Tag: mystery (books)

2016 Library Challenge: A Book with Magic

Magic — yay or nay?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from working in a library, it’s that people tend to have very strong feelings one way or another on whether they like books with magic or just fantasy in general. Even with our tween book club, for which the average age is ten, most of our members already have pretty firm opinions on the subject, with some really enjoying escaping into another world entirely and others strongly preferring that their fiction is rooted in realism.

If you’re in the first group, you probably won’t have any problem finding a book for this challenge. But if you’re in the latter and are still stumped for something to read or if you just are looking for something to read in general and don’t mind a walk on the fantastical side, here are some suggestions for you!

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2016 Library Challenge: A Book with a One Word Title

Off the top of your head, name a one word book title.

No cheating with Google or peeking at the nearest shelf of books!

I only torture you with this test because it actually took me an embarrassing amount of time to think of one word book titles when I first looked at the list of book challenges. My mind just completely blanked out and only could summon up very lengthy book titles.

If you are afflicted by a similar form of selective memory, don’t despair!

I’ve rounded up a selection of one word titles from recent books. As always, for more information on any of the books mentioned below, just follow this link to our online library catalog.

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Notes from the Tween Book Club

As some of you know, in addition to managing the library’s blog, I also co-moderate our tween book club with my coworker Mary-Esther, which means we’re responsible for picking books, leading discussions about those books, and directing a related craft or activity for a group of 8-12 year olds.

This month marks my one year anniversary of working with the book club, and the experience has been a valuable one for me, not only because it’s fun but also because it’s given me some much-needed knowledge about the current scene of children’s books.

Confession: Before I started working with the tween book club, I always secretly dreaded when someone asked me to help them find books for kids this age. Not because I’m a monster but because I was so out of touch with what was current.

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2016 Library Challenge: An Author’s First Book

For the month of May, we’re going to be focusing on authors–we’ll be looking at the various author-specific challenges from the 2016 Library Challenge, we’re highlighting authors who’ll be at Books in Bloom later this month, and we even have a display set up at the front of the library to spotlight author’s first novels. So, it only makes sense for us to kick off our focus on authors with a post about reading an author’s first book. I must confess, while I was researching this post, I was really startled to learn some of these books were these authors’ debuts because they already possess such polish.

As always, if you’re interested in any of the books featured in the post, you can learn more about them on our online library catalog.

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