Tween Book Club Adventures: in the graveyard

The tween book club voted in September to read a "scary --- but not too scary" book in October. I decided on the wonderful and award winning Neil Gaiman title THE GRAVEYARD BOOK.

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK opens with the tragic story of a small toddler whose parents were murdered in their bed by a man named Jack. This child (later named Nobody or “Bod”) escapes from the murderer by climbing out of his crib, crawling out of his house, and into the neighborhood graveyard. The kind-hearted ghosts who reside in the graveyard shelter him from the murderer and take him into their “home”.


The initial frightening opening scene of THE GRAVEYARD BOOK is soon replaced by a wonderfully tender cast of ghostly characters.   Some of the book club participants enjoyed the frightening beginning of the book and some thought it was a bit too gruesome. Everyone agreed that everything else after the murder was pure awesomeness.

While we were  noshing on pizza, a graduate library school student came in and book talked a list of middle grade  "scary --- but not too scary" reads.  She compiled a sort-of-scary readers advisory bookmark and handed them out to the kids.  Afterwords, we got down to the groups favorite part of book club -- crafting!

This month, we crated little graveyard terrariums.  I got this very cute idea from the Harper Collins book/craft Tumblr page.  This page has a few unbelievably clever and adorable book/craft pairings.

I ended the book club by passing out November’s book club pick.  The I SURVIVED series by Lauren Tarshis is "like, totally super cool" with the tweens right now.  We can't keep them on the shelf.  I highly suggest that you check out the Bryce Don't Play: Shark Week blog post for fun activities to go along with this title.

Community Helpers - a Humane Society school-age program

Last week, our local school district had their first early release day.  Our youth service staff usually tries to have an after school program available for the droves of bored kiddos that descend upon the library looking for entertainment. Games and crafts are usually set out for the kids in order to keep the out of trouble and out of staff's hair.

This month, I decided shake up the regular crafternoon program with a community service twist.  Our local Humane Society's Human Heroes program is for children under fourteen who would like to be involved in helping out the Humane Society but are too young to interact with the animals.  They developed a booklet with easy projects for young kids. The booklet guides kids in making easy beds, toys, and treat for the animals at the shelter.

We had about 18 kids in attendance for this program. I asked a representative from our local Humane Society to drop by and talk with the kids. She spent twenty minutes discussing shelter animals, answering the kids questions, and briefly talking about their youth Humane Heroes program. The kids had lots of wonderful questions and stories!

Before crafting, we read the book Dog vs. Cat by Chris Gall. This book is awesome! Reading this story started a whole new round of discussions about cat and dog antics.

Next, the children got started constructing cat toys for the cats and kittens at our locale animal shelter. The cat toys were made of a dowel rod, twine, felt, jingle bells and a jump ring.  Crafters cut two feathers out of the felt.  They attached the bell to the jump ring and then tied on the feathers with the twine. The other end of the twine was double knotted to the dowel rod for a handle.  This craft was very fun and most of the kids made more than one toy.

The Humane Society loved coming out to the library and offered to join us for another event.  This program was a hit with both parents and kids.  I will definitely be running this program again for our "Every Hero has a Story" themed 2015 summer reading program!

Star Wars Reads Day

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....

Admiral Sackbar Puppet Instructions

Rebel children leave their home base and
head to their neighborhood library. Wookies, Vaders,

Leias, Skywalkers & Storm Troopers descended

on the children’s department to uncover

awesome new Star Wars books and movies.

During this invasion, rebel spies steal
secret plans to make the ultimate in

Star Wars crafts… Origami Yoda,

Princess Labelmaker and

Chewbacca the Fortune Wookie.

Rebel children then race home aboard

their parents starships.  Armed with their new

Star Wars swag, they read and dream about 

Jedi’s defending the people and restoring 

freedom to the galaxy...

The third annual Star Wars Reads Day is October 11^th and our youth services staff is geeking out at the opportunity to share all of our library’s Star Wars literary awesomeness.  Lego Star Wars, Angry Birds Star Wars, Origami Star Wars, graphic novel Star Wars, board book Star Wars, etc… we have it all. For the third annual Star Wars Reads Day, I have decided to recycle an easy and relatively passive origami program.  Our youth services department is usually staffed a little sparse on Saturdays so we need a low key program idea. 

We ran a drop-in Star Wars origami program in the library gallery last year and it was a hit with staff, parents, and kids.  Tom Angleberger, author of the infamous Oragami Yoda books, has a playlist on the Abram Books’ YouTube site. These 5-10 minute videos feature Tom explaining how to construct all of his Star Wars origami characters.

The library’s large television was rolled into the gallery along with several crafting tables.  We hooked up a laptop to the TV and played the Origami Yoda playlist on repeat.  Plain white and colored printer paper was cut into fourths or halves (Tom will tell you what colors and sizes are needed in the videos). 

A free printable Fortune Wookie cootie catcher template can be found on the Origami Yoda website.   

This year, we are also giving away Star Wars swag (stickers, buttons, etc.) to children who visit the children’s reference desk with their favorite Star Wars book.  That’s it!  This is easy-peasy program that will please the mini Jedi's, Padwans, and Rebels. May the Force be with you this Star Wars Reads Day! What will your library/school be doing to celebrate?

LEGO Pictionary

Legos are the BIG thing this year.  Our library hosts monthly Lego free-build sessions after school that are always packed with excited builders.  This month, I decided to put a new spin on Lego programming: LEGO Pictionary!

Age Range: 8-12

Time range: About 45 minutes

Cost: Free (if your library has access to Legos)

Setup/Equipment: 5 tables with 4 seats per table; a whiteboard to keep score; folded paper squares with pictures/words; a bowl to put the papers in

The tweens choose their “team” by picking an empty seat at one on the tables. We then went over:

Da’ Rules

No running

No yelling

Only one builder per team/per turn

Everyone gets a turn to be the builder

The builder may not speak, spell, or pantomime the answer to guessers

The first team to guess what the builder is making out of Legos gets the point

To avoid arguments, I had the youngest in the group be the first builder.  I called the first builders up to the front of the room and had one child pick a folded square of paper out of a bowl.  The squares had pictures/words of the object the builder was to build:

The builders then ran back to the table and started on their assigned object.  Some of the objects were very easy and the kids guessed within two minutes.  I placed a limit of five minutes of building/guessing time.  

The kids had fun playing this game but it grew a bit complicated as late coming kids tried to jump in 15-20 minutes into the game. After 20 minutes, the game dissolved in Lego free play and the kids started making up their own rules/games.  Legos are such a popular and easy and flexible activity that never goes out of style. 

Here comes Babymouse!

BABYMOUSE: CUPCAKE TYCOON is the thirteenth graphic novel in the award winning BABYMOUSE series. The BABYMOUSE series chronicles Babymouse’s adventures in hilarious dialog and black, white, and pink illustrations. Who can resist BABYMOUSE's pinktastically creative antics?  Not me!  Neither can the kids.  These graphic novels fly off the library shelves as soon as they come in. 

In CUPCAKE TYCOON, Babymouse’s school library is having a cupcake selling fund-raiser thanks to the library sprinkler accident caused by her overactive imagination. Babymouse is determined to outsell all the other students and win the “special” prize.  

I read this book and had visions of  library cupcake decorating awesomeness.  Unfortunately, my co-workers envisioned colored icing stains and embedded carpet sprinkles.  I have conducted food tween programs in the public library meeting rooms before.  They were....messy (steam clean the carpet the next day messy).  Oh well. 

The publisher's website has downloadable BABYMOUSE comic fill-in worksheets so children can create their own BABYMOUSE graphic novel. I have used similar downloadable templates for a tween graphic novel book club.  This was very fun and the kids took templates home so they could  continue creating. Have any other tween librarian conducted any BABYMOUSE Awesome BABYMOUSE programming?  I would love to hear about it!

BABYMOUSE Book Trailer:

Holm, Jennifer & Matthew Holm. 2010. BABYMOUSE: CUPCAKE TYCOON. NY: Random House. ISBN 978-0375965739.

Tween Book Club Adventures

I have been running a very fun and popular Tween Book Club since March.  The tween book club meets once a month to discuss a book/graphic novel they read the month before.  This summer I decided to shake things up by having a Book 2 Movie club once a month in the afternoon.  It was a HUGE success! 

Due to time constraints, the tween book club not able to watch the movie. Instead, I picked two very popular book-to-movie choices for June and July and planned several activities around them. 

June - HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON by Cressida Cowell

The movie How to Train your Dragon 2 came out the day before the book club meeting. I convinced a generous local movie theater to give me four free  opening weekend tickets.  I then devised a book vs. movie trivia quiz to challenge the club’s dragon training knowledge while we noshed on pizza.  There were some hard core dragon fans in attendance.  This contest was very competitive and fun!

Next, I broke out the library’s two huge plastic tubs of donated Legos.  We sat in a circle on the floor while building Lego dragons.  The kids came up with their own creative dragon names and dragon training stories while we were building.

July – THE LIGHTNING THIEF by Rick Riordan

June’s book club was a little chaotic due to the high number of people in attendance (96!).  I decided to approach July’s book club a little differently.  I broke the book activities into stations and allowed the kids to rotate through at their own pace.  Each station generated many awesome book/movie discussions.

Station 1: Book vs. Movie Trivia- This one was easy!  There are so many differences between the book and the movie.  The Camp Half-Blood Wiki has a comprehensive list to draw from:   http://camphalfblood.wikia.com/wiki/Percy_Jackson_and_the_Olympians:_The_Lightning_Thief/Differences_from_the_book .

Station 2: Camp Half-Blood Archery – I set up the Wii on our large television.  The kids had a blast taking turns playing Wii Resort archery.

Station 3: Shield Making -  I borrowed this idea form the KC Edventures Blog:  http://www.kcedventures.com/blog/percy-jackson-movie-birthday-party .  To keep costs down, I purchased inexpensive cardboard cake rounds instead of pizza pans to make the shields. I placed various craft supplies such as markers, crayons, glitter, construction paper, etc. out on the table and let the kids go to town.   This was by far the most popular and creatively awesome station!

Station 4: Greek Mythology Go-Fish- A free printable game can be found here: http://bogglesworldesl.com/greekmyths_flashcards.htm

Station 5: Write Your Name in Greek -  The Percy Jackson Event Kit on Rick Riordan’s website has a English to Greek letter translation chart: http://www.rickriordan.com/Files/Documents/event_kit_riordan.doc. I tacked this chart up next to a white board and put out some whiteboard markers.  The kids all took turns translating their names into Greek.   Some of them even put their Greek name on their newly created shield.

The End-

I always try to save five to ten minutes at the end of the book club to book-talk and pass out the next book.  Do you run a Tween Book Club at your library?  I’d love to hear about your experiences!