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 How does one celebrate the life, or rather death, of the undead? With the popularity of series such as Twilight, Vampire Kisses and Blue Bloods, throwing a vampire party is a great way to get teens excited about reading. But where to begin? In my mind, every successful party includes cake. And what better variety of cake to serve at a party devoted to blood suckers than red velvet? Even if you don’t have the budget to purchase a bakery cake, you can find red velvet cake mixes and mix it up yourself. If you are ambitious, there is a recipe in the February 2008 issue of Shojo Beat for a Vampire Knight Valentine’s cake that looks like it would be yummy anytime of year. Another option would be making cupcakes and then allowing each teen to decorate as they see fit with darkly colored sprinkles or icing. If you have access to Halloween cookie cutters, you could also decorate cookies in the shapes of coffins, tombstones, bats, or spider webs.
Music can also contribute to the success of a party. Stephenie Meyer has already done a lot of the work for us when it comes to selecting music for a vampire themed party. Begin with the playlists that can be found on her site and expand from there with additional music from those bands. The website allmusic.com can help you find other artists. Simply search for an artist and it will give you their influences, followers, and similar acts. Songs such as “Vampires Will Never Hurt You” and “Early Sunsets Over Monroeville” by My Chemical Romance and “Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)” by Concrete Blonde add an appropriately ghoulish atmosphere. Try having teens come up with their own vampy mix to share.
 A few simple activities can tie the whole thing together. You could either make a quiz on general vampire lore or create separate quizzes for individual books, using each book as a prize. The most fun thing for the teens who are into vampires, is to make them a vampire for a day. Your local community theatre might have a volunteer who would be willing to come in and transform them into vampires. We had a staff member give people vampire bites on the neck using eye shadow and liner in shades of red, brown, blue and purple for appropriate bruising around the wound.
In my community, the majority of teens who love vampire stories tend to feel like they are alone in their interests. They are teens on the fringe, sometimes into the Goth and Emo scenes. Celebrating one of their passions can show them that they are not as alone as they think, and give them the chance to be outsiders together.
Opening Photo: be careful / Originally uploaded by girl interrupted. jess
Posted by Sarah Granville
by Denise Ryan, niseryan@hotmail.com
 Right now I’m pairing new fiction with older books. Yup, right out there in valuable display space I’m putting elderly books with dated covers and silly titles like Fat, a Love Story (Barbara Wersba, 1987) and Secrets of the Shopping Mall (Richard Peck, 1979). But here’s the trick: Right next to these books I’m displaying hot new titles with similar themes. So, that’s the gimmick – old book, new book. How similar, yet how different! Why not read them both and compare?
For instance, with Fat, a Love Story, I’ve paired last year’s Huge by Sasha Paley. Both books are about weight, dieting, and love. I can’t keep Huge on the shelf, but Fat is really good too and it never moves. Never. The cover is just too…yesterday. (A girl with a bad haircut is eating a piece of cheesecake while a thinner couple drives by in a convertible. Back in the day, it was probably the coolest thing ever. Now? It looks like something your mother probably read.)
For a while now, I’ve been trying to get young patrons to read worthwhile older books, urging them to ignore the dreary decades-old covers in favor of plot, characters etc. But that’s been a doomed effort for the most part, and I’ve seen lots of patrons reject one edition of a book one minute, only to seize the exact same book – with a newer cover – the next.
So, I’m really excited that this “pairing” approach seems to be working. The kids still make fun of the unfashionable covers (that’s half the fun), but they’re taking the old books along with their newer counterparts. Somehow, the association between the two gives the older books credibility and they’re getting some attention again – just in time to avoid the “weed pile.”
Here is a short list of books I’ve paired, but possibilities are endless!
Theme: Social misfits
Freak (2007) by Marcella Pixley
The Seventh Grade Weirdo (1992) by Lee Wardlaw
Theme: Body image
Huge (2007) by Sasha Paley
Fat, A Love Story (1987) by Barbara Wersba
Theme: The mall
It’s a Mall World After All (2006) by Janette Rallison
Secrets of the Shopping Mall (1979) by Richard Peck
Theme: Sexual assault
Safe (2007) by Susan Shaw
Are You in the House Alone? (1976) by Richard Peck
Theme: Boarding school
A Great and Terrible Beauty (2003) by Libby Bray
And Both Were Young (1983) by Madeleine L’Engle
Theme: Future societies
The Declaration (2007) by Gemma Malley
The Vandal (1979) by Ann Schlee
Theme: Survival in the Alaskan wilderness
The Trap (2006) by John Smelcer
Death Walk (1991) by Walt Morey
Theme: Summer camp
Camp Rules (2007) by Jordan Roter
The Goats (1987) by Brock Cole
 Introducing one of our new bloggers for the Brave & Brass Blog! Denise Ryan is a writer, a book reviewer, a YA librarian. She lives in Stamford, Connecticut where she’s currently reading One Whole and Perfect Day by Judith Clarke.
Every day, kids crowd around my desk to talk about Twilight, the novel by Stephanie Meyer about Bella, a teenage girl who moves to Forks, Washington and falls in love with Edward, a vampire who has been seventeen years old for more than a century now.
My screensaver, courtesy of my YA patrons, is a photo of a silver Volvo S60 R, the same kind that Edward drives. I receive emails from teenagers with addresses like “vampiregirl16″ and “edward4ever.” (Immediately, I know which “Edward” they’re talking about and it’s not a kid from town.)
Generally, these are girls around the age of 14, but not always. The kid who printed all the cast photos from the upcoming movie Twilight, based on the book, is a boy. He’s already planning a party at his house on opening night.
 What is it about these books? How have they conquered popular culture? (Vampires were cool when I was a teenager too, although we were reading the Anne Rice series about Lestat and Louis.) Personally, I think it’s all about physicality and desire – desire for flesh – desire that is dangerous and must be quelled – desire that can kill.
Here, I’m talking of course of Edward’s desire for blood, but also of Bella’s desire for more ordinary human contact with the gorgeous guy she loves. In Twilight, both are potentially fatal; every time Bella and Edward get a bit too “hot n’ heavy,” they must break apart before Edward becomes too overcome with bloodlust and (literally) devours his girlfriend. The characters both crave and fear intimacy. In short, the book is full of sex without anyone ever actually having any – very much like the imaginations of many young teenagers!
If your patrons haven’t read the Twilight saga yet (there are three titles in the series: Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse), offer it to them. It will keep them busy for a while. Here’s a short list of other “Forbidden Fruit” fiction for readers who can’t get enough of vampires:
De La Cruz, Melissa: Blue Bloods
Hautman, Pete: Sweetblood
Klause, Annette Curtis: The Silver Kiss
Mead, Richelle: Vampire Academy
Moore, Christopher: You Suck: A love story
Rice, Anne: Interview with a Vampire
Sedgwick, Marcus: My Swordhand is Singing
Schreiber, Ellen: Vampire Kisses (with four sequels)
Vande Velde, Vivian: Companions of the Night
Westerfeld, Scott: Peeps
For more Vampire Fiction recommendations, visit the Teen Lib Wiki page about Vampire Romance Fiction!
Posted by Denise Ryan from Stamford, Connecticut. You can contact denise at niseryan @ hotmail.com
Introducing Jennifer…. Jennifer is a Young Adult Librarian for the Otis Library at Norwich, CT. Getting a new shipment of books is the best part; it always feels like Christmas morning and she has the hardest time deciding which book to take home first. Thus her bookshelf is filled with books and she has a mile long list of books-in-waiting. She’s also addicted to the internet.
Teen Library Websites: Love them or Hate Them?
I’ve recently spent a lot of time researching library websites in anticipation for our new website for Otis Library in Connecticut. Our site, in trying to be uniform as a whole site, quickly made our teen page less about graphics and more about the information.However, when I first looked around, there were pages that I wanted to emulate (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery). My favorite site was the teen site at the Public library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County of North Carolina. Their Library Loft page is bold, interesting, and chock full of information. The Louisville Free Public Library has a wonderful teen page including, along with many other libraries, booklists. I freely admit to including 2 booklist pages after looking at this page. Teens at the Johnson Country Library’s teen page can change the background theme of their page with several choices including Goth or monkeys. Each library strives to make their page unique and attention grabbing, but according to teens that I’ve spoken with, it may be a lost cause.
  
1) Do teens really look at library websites?
2) Are they drawn to images/graphics or more information?
3) What do they envision for the library website?
The biggest question of all:
4) Do they even care?
With all the social networking sites (yes, I’m on myspace, facebook, and Shelfari – all under the title YABOOKNERD to make it easy) does it really matter to have a wicked cool teen website? From the teens I talked to, most didn’t really know that we had a website catering to them. Once they did know, they didn’t seem impressed and when asked would be unlikely to use the site, unless they were bored. So in this case – how do we reach out to teens? Does anyone else find the library website a tool of the past?
Posted by Jennifer
New post from Jeff 2.0! Jeff took a 15 year detour through chemistry and engineering before becoming a librarian. He wonders why he didn’t start there in the first place. In addition to being a YA specialist, Jeff is also a Boy Scout leader.
Intellectual Property Rights, Creative Commons and…Nine Inch Nails?
Teaching information literacy skills is an important role for YA librarians. Educating teens about such issues as intellectual property rights, digital rights management (DRM) and the law can often come across as preachy. Fortunately, an unlikely partner can help break the ice with teens on this subject: Nine Inch Nails.
Ask a teen where they got the music on their MP3 player and they’ll likely reply “the internet.” Of course, the real question is: was it obtained legally? While authorized downloads of artists’ music are available through online retailers such as Apple’s iTunes Store or Rhapsody, many people still use file-sharing protocols such as Limewire, KaZaa and BitTorrents for unauthorized downloading (aka theft) of copyrighted materials.
The world seems divided into two camps: those who view all intellectual property as essentially being public domain (as long as they don’t get caught), and those who view all intellectual property as private property posted “no trespassing, authorized persons only”. The former camp says that copyright stifles creative uses of intellectual property such as sampling in music; the latter camp says that owners of intellectual property should have the right to control all its uses.
As in most ideological battles, there is a middle ground. Enter Creative Commons, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable corporationthat defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright — all rights reserved — and the public domain — no rights reserved. Our licenses help you keep your copyright while inviting certain uses of your work — a “some rights reserved” copyright [http://creativecommons.org/about/]
Many teens may be familiar with Creative Commons from its use on Flickr. Flickr allows you to apply Creative Commons licensing to grant other users the right to use your work under certain circumstances.
Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails have given us the opportunity to use their music to educate teens on intellectual property issues. NIN has released their latest album, Ghosts I-IV under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. This means that you can share it, or remix it and share it under the same license for noncommercial (i.e. free) uses as long as you attribute it to Nine Inch Nails. Nine Inch Nails offers the album for download for only $5, or you can download a partial album for free from the website or via BitTorrent.
The album consists of instrumental tracks which are perfect for remixing and/or adding vocals. One of the programs suggested for Teen Tech Week 2008 (or any other time) involves teens using Splice Music, JamGlue, or Audacity to create their own music. Why not include downloading the free Nine Inch Nails tracks and have the teens make their own remix? How about adding vocals? What about a music video posted to YouTube? The finished product could be uploaded and shared following the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. The teens will have fun exercising their creativity, and we will get the opportunity to talk with teens about intellectual property rights and Creative Commons licensing.
Posted by Jeff 2.0
This post is brought to you by one of our new contributors, Sarah Granville! Sarah is the Teen Services Librarian at the Barberton Public Library in Barberton, Ohio. Sarah loves the new perspectives her teen customers bring her. Their enthusiasm helps keep her enthusiastic on rough days!
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I began thinking of a Dungeons and Dragons (D & D) group at the library in 2005. I had been interested in D & D since high school, but hadn’t ever played. The idea of knowing nothing about this game and running a program terrified me. The thought of learning enough to feel comfortable suggesting it overwhelmed me. I received a D & D starter kit from YALSA and stared at it proudly as it sat on my desk. And gathered dust. My quest was not starting out well.
 One evening I entered our meeting room to set up for anime club and there was a group of boys sitting at a table with D & D books. My teen programming senses tingled and I asked them about what they were doing. They were beginning a new campaign so I asked them if they would mind having their campaign be a once a month library program open to any teenager who wanted to come. They agreed! I was getting my D & D group without having to be proficient at it myself! And you can too.
The basic things that any librarian needs to start a D & D group are the core rule books (the Players Handbook, the Dungeon Masters Guide, and the Monster Manual), dice, and one or more teens to be Dungeon Master, or DM. My DM and I have an understanding. If he feels that a player is acting unfairly he will let me know so I can handle it. If he notices that I am continually correcting someone’s behavior, he will punish them by taking away hit points, which is like a player’s life span.
It is so rewarding to see my teens having fun gaming in a social way. During a campaign they will fight for and with each other instead of against each other. D & D is not about who wins. The group of characters is working toward a common goal. They learn each others’ strengths and weaknesses.
Since we are talking about libraries, I will mention books. If your kids are really into the sword and sorcery content of D & D, they will definitely want to read the Dragon Lance and Forgotten Realms series. You can also incorporate aspects of other books into the campaign setting. Right now, the world our D & D group is playing in is based on the Wizard of Oz series. Our DM found out more about the series of books so he had more settings and ideas to draw from. My favorite book is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, so I’ve already requested a Wonderland campaign setting. If your teens are not interested in fantasy but you still think a role playing game might appeal to them, there are a wealth of role playing games that offer different settings. The great thing is that you can make this work for any group of kids.
Here’s a list of resources on D & D and why role playing is a good thing:
Packer, Alex J., Ph.D. Wise Highs: How to Thrill, Chill, & Get Away From It All Without Alcohol or Other Drugs.
Slavicsek, Bill and Richard Baker. Dungeon Master for Dummies.
Slavicsek, Bill and Richard Baker. Dungeons and Dragons for Dummies.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ (search “role-playing”)
http://www.theescapist.com/index.htm
http://www.wizards.com/
Posted by Sarah Granville
Here is a long overdue post about the Fayetteville Public Library’s Alternative Teen Fashion show, put on for teen read week 2006. This post is also titled, “possibly the coolest teen read week program we’ve mentioned so far on the Alt. Teen Services Blog”. And yes the program involved reading! the teens read books to make their outfits! — Stephanie
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Teen Alternative Fashion Show:
the ultimate fashion event for teens by teens
By Jenine Lillian and the Teen Alternative Fashion Show Planning Team
For Teen Read Week 2006
Fayetteville Public Library, Fayetteville, Arkansas
It all started with a book…
In April of this year, a Young Adult Librarian (um, that’d be AMANDA! of YaLibrarian.com) posted an entry on her nationally recognized blog about some cool, new fashion books for teens. I ordered the books for our YA Collection and while visiting schools in Fayetteville, featured the book Generation T and a spark flew among the teens. This book proved to be inspiring to young artists in Fayetteville and in August, we formed a Teen Alternative Fashion Show Planning Team, setting our sights on National Teen Read Week in October. After many months of hard work, generous donations of time and supplies, and unfettered creativity and dedication of the Planning Team, we created an artistic experience.
 
I had about 200 attend this once-in-a-lifetime performance art event. Members of my Teen Anime Club dressed in Cosplay and teens from a 30 mile radius planned and implemented this event—we met every two weeks since August, with weekly meetings the last two weeks before the show and a dress rehearsal two nights before the main event. The teens designed and created their own outfits using altered tee shirts, vintage clothing, knitting, plastics, costuming, packing materials, marking tape, office supplies, duct tape, paint, ties, bubble wrap, and fabrics. [I MC’d the event and wore an alt. fashion piece that I’d made (a “skirt”) out of slides and paper clips. It was a cool day to be a librarian.]
 
I worked with the University of Arkansas’ Apparel Studies Program/Fashion Merchandising Club to stage the show and tutor us on how to walk on the catwalk. And, the UofA’s radio station DJ (whom I work with a lot with my Teen Anime Club) to have specific outfit element-themed tunes for the event. I arranged for the local beauty college to send students to do hair for models, booked three teen photographers, and paid a friend to record the show. I also partnered with a popular local resale shop to raffle gift certificates and library volunteers served food and drinks at the short break. All told, the event took about 70 people to pull off. It was an incredibly powerful event for the teens of this community—we made something unique and beautiful and teen-powered, unlike anything that has ever been done before.
Below is a list of the books we used to get ideas and patterns. Perhaps you’ll be inspired to create your own alternative fashion…
Alternative Fashion Book List
Additional Information
Hello friends! We had a great response to our call for new content so expect to see postings from new authors. Today I have the pleasure of introducing one of these new contributors. Please meet Matthew who runs the teen librarian UK web site and is working to build support for teen library services in the UK. In this first post, he offers pointers for starting up a teen library service. Welcome to the blog Matthew! — Stephanie
Working with Teens: Starting from the beginning (a few general pointers)
Teenagers often have a bad reputation in libraries – they either never come in or when they do they sometimes cause problems and as such become unpopular with library staff. This places them in a difficult position as they are no longer children and they are not yet adults. Because of this they are in a bit of a blind spot as there are no specific services offered to them. Junior Libraries usually have children’s librarians in to organise events and make the borrowers feel welcome and teach them how to use the library. Unfortunately when children become teens they are left to struggle through the library on their own until they become ‘adults’ in which case the general librarians step in to provide services.
By the time children have become adults they have usually wandered away because libraries are not cool, they do not offer them any services and they don’t feel welcoming.
These days the only reason many teens come into the Library is to use the Internet or they come in with their families in which case they hang around the adult or junior libraries looking bored and unhappy.
Offering a Teen Service
The knee-jerk reaction would be to start a teen service offering them all the extras currently extended to adults and children. This would include reading groups, dedicated teen shelving, special events and author visits aimed specifically at them as well as staff that are willing to deal with them on a regular basis.
While this is a good idea, doing it all in one fell swoop would be dooming it, if not to failure then to limited success. The reasons would be that after such an extended period of neglect, Teens would be unwilling to return en masse to partake of what is now offered to them. This could severely dent the enthusiasm of the people/person organising it
I have found that starting small is the best way to build up a group – maybe enticing three or four teens in at first and going on from there. Bribery and corruption is a good way to start – attract them in with chocolate and coke (or fruit and juice for the health conscious) although you must make sure that you have something interesting to maintain their interest and commitment to keep them coming back. This way you can develop a core of regulars who will spread news of the events to their friends, making them aware of teen authors and other services currently offered by the library.
Unfortunately a large number of the older teens are harder to reach, as they have been out of libraries for longer. But there are still those that use the library for study, Internet use and reading purposes.
To properly run a Teen group you need to first gain their trust (which is not an easy thing to do). This has to be achieved gradually – by being visible in the branch so you become a known quantity, helping with general queries – homework help, finding various books (usual Library work) and most importantly talking to them - not at them; and listening when they speak. Teenagers are very quick to pick up on patronising behaviour and it is next to impossible to make a positive second impression.
Too often when an initial reading event aimed at teens is organised in a Library, an outsider is used to hold the event and this can lead to what I call ‘the Lone Ranger effect.’ The lone ranger effect is when someone rushes to set everything up, holds the event, and then disappears — leaving everyone who attended wondering who the masked man was.
Adult Reading Groups are normally centred around reading one particular book at a time. With teens, however, I have found this to be nearly impossible (depending on the size of the group). Rather choosing a particular subject and organising a range of books, magazines and comics gives a wider choice of reading material and does not exclude those who are not as good at reading as the others.
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