Did you know that August is National Wellness Month? Taking care of your physical, emotional, and mental health are all important to feeling your best. There are lots of ways to focus on your self-care. Whether you’re doing yoga, meditating, listening to music, or reading; as long as it promotes heath and happiness within you, it counts. Here are some things that can help foster a healthy lifestyle.
This book and DVD combo is a guide to yoga for teens. It discusses breathing techniques, the history of yoga, and has photos and descriptions of poses.
The library also has a wide variety of yoga DVDs for checkout.
This book has advice on everything mental health and is a guide for living with your brain. Judgment-free. It tackles difficult topics such as social media, mental health, family, friendships and more.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes all I need is some music therapy. Put on a good song while you go for a walk, clean your room, or just lay around can be very therapeutic. We have an array of music CDs in all genres for you to checkout.
Ah, summer! Long days and late sunsets, grasses blowing in warm (or hot) breezes. And for me, there’s the food! Between carnivals, rodeos, and fairs, there’s enough amazing food to keep me dreaming about all year long! So when I was struck by a longing for funnel cakes and fried Oreos, what could I do but compile a list of foodie books?
Plus, there’s the added bonus that this blog is called Eat, Read, Repeat. Double win! It was meant to be.
Here we go! Food-focused Teen Room books: fiction edition!
I internally scream and clutch the pearls I don’t even own when Marcy tells me, “We’re going to start a weeding project soon.”
My world shatters. I knew this day was coming!
I knew one day, this dream job would test me in ways I might not be able to pass!
How?! How could I remove books from this beautiful space? How could I take these little tree-babies with souls and send them off to who-knows-where? What if they don’t go to good homes?! What if they, (and here, I gulp in terror and agony) get thrown away?!
Marcy didn’t seem to notice the crazed panic in my eyes, and I did my best to play it cool. “I’m a super cool teen librarian now,” I thought. “I gotta be tough.”
That was months ago; now the weeding is over. I’ve taken multiple deep breaths, and I even put away my still-don’t-actually-own-them clutching pearls. Things are better. Since I’ve reached such a healthy place, I thought maybe I’d let you all in on the secret-not-a-secret of weeding.
The Whats, the Whys, and the WHYYYYYYsss?!
The Whats
Weeding is the purposeful removal of certain books (or graphic novels, or audiobooks, or whatever, we’re just gonna use books from now on), from the collection, based on certain information, such as how often it gets checked out, how badly it smells or falls apart when you open it, or exactly how outdated that information is about the 1992 Chicago Bulls team.
Okay, but what happens to the weeded books?
A very small percentage have lived lives so full of excited readers, that it’s time to say goodbye altogether and put them in the trash. Most of them, though, end up at the Friends of the Library Book Sale in the fall, where they find new homes and new readers to love them.
The Whys
Libraries should be full of information that is vibrant, up-to-date, and interesting to the people who use it. There are lots of reasons a book might be weeded, but all of them interfere in one way or another with these goals. A library so full of old books that it doesn’t have room for new books is a library that has become stagnant.
The WHYYYYYYs
A book is a beautiful thing. Some books make a home in our lives and live with us forever. Some books come into our lives, say a lovely hello, and eventually a sad goodbye. And both are okay.
At the end of the Teen Room’s weeding process, I looked over the books that we weeded, and didn’t see any that I thought, “No! So-and-so reader would have loved this one!” (Those ones we kept!). “That one is so popular, we gotta keep it!” (Spoiler alert: we did.). Or even, “That one deserves one more chance!” (If a book needed one more chance, we gave it one.).
At the end of weeding, I looked around the Teen Room and thought, “Wow. There is so much more room for the next batch of adventures.”
If you’re interested in the full weeding policy, you can check it out here:
We’re very lucky to have an amazing collection of manga in our library, both upstairs and down. The Teen Room collects the manga we think you all will enjoy, including these new series:
The Winter Solstice is the shortest day and the longest night of the year for the Northern Hemisphere. People all around the world celebrate the Winter Solstice differently. There are festivals, feasts, and sometimes gift giving. It is not the same day every year, but falls on December 21, 22, or 23.
This year the Winter Solstice is on December 21 at exactly 21:48 UTC and the Teen Room is celebrating by hosting an escape room! Teens have 30 minutes to try and solve the puzzles before the sun sets on them. Sessions run from 2-4pm, call or stop by the Teen Room to sign up.
Want to stay in the festive mood? Here are some books you can read that happen during the Winter Solstice.
There were two titles that we couldn’t come up with a quippy explanation for! Would you like to help us out? Comment below with your suggestions for the following titles:
I recently bought a Book Challenge Activity Book, with little envelopes of “prizes” I can open when I complete the challenge written on the outside.
The outside of one of the envelopes says, “Read a book from an author of a different ethnicity than yours.”
That might have been a challenge for me once, but the Teen Room offers so many different diverse authors, I could easily open the envelope right away. But never one to cheat the spirit of the system, (and always one to outdo myself!) I decided to mindfully begin reading even more diverse authors.
And in honor of Native American Heritage Month, here’s a short list of YA books whose authors are indigenous.
September 18-24 is Banned Books Week, an annual celebration for the freedom to read. In 2021, the Office for Intellectual Freedom, or the OIF, tracked 729 book challenges. This was more than double the number of reported challenges in 2020, affected 1,597 titles, and was the most challenges in the history of the OIF.
There’s always been some confusion on the difference between a challenged book and a banned book. So, let’s take a look at what they are. Challenges are an attempt to remove or restrict a title for whatever reason. Banning books are removing them from the library completely. Even though a book may be banned or challenged in another state/library doesn’t mean it will be removed from your library. It simply means it was challenged/banned at that location. Challenging and banning books happens all over. In 2022, books have been banned in multiple states including Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri.
Campbell County Public Library has not banned any books and believes in your intellectual freedom to read what you want. And that’s one of the best ways to celebrate Banned Books Week, read banned books! You can search online for popular banned books; you’d be surprised what’s on there (The Lorax?!?!). You can also ask the librarians at your public or school library for help as well. Meanwhile, here is a list of the most challenged books in 2021.
Behind the Super Top Secret Door…of the office that is surrounded by windows and that teen volunteers go in all the time.
Now, the reason we Smaug-smuggle the following items into the office is that they take a little more time and require a little more involvement on the side of their operator (eh hem, YOU). Sometimes the Teen Room might be a little crazy or a shift change might be in the works, so these aren’t always available on demand. But on a quiet day, ask the desk librarian for one of these awesome things to try.
So if you read through my rant about the 3D printer, you won’t be surprised at how excited I am by the 3D Doodlers. They’re pens that extrude plastic sticks into designs you create. With these babies, you become the 3D printer. Bonus points if you sing while you work. There is a learning curve to the pens, but when isn’t there a learning curve? Experimentation is half the fun! Give these a try when you have a little time for the pens to warm up and make Glenda proud. (Glenda is the 3D printer. I named her. Just now.)
Now. Here’s where I’m out of my element. Up to now I’ve had some idea what I’m talking about, although it may not seem like it. But. We have these OTHER robots. They’re little. They’re cute. They’re completely unused in the time that I’ve worked here. So if you’re a robotics person, or willing to learn to be a robotics person, it would give me endless joy to find you at the desk, politely and excitedly asking for the Ozobots or the Spheros. Two different kinds of little robots even, I mean really! I can hand over the mechanical creature of your choosing and sit back to see what happens next.
This concludes my too-excited tour of the Teen Room. There’s obviously stuff left out, like our clubs, and programs, and volunteer opportunities. The magnets on the vending machine, just waiting for your poetry. The corkboards by the door, just waiting for your artwork. There’s just so much to explore down here.
I can’t give away all the secrets. Best leave some for you to find yourself.
Find some yourself, when you head down to the best part of the library to say hello.
Can we talk for just a minute about the Teen Room 3D printer? As the staff that runs it, I’ve had to approach it cautiously. Stay calm. Don’t let it smell fear. But I think (think, mind you), that I’ve befriended the tiny singing robot, and its friendship is A-MAZING! I’ve made a brooding Batman and a tiny turtleduck and a pretty real-looking LEGO brick so far, and I’ve only sustained one minor injury. So explore the free plans on Thingiverse, find something to print, and for 10 cents a gram you also can bond with the super-fancy singing glue gun. It melts plastic instead of glue, get it?
Now may I take a moment to note that the folks that designed the Teen Room really thought of everything. Have you noticed the charging station behind the desk? There’s a variety of cords for a variety of devices with little slots so there’s room for everyone. Have your own cords? There’s a charging tower with wall and USB outlets in the seating area with the super-comfy chairs. Plug in a laptop or tablet or phone and let your devices enjoy some delicious electricity.
Now, we’ve arrived at the board games: an offering near and dear to my nerd heart. Try Niya, a connect-four, tic-tac-toe cross that’s quick and easy to learn with tokens that are fun to clink together like Sir Hiss from Robin Hood
Or if you have a little more time, Kill Doctor Lucky is like reverse Clue. Instead of solving a murder, you race your opponents to be the first to kill off annoying Doctor Lucky. There’s a whole collection to be explored, and lots of ways to add your own twists if you get board (little pun for you there. You’re welcome). At least so says the creator of Who Wants to be a Trivial Three of a Kind. The world is welcome for that too.
Next to the board games, we have our take-home craft kits. No time to hang out in the makerspace? These kits can go home with you! Perler bead kits and glue gun kits come with included accessories, and paired with your own imagination (or Pinterest’s imagination, if you’re me), can make something amazing.
Whew! Outta breath. Running on too much excitement. I’m going to take a break and come back fresh with Part 3 of my trilogy.
