Before the Summer Ends + HARRY POTTER BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!

It's the end of July! That means you've got some serious summer reading to fit into the last few weeks before school starts up again. To give you some inspiration, check out the following:

• YALSA is having a Teen Blogging Contest for Teen Read Week! If you're passionate about YA lit and love to blog, this is perfect for you. TRW isn't until October--more about that later--but you only have until August 1 (that's Friday!) to sign up for the contest! Click here for more information.
• This one isn't just for the girls! Meg Medina, author of Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass and The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind, and Gigi Amateau, author of Claiming Georgia Tate and Come August, Come Freedom, made a summer reading list of books about amazing girls. This list is awesome, and should be required reading for any kid, in my opinion. (I'm still working my way through some of them!) Fun fact: Both authors live in Richmond!
• Veronica Roth did an interview with Goodreads about her Divergent trilogy and subsequent prequel(ish) quartet of short stories about the male lead, Four. It has some major spoilers, so don't read it unless you've read at least up to Allegiant. Before you go back to school, this is a perfect time to get caught up on one of the hottest literary trends of the past few years! Then read the interview to get some questions answered for you.

The coolest and most awesome thing you can do before July ends is come to the Harry Potter birthday party we're having at the library tomorrow night! It's going to have everything: Butterbeer, Hagrid's (cup)cakes, wandmaking at Ollivander's, the Sorting Hat, and even Quidditch. That's right--the JMU Quidditch Team is going to be here to teach us the greatest wizarding sport ever and help us play a game. It's going to be amazing, so put on your best HP costume and come to the Main branch to throw Harry Potter the best birthday party he never had!

Happy Birthday, Harry Potter!

7/31/2014

Teens (ages 11-17) are invited to celebrate Harry Potter's birthday by drinking butterbeer, making your own wand, and playing his favorite wizarding sport with the JMU Quidditch team. You'll even be sorted into one of the Hogwarts Houses!

Location:

Main Library-downtown Harrisonburg

Bonus Post: New eBooks!!

I've told you before about how you can check books out online. Well since you guys did such an awesome job of doing just that in June, we're getting some more ebooks for you guys to borrow! Isn't that amazing?! And I was allowed to give you guys a sneak peak into an eBook you can check out starting tomorrow. Wanna know what it is? Well do you? I'll give you a hint: I talk about it all the time on here.

That's right! Starting tomorrow, you can check out TFIOS through your phone, e-reader, tablet, computer--you name it! Simply go to our website, click "Downloadable Media" on the left, and click on the Overdrive button. (You have to go through our website to see what's available through your card.) You can browse through our entire online collection or just select "All Teen" to see just YA books.

Overdrive works just like the library, just through the interwebs. You can put up to three items on hold, and your checkouts last two weeks. You just don't have to worry about returning it to the library; it will disappear after your checkout time is up (which is great because I forget all the time). We get new books constantly, so keep checking to see what's available.

Also check out our other online lending services! Freading also has eBooks, Zinio has magazines, and OneClick is for audiobooks. (Don't forget that audiobooks count on your summer reading!) We also have all of these resources for you to look at/download. We're just full of free gifts!

Also, check out SYNC. They give away two audiobooks a week--one current YA and one book that's more likely to be on your summer reading list for school. It's only available until August 13, so take advantage of it now!

You only have a few weeks of summer left, so why not spend it getting some fun reading in before you have to worry about homework again?

Comic Book News!

• Marvel made some huge announcements this week:
• Thor is now a lady! (The Huffington Post has a great article about comic book representation of females and minorities, btw.)
• Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson/The Falcon in Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier) will be taking over the role of Captain America in the next installment! If you've watched him on the press tour for The Winter Soldier, you'll see that he's absolutely hilarious, and he's probably the biggest fan of the movie--and his own character--than anyone else.  Check out this interview he did with NPR in April.
• Marvel also announced five new films from 2017-2019. CinemaBlend laid it out for us (adding in "two mystery projects"):

• Guardians of the Galaxy - August 1, 2014
• The Avengers: Age of Ultron - May 1, 2015
• Ant-Man - July 17, 2015
• Captain America 3 - May 6, 2016
• Untitled Project - July 8, 2016
• Untitled Project - May 5, 2017
• Untitled Project - July 28, 2017
• Untitled Project - November 3, 2017
• Untitled Project - July 6, 2018
• Untitled Project - November 2, 2018
• Untitled Project - May 3, 2019

Get excited, guys!! 

• Bad news for Archie comics fans! **Spoiler alert!
• Archie died in last week's issue. Check out CNN's article to learn how it happens, including comic panel pages.
• But don't worry! The comic won't end. It will apparently still take place in an "alternate timeline." Abed from Community would be concerned.
• Batman is turning 75!
  Well not really Bruce Wayne himself, but the comics are! How can you celebrate, you ask?
• Well, you could read them. We have Batman books in just about every section of the library.
• You could also check out the 1960's TV show. It's being released on DVD for the first time ever! POW!
• Or if you want something a little more current, they're adapting the comics into a new TV show. It's called Gotham, and it's going to air this fall. It takes a look back at Bruce Wayne as a kid but really focuses on Commissioner Gordon's start when he was still a cop. The website is already up and trailers are out. Here's one:

What do you guys think? Does it do Bob Kane's comic justice? Or does it follow too much in Christopher Nolan's footsteps? Or is it just blech? Comment with your thoughts!

(Personally I really love Batman so a Batman TV show is a big deal for me and I don't know what to think about this can't we just rewatch the Michael Keaton/Tim Burton Batman again???

 

This should keep you guys satisfied throughout ComicCon weekend, right? Right??

The Heroes of Olympus Update + Percy Jackson Book!!!

Rick Riordan gave his fans a plethora of amazing spoilers on his blog. Let's bullet point this:

• If you've downloaded the short story "The Staff of Serapis," which features Annabeth Chase + Sadie Kane, you'll get a sneak peek of the first chapter of The Blood of Olympus. (Here's a sample of the first few pages of "The Staff of Serapis"!)
• BTW, here's the cover for the final book in The Heroes of Olympus series, due to be released October 7:

• RR also released some info about the book itself, including its length (about as long as the others) and what will happen at the end (no epilogue or cliffhangers but complete closure for the characters and story arc!).
• Before that, though, you can read Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, and the illustrations look bananas. (Not like actual fruit bananas, but like, "it's so cool, it's making me crazy, like I'm 'going bananas.'" You guys remember Gwen Stefani, right??)

 

• RR also mentioned what his next two projects are going to be and MAN, they sound good!!
• His next series will be based on Norse mythology! It will be released Fall 2015, though the title (and some hints??) will be revealed at the end of The Blood of Olympus. 
• Also, here's a quote directly from RR:

Other things going on: I am presently writing the third crossover story in the Kane/Percy Jackson saga, in which Percy, Sadie, Carter and Annabeth finally team up all together. This will be told from Percy's point of view, a la the 'old school' Percy Jackson novels. I'm having a lot of fun with it. I'll get you more info -- the title, the publication date -- as soon as it's all confirmed.

!!! Worlds are colliding, guys! I'm going to wear out the + key on my keyboard, talking about Pecy + Sadie + Carter + Annabeth.
• THE LOST HERO GRAPHIC NOVEL LOOKS SO GOOOOOOD!

• RR also mentioned he's going on a book tour starting October 7 to promote The Blood of Olympus, as well as the new paperback boxset that's been released.

It's just been a really exciting week for RR/Percy Jackson fans. If you're not up-to-date on any of his books--or if you want to read them over again--check them out from MRL!

Photo credits: Rick Riordan, Nate Powell, someone named Wes? Sorry Wes, I don't know you, but cool bed. Very Rocko's Modern Life.

Guest Post // North River Library Neighborhood: Summertime

Welcome to the North River Library Neighborhood! Summer of 2014 has been a busy one as of today, we have registered 816 youth ages 0-17 in the Summer Reading Games here at NRL. Summer reading culminates on August 9. We have provided Crafty Kids on Wednesdays with stories and STEM activities. Legos Club on the second Tuesday of each month throughout the year continues to be a big hit for children in grades K-5. Story times on Thursday mornings for children ages 0-5 have grown to our largest two with 90 participants combined. For adolescent patrons, a local Girl Scout has created writers support groups for her Gold Award. Students have met several times to share and discuss their personal writing pieces. The adult book group read Me Before You by Jojo Moyes and enjoyed a discussion of the questions the book raised regarding life and death. Ms. Moyes' most recent book, One Plus One, is on order to arrive at NRL in early August.

 

Bonus Post: New Mockingjay Teaser!

A new Mockingjay Part 1 teaser was released. I didn't think it was possible they could outdo the first one BUT THEY DID.

ENJOY:

Dumbledore's Army Reunion BY J.K. ROWLING!!

J.K. Rowling wrote an amazing update for the Dumbledore's Army for Pottermore.

(If you don't know what Pottermore is, it's an online Harry Potter resource, with games [you can make potions and cast spells!] and a very safe social aspect [it's completely anonymous]. You follow the course of the books through chapters--meaning you answer quiz questions written by Queen Jo herself to get sorted into a house at Hogwarts in the first one! Plus there is so much background on all your favorite characters, locations, potions... It's just really cool and fun! Wait until you read Professor McGonagall's background; she's fantastic.)

Queen Jo wrote an article as Rita Skeeter and posted in on Pottermore yesterday as though Dumbledore's Army (Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and Luna) had a reunion at the Quidditch World Cup! You also get an update on some other faves. In case you were wondering, the article mentions that Harry is 34 years old (The Deathly Hallows takes place from 1997-1998).

When I first started reading it, I saw it on Tumblr without seeing the caption and I just thought it was an insanely good fanfic, but I got to a certain point and realized it was her...it was the queen. If you come to the Harry Potter Birthday Party on July 31, we can gab about everything and--oh, enough talk! Here's the article she posted! (If you zoom in, you'll have to read all the left columns before the right ones.)

Major spoiler alert!! If you don't want to know what they're up to all these years later, do not read past this sentence!

Walter Dean Myers

Award-winning author Walter Dean Myers passed away this week. Check out his biography on Teenreads for more insight on why he was an amazing individual. Check out his books from MRL to find out why his children's and young adult books are so important.

Amazing Books from YALSA

We got a grant from YALSA for the Top Ten Teen Book Nominees, and you guys love them. There are hardly any left on the shelf! Check out these pics of some teens enjoying them: