Maze Runner tonight!

I can't believe Maze Runner is FINALLY here! Are you seeing it tonight?

Check out the trailer. CAN'T WAIT!

Want to read it before you see it? Put a hold on the book here !

YALSA Top Ten!

Get your voting fingers ready! It's time to vote for YALSA's top teen reads!

Some of our favourites are there. I bet you're going to have a hard time only picking three! 

VOTE HERE.

Power of the Pen Behind the Scenes...

All of the entries for Power of the Pen are in and now you might be wondering, 'what are you doing with my poem/short story?'

Well, a few things! I (Kat) look after all the electronic entries and Marcel, the teen librarian at Central looks after all the print entries.

We have to check the entries to make sure they follow the guidelines and disqualify entries that go over the word count. We have to make sure that everyone has only submitted one poem and one short story. We also make sure that all entrants are between 12 and 18.

Next we go through and make sure entrant's names aren't on their poem or short story. We call this 'blinding'. We want to make sure that the judges don't know who wrote what so that the judging will be as fair as possible.

Once the entries are all blinded, we assign each entry a number and label them so when we get them back from the judges we'll know which entry belong to whom.

Still with me?

Once we do all that we attach each entry to a judging form and then divide the entries into their category (ie. 13 year old poetry, 15 year old short story). Next, the packages are finally ready to go to their judges!

So right now we're in the middle of printing, blinding and dividing up all those entries so we can get them to the judges. It's a big job but totally worth it!

Fall programs!

Lots of awesomeness going on in September and October including our new Digital Media Labs! These are at Terryberry and Red Hill and have really neat equipment including video cameras, DSLR cameras, green screens, and even drums to lay down some tracks! Cool, right?

You can find out more here.

Terryberry's offering programs every Tuesday!

Sept 9 4-5pm – Explore the DML*
Sept 16 7-8pm – Green Screen for Teens*
Sept 23 4-5pm – Make a song with Garage Band*
Sept 30 4-5pm – Photobombing*

Speaking of making, you can also learn to make jewelry pendants at various branches this fall.

Saturday Sept 13 2pm, Turner Park
Saturday Sept 20 2pm, Ancaster
Saturday Sept 27 2pm, Stoney Creek
Tuesday Sept 30 3:30pm, Saltfleet
Wednesday Oct 8, 3:30pm, Concession 
Monday Oct. 20 4:00pm, Kenilworth 
Wednesday Oct. 22 4:00pm, Barton 

Call your branch to register - there's limited space! 

Last day for Power of the Pen & Photography contest!

(I love our new logo!)

If you are still procrastinating, it's time to finish up your entries for Power of the Pen, our short story and poetry competition.

You can find the details here - http://www.hpl.ca/guides/power-pen-creative-writing-contest

Good luck to all of our entrants! It's been so nice seeing familiar faces as I look over the entries to make sure they follow the rules (pro-tip: check your word count, people!!).

Also, check out the photography contest. Take some awesome selfies and submit them today!!

Steelheart is our winner!

Congratulations to Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson which was our Top Novel winner this year!

If you haven't read it, it's a really intense sci-fi thriller that has some similarities to superhero stories but this time the ones with the powers are the enemy. I loved it and all the twists and turns the plot had. I would definitely recommend it!

Summer Reading Update!

I've been doing more reading over the summer and I'm done my badge! Just in time too. We only have one more week to collect prizes.

I read SIX more books! (Links go to the print book versions, though I read most of these in ebook).

 Quickly, some one-sentence reviews! Stolen is intense and interesting. Isla and the Happily Ever After is a perfect rom com. The Reluctant Assassin wasn't my favourite Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl still has my heart). The Boy on Cinnamon Street was a sweet coming of age. The Half-Life of Molly Pierce was an interesting look at mental health. The Here and Now was one of my favourite dystopian time travel things that I've read in a while. Phenomenal.

I also voted in Top Novel which is a contest so I'm all done! YAY!

How are you guys doing? We still have lots of prizes out at the branch.

One more day to vote on Top Novel! Make it happen! 

Top Novel - final!

We are down to our top two novels!!

 vs 

Can't believe we're down to our last two books!! You will have TWO WEEKS to vote and we will announce our winner Friday August 22! 

VOTE HERE! 

Goodbye Eye of Minds!

What?! James Dashner gone? You guys are breaking my heart! Kidding (I would be heartbroken no matter what at this point).

Steelheart had 40.5% of the votes! Will it win it all? Or can Panic overcome it? It's up to you!

You can vote for the top three here.

One more day!

One more day to vote for Top Novel!

So far things are not looking good for Eye of Minds!

Only you can save it!

Vote HERE!

New Books!

We just put a bunch of teen books on order. Here are just a few. You can find the rest here.

 Happy reading!

Still winning at Summer Reading

Even though I've done a LOT on my badge, I still feel really behind because you guys are doing AMAZING.

I had someone come in on the weekend who was almost done!

But I'm not going to focus on that, I'm going to focus on ME! Here's what I did last week:

Two more tabs! Yay! I read three books:

I loved all of them (I like it when that happens). 

I also attended a program: Master Builders at Stoney Creek (okay, I ran the program but I got to help build too. It was super fun). 

It looks like I really need to get reading for two more prizes and of course, enter a contest (voting in Top Novel counts as a contest!!). 

Hope your Summer Reading is going swimmingly! 

Goodbye Sea of Shadows!

Shocked that Kelley Armstrong has been voted off! I actually really liked that book, but it took a little while to get going. If you gave up on it, go back and read it! It gets really good!

Here's the break down of this week's votes:

We're down to four contenders left! When I closed the poll, Panic and Steelheart were TIED for the first! Who will it be?

You can vote HERE!

Reviews!

    "Very good because it is fast paced. Full of good stuff."

I'm loving the bite-sized reviews you guys are posting to the reading tracker so far. Here are just a few! (Click the covers to check them out)

 "Historic,interesting and imaginative"

"This book is the best book in the world. It has great morals to it and lots of things to think about. In saying that the book is the only book that has made me cry and laugh. The page that got me the most was 270. I really liked it though it is probably my favorite book, now! Great Job John Green! Thank you."

"The book was artfully crafted by an amazing author! Ransom Riggs not only wrote an amazingly peculiar book but also illustrated in through the use of authentic vintage photos. This unique idea sets the backdrop of the story and helps us, the readers, better understand the nature of Miss Peregrine and her Peculiar Children."

"Really good book! Surprisingly one of my all time favourites!"

&

"Amazing Book. I would definitely recommend this book to others. Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson is competing for Hamiltons Next Top novel. I definitely want this book to win. It deserves it."

"Just as good as the first book! Can't wait to read the last book in the series!"

but also: "Eh okay not her best"

Read and decide for yourself :)






You can track your reading here!

Kat continues to win Summer Reading

Okay, so last time I registered and showed staff a book I read. This time I've downloaded an e-book - Free to Fall by Lauren Miller (It's checked out because it's on my card but if you want to read it, you can still place a hold). I downloaded it on my iPad. If you need instructions for how to download books on your device, there are awesome videos here.

Here's an example of a badge if you haven't got yours yet. Pretend those tabs are snapped off on my real badge.

For my prize this time I would have scored a Mcdonald's Ice Cream coupon for a free cone (if I was under 18) which would have come in handy this weekend. Win!

Monday I'm going to (okay, running) the 'How Well Do You Know Your Best Friend' program which will mean another prize!

Thanks to everyone who has been reviewing books! I'm going to post some books you've liked next week. Enjoy your weekend!