGIRL ads?

Alt. Teen Services received a mention in the latest issue of VOYA! Do you remember the Alternative Teen Fashion show we blogged about in the past? Well it just so happens that the Alt. Teen Fashion show, facilitated by Jenine Lillian, received VOYA’s Most Valuable Program award for Young Adults 2006! And she kindly gave credit to yalibrarian for promoting the books that jumpstarted the entire fashion ordeal.

“After Stephanie Iser, a teen librarian in Kansas City, Missouri, posted an entry on her nationally recognized blog, Alternative Teen Services (http://www.yalibrarian.com), about cool, new fashion books for teens, Lillian ordered the books for her library’s young adult collection.While visiting schools in Fayetteville, she booktalked several titles including Generation T: 101 Ways to Transform a TShirt by Megan Nicolay. When she introduced this book, sparks flew among the teens. By August, a Teen Alternative Fashion Show Planning Team of twenty teens began meeting with Lillian to brainstorm about creating an event unlike anything they had ever experienced. They set their sights on Teen Read Week in October for their performance date.”

Wow! Thanks for the mention Jenine, and it’s good to know our blog is being so inspirational to yalibrarians. But let me give credit where credit is due! Amanda Rodriguez is the brilliant mind behind the collection development posts, including the blog regarding cool new fashion books for teens.

So I have a few points to make, in no particular order:

A) Congratulations to Jenine and all the hard working teens at Fayetteville Public Library for getting Most Valuable Program of the year! That’s amazing, and we here at Alternative Teen Services think your program hands-down deserves the award.

B) The write-up in VOYA provides a lot of background information about the planning that went into the event, and tips for hosting a similar program at your own library. So read the article in full to get some tips!
http://pdfs.voya.com/VO/YA2/VOYA200710fashion_show.pdf

C) Amanda, thanks for being an awesome contributor to YALIBRARIAN.COM. Your posts have been very cutting edge, always providing interesting insight and a fresh look into teen library services. Thanks for being such a voracious reader and letting us know your opinion on new books, notifying us of the new stuff that’s worth ordering, and finally, for being such a big teen advocate as I personally know you are from working with you at the Kansas City Public Library. And thanks for inspiring the Alt. Teen Fashion Show!

Previously I posted about what I have planned for Teen Read Week at my library and I asked what you have planned.  Today I am back with the first few responses.

Kimberly, a Teen Services Librarian from the Kingston Frontenac Public Library writes:

We usually put up dispays and have our municipalities declare Teen Read Week.  This year, we are also holding a teen membership drive throughout the week.  We will be holding a drawing at the end of the week, and the winner will get an iPod Nano Video.  Teens will get a ballot if they:

1. register for a library card
2. bring a friend who registers for a library card
3. use their library card to borrow materials or a book an internet station
4. visit the library’s teen website

There is no limit to the number of ballots they can recieve (other than, of course, they may only register for one card themselves!).

Molly, Associate Director of the Guthrie Memorial Library wrote:

In conjunction with Teen Read Week, a nationwide initiative by libraries to encourage teens to read for fun and discover their local libraries, the Guthrie Memorial Library - Hanovers Public Library and the York County Library System will welcome Robin Brande, author of Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature (Knopy Books for Young Readers, September 2007) for events in York County October 12-13, 2007.

York County’s Teen Read Week celebration is now in its fourth year.  Controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution in schools in Dover, Pennsylvania (kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District) in 2005 makes Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature an especially timely and important choice for York County.

Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature tells the story of a ninth grade girl who has been ostracized by her friends and her church for doing the right thing.  She faces many tough decision during her freshman year: social pressure, parental relationships, faith, romantic relationshiops, and sense of self.  When her science teacher begins a unit on evolution, things get out of hand as Mena struggles to find a way to reconcile her faith and religion with science.

The book has already been selected as one of the Young Adult Library Services Association’s Best Books for Young Adults for 2007.  Additionally, Borders has chosen Brande as an Original Voice for September.

Brande will be part of a local initiative called One Book, Every Freshman, where she will speak to ninth grade students at area high schools who have read her book.  Nearly 500 copies of the book will be given away in conjunction with participating schools in preparation for Brande’s visits on Friday, October 12 to Hanover High School and Delone Catholic High School.  This program, based on the One Book, One Community model, will bring reading as a collaborative activity to high school students, as well as introduce them to a fresh voice in young adult literature.

Also on Friday, October 12, Brande will visit Dover Area High School for programming with drama and language arts students.

On Saturday, October 13, Brande will do a talk and signing at the Borders store on Whiteford Road in York, Pa at nooon, and then will be headlining at the York County Library System Teen Read Week Kickoff event at 5:00 pm at the Guthrie Memorial Library - Hanovers Public Library in Hanover, PA.

So what are you planning?

If you would like to share what your library has planned please send an email to jberns89@gmail.com with TRW in the subject line.  Include in the email a short description of your events, and make sure to let me know if you do not want me to mention your name or what library you work for.  As always, feel free to post information about your events in the comments as well.

Last year we posted a series about Teen Read Week.  The point of the series was for you, the readers, to share both with us and with each other what your plans were for TRW.  This was a good opportunity for all of us to share our excitement with each other, all while creating a resource for librarians who might be having trouble coming up with plans of their own.  Seeing as how everyone enjoyed sharing last year, I thought we could do it again this year for the TRW theme of LOL @ your library, which takes place October 14-20.

So, I will get us started by sharing what my library will be doing for TRW.  After that I am relying on you guys to tell me what you’re doing.  Email me at jberns89@gmail.com with a paragraph or two about what you are doing (programs, school visits, contests, etc…) and include TRW in the subject line.  I will try and post a few ideas every couple of days as I get them.  If you want me to post your email or other info about you so people can contact you with questions about the programs let me know.  I will try to post a first name and library for each person if it is given to me, unless you ask me not to.

We have a few things planed for TRW this year at my library, the first being a school visit.  I will be going into our local high school with one other staff member to book talk a bunch of books and plug a few of our programs.  Last year we talked to most of the freshman class as they cycled through the English classroom and while I am not exactly sure what the school has planned for us this year I suspect it will be something similar. 

While we are book talking in the schools we will be handing out a coupon, which students can bring in to our library in order to receive a free book, while supplies last.  This treat is provided for us thanks to our friends of the library group who are going to buy us 50 or 60 paperback books.  I have picked out 6 or 7 titles and these will be both the books we book talk and the books we give away.

Finally we will be hosting a comedy program called Laugh Out Loud.  We have a professional comedian, Dwayne L. Gill, who will be coming in to give a stand up comedy workshop to our teens.  I will, of course, be trying to drum up as large of an audience for this event as I can while I am at the school.

So, that is what my library has planned, what about yours? Email me at jberns89@gmail.com with a short description of your plans and don’t forget to include TRW in the subject line.  Feel free to mention your plans in the comments as well, or better yet, once your event has happened use the comments to tell us about how it went.