Weekly Reads: Paper Towns

I'm probably the last John Green fan on the planet to just read Paper Towns, but here we are. I love his books SO MUCH that I didn't want to speed read my way through all of them, and then just be stuck in this world where there isn't another one for me to read. I had tried to listen to this on audio several years ago, and could not get into the narrator, but I chose it for an upcoming book club meeting.

I could not put it down, it was so great, and had a really good mystery element. I love John Green.

My rating: 4 stars

Summary from Goodreads:

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows.

After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer Q gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew.

Weekly Reads: Art and Business of Teaching Yoga

Last summer, I attended Hanuman yoga festival in Boulder, CO, and was lucky enough to take a class from Amy Ippoliti. A yoga teacher, and teacher trainer in Boulder, CO. She was amazing, so when I saw she had co-written a book, I couldn't wait to read it. I suggested it for our last book club, and couldn't wait to dive in. The Art and Business of Teaching Yoga: The Yoga Professional's Guide to a Fulfilling Career was a really quick read, full of lots of insightful tips from her expert brain. I would highly recommend this book to other yoga teachers out there, and totally plan to take a teacher training from her at some point in my life time. Can you imagine? Just dropping your real world responsibilities for a few weeks to go and just be a yogi in Boulder learning from her? Ugh. I can't imagine. Bliss.

My rating: 4 stars.

Summary from Goodreads:

Thousands of yoga lovers take teacher training courses each year, hoping to share what they learn with others. Many want to make yoga teaching their full-time career, but most training programs fall short in covering business acumen, and they may not equip graduates with the entrepreneurial skills and savvy they need to make a go of it. This indispensable and inspiring book guides both new and established professionals toward maximizing their impact as teachers and achieving their career goals. You’ll learn to: 

• build a loyal student base• plan dynamic classes• optimize your own practice • become more financially stable• maintain a marketing plan• use social media effectively• create a unique brand identity• inspire even more students to embrace yoga 

Weekly Reads: Scythe

Scythe is the newest book by Neal Shusterman. It recently won a Printz Honor for distinguished books for teens. I read it for my book club. This book reminded me of a grittier, more disturbing version of The Giver which is my favorite book of all time. I wasn't thrilled that it was the first book in a series as I'm all about the stand alones these days. The story started off very strong, slowed down a little bit in the middle, and then picked up in a fierce and ferocious way. I couldn't put it down the last 100 pages!

My rating: 4 stars.

Summary from goodreads:

Thou shalt kill.

A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.

Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

Library Anniversary

Today marks my one year anniversary at my library, or my libraversary if you will. The last year has been the best year in my professional career, so since I can't shout it from the rooftops (I live in an apartment on the first floor, thus don't have a rooftop to call my own) I'm doing the next best thing: blogging about it.

Over the past year I have learned the ins and outs of all things circulation, the department that I started in, and got to be a part of a major conversion where the entire library system changed from barcode scanning to RFID tags. And I got to help convert many MANY of those items personally. I wish that I had an odometer of sorts to determine how many of our collection I tagged on my own. I like stats, what can I say.

As I was getting close to finishing my Masters degree I found out I was selected to transfer to our brand new, yet to open library branch and I was beyond excited. Along with my new co-workers, I got to help get the library ready to open by unpacking thousands and thousands of books, putting them in order, shelving shelving shelving until the cows come home.

We had our grand opening and I have never seen so many people in a library at one time. Also I have never had a day of work fly by that quickly before.

Since we have opened, I have lead two story time sessions, and am just starting two more sessions. I have co-lead our teen programming events with my friend and co-worker Emily, and I have started a book club for adults who read YA books, that is almost already at capacity.

We all dressed up as Harry Potter characters for Halloween!





And I get to make some fun displays.  Here are two I've made for the teen section.

Banned Book Week Display

Murder Mystery display

If the first year was this great, I can't wait to see what year number 2 will bring.

Mock Printz

At my library, I've started a book club for adults who like to read Young Adult books. It's been a lot of fun so far, and I was even in the paper to promote it! YAY books!

For our January meet up, I had the idea to do a Mock Printz Award discussion. The Printz Award is akin to the Newbery Award given for quality children's literature, only it is geared specifically for Young Adult books (books geared toward 13-18 year olds).

In case you want to play along from afar, here are the titles we have on our list. I encouraged people to read as many or as few as they'd like. The Printz Award committee looks at all the Young Adult books published in the U.S. during the year to determine one Printz Award winner and five Printz honor books.

The books on our list are:

• Eleanor & Park
• Two Boys Kissing 
• Midwinterblood 
• The Coldest Girl in Coldtown 
• Maggot Moon
• Counting by 7s 
• Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock 
• More Than This 
• Far Far Away 
• Winger 
• The 5th Wave 
• The Lucy Variations 
• Out of The Easy

I've highlighted the books that I got a chance to read.

We discussed the books one by one, discussing the merits that the Printz committee looks at when deciding. Then we voted on our top 3 books with the 1st place book garnering 5 points, 2nd 3 points and 3rd 1 point.

My personal votes were

1.  Eleanor and Park

2.  More Than This

3.  Two Boys Kissing

I really really hope E&P will win the Printz, but I could also see More Than This taking the honors.

Our group came up with:

1.  Eleanor and Park (27)

2.  Forgive Me Leonard Peacock (16)
3.  Two Boys Kissing (9)
4T.  More Than This (8)
4T.  Winger (8)
6.  Far Far Away (5)
7.  5th Wave (4)
8.  Counting by 7s (3)
9.  Coldest Girl in Coldtown (1)

The actual Printz award will be on January 27th. I can't wait to see who wins!

**The links are all amazon affiliate links, so if you click on them and buy the book, I get a tiny portion of the sale. FYI**