2009 Teens' Top Ten

The winners of the Teens' Top Ten were announced last week during Teen Read Week!

The Teens' Top Ten list is a book award for young adult literature chosen by teens and created by Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), which is a division of the American Library Association.

More than 11,000 teens voted and chose Paper Towns by John Green as their favorite for 2009. Check out the complete list:

What a great list! Click on the icons to reserve any of the titles :)

Read Beyond Reality

We will be celebrating Teen Read Week this week the library!

Teens who checks out 2 (or more!) YA books can choose an item from the prize basket at the circulation desk. Limit one prize per person.

This year's theme is Read Beyond Reality @ your library, which encourages teens to read something out of this world, just for the fun of it :)

Book Club Wrap-Up - The Divorce Party

We had another delightful book club meeting last night. The book we discussed this month was Laura Dave's The Divorce Party. From the publisher:

Hosting a divorce party on what would have been their thirty-fifth anniversary, amicably separated spouses Gwyn and Thomas Huntington unexpectedly toast their son's engagement to a young woman who inadvertently discovers unsettling secrets about the man she is to marry.

We had coffee and red velvet cupcakes along with brownies brought by Rosemary (thanks again!) during our meeting. The overall feeling our group had about the book was that it just wasn't that good. We felt the author was a great writer but did not make her characters empathetic to the reader. A lot of members of our group (including me) assumed it would be a light, funny read about a woman throwing her divorce party. Instead the book tried too hard to be serious and fell flat. All that aside, we still enjoyed talking about the book!

For further information:

Laura Dave's website

New York Post article about real-life "divorce parties"

In Search of America's Best Red Velvet Cake

Our next book club meeting will be Monday, November 9th @ 6:30pm. Bring your favorite book that puts you in the holiday spirit - a cookbook, craft book, short stories, fiction/non-fiction or children's book. Bring one (or more) book to share with the group!

Do You Love Cupcakes?

If so, you are in luck! Little Debbie is giving away tons of prizes to promote their cupcake marketing campaign. They are giving away a 1 million cupcakes and a Smart Car that looks like a cupcake:

No joke. A cupcake car! Enter at their website. Winners will be announced on National Chocolate Cupcake Day on October 18th.

So, since National Chocolate Cupcake Day is right around the corner, what better way to celebrate than by making your own cupcakes? We have just the book for you.

Martha Stewart's Cupcakes came out earlier this year and is full of delicious recipes. The staff here has been salivating over the pristine cupcake pictures in this book. My personal favorite (that would be perfect for the fall weather!) are the Ginger and Molasses Cupcakes on page 52. Yummy! Or if Martha's cupcakes aren't your style, search the catalog for more cookbooks.

Good luck and happy cupcake eating!

Irondale's ProjectRead Wrap-Up

We had a great September filled with all things kitties!

Our book club discussed Dewey: the story of the small-town library cat who touched the world. We also had a cutest cat contest and a coloring contest for kids. Last week we finished things off with a cat-themed PJ Storytime. Check out our Flickr page for pictures. We read Dewey: there's a cat in the library and A Cat and a Dog. We also did a few yoga stretches in between stories - cat pose and downward dog. The kids loved it!

Remember, even though we have finished our Dewey-themed events here at Irondale, there is still a lot going on at other libraries in Jefferson County. Check out the event calendar for more information!