Book Blather

Book Review: Eight Keys

Eight Keys by Suzanne LaFleur
Release Date: August 2011
Publisher:Random House Children’s Books
Pages: 224
Source:Library

E lise and Franklin have always been best friends. Elise has always lived in the big house with her loving Uncle and Aunt, because Elise’s parents died when she was too young to remember them. There’s always been a barn behind the house with eight locked doors on the second floor.

When Elise and Franklin start middle school, things feel all wrong. Bullying. Not fitting in. Franklin suddenly seems babyish. Then, soon after her 12th birthday, Elise receives a mysterious key left for her by her father. A key that unlocks one of the eight doors upstairs in the barn

I originally picked up Eight Keys at ALA Annual because I thought it might be a good contender for my Joliet Reads Committee. (A one-book a month program done through the school. I work with the 6th, 7th, & 8th grade committee.) Of course, time slipped away too fast during those busy summer months and it wasn’t until the finished version hit our new bookshelves that I finally picked a copy up.

While not strong enough to recommend for the committee, I did enjoy the book. Or so I thought. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still like the book overall, but the more I think about Eight Keys the more little things start to bug me such as issues or characters that were thrown in but not dealt with or developed thoroughly. It would have been better for LaFluer to focus on one thing, say the eight keys or the bullying/entering a new school than trying to mash it all together.

Let me back up a little and focus on what I did love and that was the eight door/keys. I’ll admit the messages and items her father left in the rooms brought some tears to my eyes. The sense of family, love, and knowing yourself was written across every room. Since her father died when she was only three we never met him, but it’s easy to see how much he cared for his daughter by what he left as a legacy in those rooms. Books, photos, mementos…small things that told about the lives of her parents, the people around her, and the short time they had together. Honestly, I wish LaFluer had spent the entire books, instead of just half of it, on this. Everyone spoke how her father loved puzzles/riddles, but what he left behind wasn’t much of either. The keys were given up too easy and within a month, maybe two, all the doors had been opened. I think if it had been made into a scavenger hunt with clue leading to the next key the journey could have been dragged out more and perhaps become even more meaningful.

The other thing I did like was how LaFluer managed to capture those insecurities of an eleven year old entering a new school and being bullied. In Elise’s case the bullying starts when she starts school with scabs all down her legs from a fall during a make-believe game. While normally I would say tweens shed off their make-believe games sooner than sixth grade, there is something about being rural areas that allows kids to be kids longer than those in urban areas. I’m not saying that’s the case for all or even most, but I have witnessed a sense of innocence that lasts longer where the outdoors and imagination run free. Perhaps it is not the norm nowadays, but I still think there are quite a few tweens who manage to hang onto their innocence/make-believe spirit longer then others.

However, the one issue that has been under my skin the most is how the bullying situation was handled. There were no consequences for Amanda. There was one moment of payback that landed Franklin, of all people, in trouble and a moment where Elise finally stands up to her, but that is where it ends. I do understand that most bullies never see consequences, but when Elise tries to bring it up it is merely brushed aside time and time again. The only ones who seem to care are her aunt and uncle, but even they let Elise handle and never get involved. Also, LaFluer on several occasions tries to make the reader feel sorry for Amanda, but never gives us any real meat to it. She hints that something has happened to make Amanda such a bully, but nothing is ever revealed. We’re told she wasn’t always like this, that she can be fun outside of school, and that her brother/his friends are mean to her, but it never goes beyond that. The closest explanation is that she wanted people to believe she was “tough”, but again why? I’m not sure I would have cared normally, but since LaFluer kept hinting that there was more beneath the bully I wanted to see it.

The underdeveloped bully issue goes hand-in-hand with some of the character development as well. For the most part, LaFluer fleshes out her characters enough to make them feel real. I may not know too much about Aunt Bessie, Uncle Hugh, or even Caroline, but there was enough depth to them to make me happy. The same cannot be said about Annie (Aunt Bessie’s sister) and baby Ava. They moved in near the beginning of the book, but mainly appeared randomly throughout the book. Their appearance held little significance beyond making Elise jealous or having a person to ask random questions to. It felt like LaFluer was also trying to use Ava to show how Elise was maturing/becoming more thoughtful, but it fell flat. There were many other ways that the changes in Elise could have been shown beyond adding in fluff characters.

After all is said and done, Eight Keys is still a cute, fast read. The writing is solid and I’ll be looking into LaFluer’s past and future books. While the characters are in middle school, it does read a little young. It would be a great recommendation for those tween girls who aren’t quite ready for YA but are turning their nose at Juv titles. While not a happy-go-lucky story, girls who are transitioning into new schools/lives will relate to Elise and what she is going through. So, while not one of my favorites, it is one I am happy to have in my library and hand off to readers.

Have you read Eight Keys? If so, let me know what you think!

Graphic Novels, Reviews

Manga Review: The Wallflower

The Wallflower by Tomoko Hayakawa
Series:The Wallflower #1
Release Date: Aug. 2012
Publisher: Kodansha America, Incorporated
Pages: 224

MAKEOVER OF THE CENTURY It’s a gorgeous, spacious mansion, and four handsome, fifteen-year-old friends are allowed to live in it for free! There’s only one condition-that within three years the guys must transform the owner’s wallflower niece into a lady befitting the palace in which they all live! How hard can it be? Enter Sunako Nakahara, the agoraphobic, horror-movie-loving, pockmark-faced, frizzy-haired, fashion-illiterate recluse who tends to break into explosive nosebleeds whenever she sees anyone attractive. This project is going to take more than our four heroes ever expected: it needs a miracle! This volume of The Wallflower includes special extras after the story!

This one ended up being an epic fail for me for several reasons. In fact, I barely made it through volume one. I have been told it gets better, but after the first volume I have no desire to go on.

The first thing that gave me the hardest time was the artwork. Most of the time I can look past drawing. After all, I’m not expecting acts of genius from mangas, but this one just really bugged me for some reason. I think it was the lips. I felt like ever character had these Botox-injection huge lips. And then there were times when it looked like a bunch of clowns had walked into the storyline. I kid you not. My teens and I joked about it at Anime Club last week. I mean I know it’s not supposed to be a serious manga, but a lynch mob of clowns just kind of freaks me out.

Also, the whole “ugly girls make me sick” made me want to SCREAM. If it was just the guy who broke her heart who had said it, I could have let it pass. However, on several occasions the main characters say it as well. I don’t care if you are model-gorgeous teenage boys, saying something like that is extremely shallow. Yes, I know it plays into the ugly duckling into swan thing, but I don’t know it really hit a nerve with me. The only redeeming quality is they do seem to start to care for Sunako in their own weird way. Also, there is a mention that it’s her negativity that makes her ugly and not she herself her is ugly. I did like that the other three boys almost killed the one who used the ugly word with her.

While there was a lot I didn’t like, I did like the brief moments where Sunako went into kick butt moments. She took on this fierce role where she became unstoppable. It was quite enjoyable to see her enter those modes. Unfortunately, it is just not enough to make me pick up volume 2 and continue the series.

Have you read The Wallflowers? Am I truly giving up too soon?

Graphic Novels, Reviews

Manga Review: W Juliet

W Juliet by Emura
Series:W Juliet #1
Publisher:VIZ Media LLC

Makoto Amano wants to become an actor, but his stern father has decreed that the only way Makoto can pursue his dream is to spend the last two years of high school as a girl! He quickly makes friends with popular tomboy Ito Miura, another drama enthusiast at this new high school and the only student to find out his secret–but are they more than pals?

If you’ve been paying attention to my summer reading posts you may have guessed I’ve been a bit stressed/in a mental overload. Since my new found love for manga (thank you Fruits Basket) I find when I need an easy read/mental break manga is the place to go. Since Fruits Baskets and After School Charisma are the only series I have read I have a lot to choose from. My anime teens have thrown a lot of suggestions at me, but I have to confess I’ve been picking what manga to read by what is in. I literally scan the shelves to see which series have book one in. Seriously…but amazingly it’s worked quite well so far.

My latest selection was W Juliet by Emura. While this is an older series, it was one I had never heard of and am so glad I gave it a go. W Juliet is about two teens, Ito and Makoto, who are not as they appear. Ito may look and act like a boy, but underneath is all she is a woman. And Makoto, well, he may look like a girl, but he is all man. Ito may not have a excuse beyond being a tomboy, but Makoto disguise is the key to his future. As the only son he is expected to take over the family dojo, but the only thing Makoto wants to be is an actor. Makoto’s father disapproves, but eventually makes a deal with him; if he can live and graduate high school (2 years) as a woman without anyone finding out he may go after his dream. Makoto knows it is the only way out of his father’s control and accepts the deal.

Ito, of course, finds out about Makoto’s secret right away (by accident) and vows to help him make it though. After all, it’s a pretty big feat to accomplish on ones own, especially with all the obstacles that get thrown in his way. But the question still remains…will it be enough? Can Makoto live as a woman for two years without anyone finding out the truth, especially when Iko and Makoto start to fall in love?

I whipped through this series (14 volumes) in about a week. I will admit that the story lines are kind of predictable and repetitive, but something about them drew me in. Perhaps it the romantic heart of mine that enjoyed seeing Ito and Makoto fall for each other. Or my need to have a happy ending that kept me going to make sure it would all turn out okay. While undoubtedly those both played a role, it was more than that. There was a lot of humor that kept it light, but there was some more serious issue thrown in as well. Yes, some of the characters annoyed the crap out of me, but there was never a time where I didn’t want to see what happened next. I also loved the hidden identity aspect of it as well. The whole “double” Juliet plot just really intrigued me for some reason.

Sadly, this one does not have an anime attached to it. It would have been fun to do a Anime vs. Manga comparison, but it was not meant to be. I do believe that fans of Fruits Basket/shojo will eat this series up. While it is certainly not flawless, it has enough charm to make it an easy recommendation to all manga lovers.

Programs

Teen Summer Programs Wrap-up (2011)

Ah August, how do I love thee. Summer Reading is done and I have a good month before the fall session begins. This also means I can get back to focusing on books, but before I do I thought I would do a Summer Programs in review post. If you want more information on anything, please don’t hesitate to ask. I love to share prep/ideas.

Anime Club (2 sessions = 32 teens)
This is a program I’ve been doing for about 2 years now and it’s finally taking off. I’ve been trying to transform it little by little. I’ve found that the teens have seen most of the Anime I have and even suggested titles have the same curse. The teens enjoy watching their favorite anime, but I felt like it was getting stale. In July I introduced a craft option, which turned out to be a huge hit. We made buttons and pop cap pendants and they all seemed to enjoy it. I have some more changes I’m going to try to implement in the coming months, which I hope will keep my numbers up!

Backpack Bling (4 sessions = 11 teens)
Being a crafter, I hate that crafts don’t work so well with my teens. I still try to do one craft program each summer though. I figure one of these days I’ll hit a good one and get a good crowd. I already talked about this one in length so I won’t bore you again. If you missed it the first time, be sure to check out my Bottle Cap Pendants and Buttons post.

Next Level (2 session = 8 teens)
For whatever reason, I cannot get gaming to take off in my library. I don’t know if it’s because most of the teens are playing at home or what. Over the past two years, my highest number has been 11 teens and it has been slowly dropping. I plan to continue it through this year, but may let it drop if numbers don’t pick up. During the two hours, I offer board games and a choice of about 15 Wii games. The favorite this summer was Wipe Out (based off the show). It accommodates 4 players and the teens die of laughter anytime they play. I’m hoping to shake it up with some board games and maybe an RP campaign for the fall.

Pirates vs. Ninjas (1 session = 16 teens)
This was my fun way of saying Capture the Flag. I divided the teens into two teams, Ninjas and Pirates, for a massive outdoor game that include water soakers. Overall, this one was a huge success, but I would change a few things if I do it again. First, I would remember bug spray! I was so excited to do an event outside, I forgot how bad mosquitoes could be. In the thirty minutes it took to get bug spray I had to have been bitten about twenty times. The teens suffered about the same. Second, I would drop the water soakers–or get better guns. I bought some cheap dollar store ones that just didn’t work. Also, I was surprised by how many teens complained about getting wet, especially since it was a warm day and they dried fast. Third, I would shorten it. Two hours is just too long to play Capture the Flag with the same people. I find that my teens camp a lot and basically just stand there and don’t move, which gets boring very fast. However, with all that, the teens loved it and it will be one I consider doing again.

Pizza Tasting (1 session = 26 teens)
This was our 2nd annual pizza tasting event. This event is always a big hit, but it’s also one I put a lot of time into. All pizzas used for the tasting are donated. Seriously, I never realized how hard it is to talk to managers until I started this. A fellow co-worker and myself had to spend at least 4 hours or so calling local establishments to see if they’d be willing to donate. I wrote up a quick script explaining what we were doing and if they’d be willing to donate two large pizzas for the cause. In the end, we got Papa Johns, Pizza Hut, Cemeno’s, and Aurelios to donate. I had hoped to get the winner from last year, Dominos, to defend their crown but their contact person would not return our calls. When the teens arrive they are given a scorecard to rate the pizzas for best crust, cheese, sauce, and overall. I also have a little fun and try to see if the teens can guess where the pizzas came from. (For those curious, Pizza Hut won overall.) The only true complaint I get is that the pizza ends up cold. Since the teens cannot know where the pizzas are from, I have to pick-up the pizzas almost 45 minutes before they arrive. And this barely gives me enough time to get them cut and set up before start time. I’m still brainstorming for a solution, but have yet to find one. However, as long as I get the proper donations, this will continue to be a reoccurring event.

Swordplay (1 session = 15 teens/11 adults)
With the theme being medieval, I had to do something with swords. I’m lucky enough that we have a guild in Chicago that was willing to come down for a demonstration. They sent down two team members who talked about proper swordplay, rules, and did several fencing/fighting demos. I loved this one because it mixed fun with history. I think a lot of the teens thought it would be the flashy stuff of movies, but instead learned how most fights were over in a couple of swings. I was a little worried it would be too much history/talking but the majority of teens stayed 10-15 minutes after the demo was over to see the equipment up front and ask more questions. There were some who stayed even longer than that–keeping the presenters a good 15 minutes later than scheduled. If given the chance, I would jump on doing another demo in the future.

Murder Mystery (1 session = 51 teens/adults)
Ah, this is my pride and joy for the summer. I did open casting calls in early May and ended up with 7 teens. The teens had a hand in almost the whole process. We sat together as a group and came up with a basic whodunit story, which one of my co-workers wrote for us. The nice thing about an original script was that we were able to change lines/add in characters as needed. We ended up with a 25-paged script set in medieval France during a royal banquet. The squire was the poor victim, but it was the king who was the true target! As always, it was the least suspected character; the Herald used a magic stone to control the Queen to do his bidding and if not for the Italian Ambassador and his wife, he would have gotten away with it. The teens had so much fun with the script and it was very well received by the audience. I will admit I was frightened they would not memorize lines/pull it together in time, especially since several teens were out for vacation during the summer. However, they impressed me enough to continue the drama activities in the fall. I doubt we’ll do another Murder Mystery though nor will we perform in the Fall. I want to give us more time to practice so it doesn’t feel so rushed/give me a break down. Also, next time I do a Murder Mystery I want to involve the crowd/audience more so that they can be a participant rather than just an observer.

WHEW. And there you have it! We had such a great summer this year. I’m hoping our fall end up just as wonderful! I also promise I’ll be adding in more book reviews/discussions come Monday.

Programs

Summer Reading Highs

Summer Reading has had a lot of highs for me this summer. My stats are higher than I could have ever imagined. My goal was 200, but I flew past that in the beginning of July. How far past did I go? Only 100+ more! I ended up with 304 teens that read 742,000 pages. That puts participation up 80% and the pages read up 97%. The kids got a goal to reach 1 million pages next year; if they do my co-worker will shave his head at the final party. I’m a little worried he may have to do just that. (I have learned no to give them a challenge unless I’m willing to do it. As I learned this year when I got two pies in my face this year)

The reading program numbers weren’t the only thing up. The event numbers went through the roof as well. I did 23 teen events over 8 weeks and had 300+ people attend. (I think the actual number was 365, but I can’t remember off the top of me head.) This is more than double of what I had this year. I’m really hoping as we go into our fall session we can keep up the numbers. On Thursday I’m going to do a run down of all my programs and briefly covered what worked and what didn’t. I had some major hits like a Murder Mystery and Pizza Tasting that teens loved and pulled in high numbers.

While technically I should save the final party discussion for my next post, I wanted to talk about it now due to the huge success. We had 86 teens come to the final party and 58 stay the whole night. This is the biggest crowd ever, which was not only exciting but challenging. Usually we only have 30 teens so I had to restructure how we did things.

Normally we let the kids dictate how the night goes, but I decided to do rotations for the first part of the night. We divided the teens into teams via colored wristband (my attempt to break up cliques) and had them move between three different stations. One station was compromised of crafts, board games, and wii. I was a little worried about this station since my teens don’t come to craft activities, but it went over surprisingly well. The second station was split between ARC speed dating and giving me feedback about the teen stuff. I am so glad I did the feedback part because I walked away with so many good comments that will help me shape the teen department as we move forward. The last station was floor games aka capture the flag and tag.Of course, this was the teens favorite part. I’m not sure what it is about capture the flag, but my teens would play it for the full 12 hours if I would let them. In fact, a lot of them went back out to play CtF once we entered free time.

OH and I got revenge for the pie in the face last year! It was so worth the year wait. Although, I did get TWO pies in my face. Ummm, I’m really hope this doesn’t become a yearly tradition! While the Lock-Ins always wear me out they are more than worth it. I’ve had several parents already report how much fun their teen(s) had and how days later they are still talking about it, which basically ensures they will continue in the future.

Programs

Teen Program: Bottle Cap Pendants and Buttons

I recently did a program called Backpack Bling that consisted of making bottle cap pendants and buttons. Admittedly, crafts do not go over well so I only had about 10 teens between four sessions, but those who came had a blast! Since it was such a small number, I let them make as many as they wanted. I had a couple take advantage of that offer, but it was fun to seem them so excited about the buttons. I even had two girls walk out with a shirt full each! Here are some of the buttons that they made!

I’m lucky in that my work already had a button maker, so I only had to worry about getting supplies. I used Badge-A-Minit who actually have decent prizes. I got 500 buttons (all parts) for only $110! I know that sounds like a lot, but it averages to .22 a button, which in my opinion is pretty darn good. Not that all the buttons were used for this program. I also did buttons for school visits. I took the covers of the books I talked about and turned them into swag buttons for the kids.

For the bottle cap pendants, I cam across a great deal on Etsy where I got 50 flatten caps w/rings and epoxy drops for $14.00! I still have about half of these left and I hope to use them in Anime Club tomorrow. I mean seriously, they make the cutest chibi pendants ever. In Backpack Bling they weren’t as popular, so I’m interested to see how they go in Anime Club.

Only 2.5 more weeks left of Summer Reading. Of course, these two week contain some of my big hitting activities so it’ll be interesting to see what state I am come August.

Library Talk

Happy Dance

I know I should be posting a review today, but I just had to share my happy news with everyone. If you remember my post about Summer Reading from June, my goal was to get 200 teen participants this summer. Well, I’m happy to report we have at least 225 teens with 3 weeks left to go! AND the teens are not slowing down. We’ve been putting in new participants daily. I registered at least 10 alone yesterday. I’m shocked, but excited to see where my final numbers end up. Of course, the hardest part is that since we’re back to paper logs I don’t have instant stats. A co-worker and myself enter in the information once a week, so most of the time what I have is out of date since we have two locations. I’m very, very stoked to see what my final participation count and pages read total will be at the end of the summer.

OH! And I should say that it’s not just the Reading number that are up. Teen events are sky-rocketing, too. In the past, I’ve been lucky to pull in 8 teens per programs. And that was on a GOOD day. Almost every event has pulled in 15 teens are more! For the month of June alone we had 104 teens come to programs. Seriously, I would say that is a good 30% increase from last year. And my HUGE events, such as pizza tasting, murder mystery and Lock-In are yet to come!

So, um, please excuse me as I do a very, very long happy dance.

ALA

ALA in a Nutshell

My favorite part about ALA is that every conference is a different experience. Midwinter was about connecting with other librarians and discovering an amazing support system that I totally depend on now. This time around I would say it was more about connecting with authors and publishers. It was an amazing all around experience, my only sadness was I wasn’t able to see my girls more than I did. It will be a long six months before I get to see them all again.

There were several sessions I tried to make it to this time around. I think the most useful one for me was the Website session. While I already do a lot of the things they spoke about, I walked out with several ideas I’m hoping to add to our teen site. Although, if I had been able to stay for the full mobile service session I’m pretty sure I would have walked away with even more useful tips. I am extremely anxious to get my hand on all the resources that will be posted on the YALSA blog soon. I walked out with great information in just the first 45 minutes!

Unfortunately, the session I was looking forward to the most is the one I willingly walked out of. I didn’t need to waste an hour being told that there are challenges to serving older teens and 20-somethings. I already knew that, which is why I was at the session. I was looking for useful information to help me overcome those challenges. Yes, it is possible that that information came in after I walked out, but it shouldn’t have taken over an hour to get to it. And believe me, I was definitely not the only one who walked out of this session. It still makes me quite sad, especially since I would love to help out this age group since they don’t fully belong anywhere on the library service scale

My committee meetings went amazingly. I’m so excited about how much work Fab Films has already accomplished this year. While I can’t say how our voting went, I can say I am very happy with the results so far. It will be an interesting Midwinter though! I am still very nervous about how long it will take us to narrow it down to 25 titles. We have so many good nominations this year. AND we’re still looking for more. If you haven’t already, be sure to go to our nomination form and help us out.

My floor time was extremely limited this time around. I spent maybe 3 or 4 hours total over the 4 days. And a lot of that was spent in lines to get autographed copies as prizes. I will say the floor was extremely hectic and chaotic. I have never seen it this way, especially on Friday night. ARCs were gone before you could blink and it was just overall crazy. There were even boxes of books that came up missing, making be feel extremely sorry for the publisher reps. This does mean I missed a lot of the “hot” books, but that’s okay. My teens sent me with a wish list and I managed to get the bulk of what they wanted, which makes me feel accomplished. The only true downside is that I didn’t get to find out what the reps where most excited about beyond a few publishers. Without Tess, Variant, and You Against Me were three that stuck out in my mind as MUST READS thanks to small talks with reps. I have made a full list if anyone is interested in seeing what I was able to get.

The meat of my time was spent with publishers and, OH, how much fun did I have! I won’t bore you with all the details; instead I’ll give you some highlights of my favorite moments

Sitting next to Katherine Tegen during dinner and hearing about some possible upcoming books and her view on some teen issues. It was great giving feedback on the “darker” issues for teens. (As a side note, this dinner was truly fabulous and one I’ll never forget.)

Being at a dance party with Laini Taylor. And while I didn’t participate in the conga line I did tape it! Something that fun needed to be documented and I was more than happy to do it. It was also fun to give Laini one of out ILOA buttons. (Two others were given to Kirsten Hubbard and Blythe Woolston)

Being about to sit down with Lerner Publisher and give them feedback on teen books and more. While I can’t talk about what happened during this focus group, I will say it was a great discussion. While there were only about 5 other teen service librarians there we were able to give a lot of insight on what our teens are looking for. It was fascinating to see the similarities and differences between our teens.

Finding out that Jessica Martinez could have been an almost teacher! We were talking before the panel/speed dating began and I found out that she taught at my high school the year after I graduated. Talk about small world! Of course, finding out she’s a violinist, has a literary crush on John Green (for his intelligent writing), and knits just made me like her even more.

Hearing Michelle Hodkin describe her book as Romeo & Juliet meets Alfred Hitchcock. That line alone made me want to read The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer even more. Of course, learning that she was a lawyer and some of the cases she worked made her fascinating as a person. I wish we could have talked to her for hours instead of just 8 minutes.

And that my friends, is my ALA in a nutshell. Other than that I discovered how passionate I am about seeing changes happen in YALSA and hope to somehow help them come about. I know I left a lot of things out, but I feel like this post is too long as it is! If there is anything in particular you want to know about, just leave me a comment.

ALA

ALA: More than Books!

I’ve said it before that ALA is not about books. Yes, it’s a perk, but ALA is about the meetings and networking. So here are some events you should think about checking out.

Selection Committee Meetings

There are some selection committees that are open to the public. In fact my group Fabulous Films for Young Adults is open! And I can tell you we will be voting on titles and discussing new additions. If you want to check us out, we meet Saturday and Sunday 4:00 -5:30pm in the JW Marriott Endymion room.

Another open meeting that is well work the time is the Teen Session for Best Fiction for Young Adults. This is perhaps the one of my favorite things to attend. It’s great hearing what teens say, which often times surprises me. I can’t wait to see what they say this time! The session will take place 1:30 – 3:30pm in Conference Hall Rm 255.

Conference Sessions

There are other sessions that are going on, but these are the ones I’m the most excited about and planning on attending. To see all that YALSA is offering check out the YALSA Wiki

Serving Older Teens and Twenty-Somethings, Saturday 8:00am to 10am in Conference Hall Rm 383. Join YALSA’s Serving New Adults Interest Group to explore ways that libraries are reaching out to this unique but often underserved group.

Best Practices in Library Websites for Teens, Sunday 8:00-10:00am Conference Hall Rm 356. We’ve all seen the statistics about how much time teens spend online. So, is your library’s web site attractive and engaging to teens? Attend this session to find out simple and inexpensive strategies that other libraries have successfully implemented to ramp up their online presence and draw teens to their web resources. Tips for using youth participation to retool and expand your web presence will also be explored.

Trends in YA Services: Using Mobile Devices to Serve Teens, Sunday 10:30-12:00 in Conference Hall Rm 383. More and more individuals, including teens, are relying on smartphones and similar devices for Internet access, communication, information and more. Attend this session to hear about how some libraries are connecting with their teen patrons via mobile devices and explore simple strategies that you can implement at your own library, regardless of the size of your budget or your technological expertise. Speakers include: Patrick F. Taylor Sci & Tech Academy students Enjoli Gilbert and Courtney Beamer, Jennifer Valesquez, San Antonio Public Library, Renee McGrath, Nassau County Library System, Long Island, NY, Kerrilynn Hurley, Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library, and Jack Martin, New York Public Library.

Networking Opportunities

While I can’t share the deets on the publishing opportunities I get to attend there is a couple open events that anyone can attend.

ALA Dance Party, Friday, June 24/Saturday, June 25 10:00pm – 4:00 am at OZ New Orleans (800 Bourbon Street)

The Great YA Blogger Meetup, Saturday, June 25 from 8:00-11:00pm at Tommy’s Wine Bar (746 Tchoupitoulas Street)

If you’re coming to NOLA I hope to see you there! And if you’re not, I promise I’ll be doing write-ups of all these events and much more when I get home!

ALA

ALA: Floor Tips

Soooooo, Katie is STILL without power so I’m winging this one alone. Today I’ll be discussing ALA Floor Tips.

Clothing Tips

Wear business casual. Yes, technically you can wear whatever you please, but this is a professional conference. Dress the part. Not only will you blend in better, but you will be treated professionally as well.
Wear comfy shoes. This goes without saying since you’ll be doing a lot of walking!
Wear two layers of socks. Believe me, you’ll thank me later when your feet aren’t screaming as much.

Floor Tips

Take it easy. The ALA floor is huge and there’s no reason to sped through it! Take your time and relax if you need a break.
Bring a good bag. You can get tote bags on the floor, but a backpack really goes a long way for your shoulders.
Have plenty of business cards. Believe me you’ll need them!
Be considerate. I think this goes both for when talking to people, when walking, and when taking books. Being pleasant will get you a long way.
Don’t just grab! I know ARCs are pretty and it’s tempting to take every one you see. But, really, DON’T! Take what you can read/what you’re interested in. Remember a lot of librarians use ALA as a chance to see what is being published. And in my case, all my ARCS go directly to my teens. (Who LOVE to see what I bring home!) ALSO, talk to the publishers. See what they’re recommending. It’s a great way to make new connections with the publishers.
Network, network, network. Seriously. People think ALA is about books, but it’s not. It’s about the people you meet and the connections you make along the way. It’s thanks to ALA that I have an AMAZING support group of other librarians!

I think I covered the major tips, but if you have questions about anything don’t hesitate to ask! Leave it in the comments and I promise to respond.