Teen Tech Week may be officially over, but our Teen Video Contest is only at its halfway point. While it's been widely advertised that winners’ videos will be featured on our library website, we just found out that Best Buy has also generously donated some incredible prizes. The first place winner will receive an Ultra Flip video camera, second place a $100 gift card to Best Buy, and third place an official library t-shirt.
No discussion of twentieth-century science fiction writing can be complete without mention of Isaac Asimov, the biochemistry professor and visionary writer who was responsible for creating the popular characterization of robots and incorporating themes of social science into “hard” science fiction. His most popular works, the Foundation trilogy and the Robot series, are considered landmarks of science fiction to this day.
Last month I blogged about Leviathan, an awesome new book by Scott Westerfeld in the steampunk tradition. The trailer below illustrates the Leviathan plot and setting. For fans of the first book - you'll be thrilled to hear that the second book in the series is called Behemoth and will be published in October 2010.
Experience a minute in the Forest of Hands and Teeth:
Heart pounding yet? The Forest of Hands and Teeth, a novel by Carrie Ryan, is about a young woman named Mary and her life in her village. Sounds bucolic, doesn't it? Until you learn that the village is guarded by a high fence, which is surrounded by hordes of mindless, flesh-eating zombies called the Unconsecrated. Mary can hear their moaning all day and night, and she doesn't dare get too close to the fence, for the infection that turns you into an Unconsecrated is passed by a single bite.
As if David Small's graphic autobiography Stitches:--A Memoirwasn't powerful enough on its own, five scenes have been turned into eleven minutes of heart-wrenching video. If you've read the novel, is it worth it? Absolutely. Hearing 'mama's little cough," slamming of cupboards and moving her "fork a half inch to the right" further enhances the viewers understanding of David Small's traumatic, childhood home. If you haven't read this book, which was nominated for the 2009 Young People's Literature Award by the National Book Foundation, place a hold today! It's worth enjoying in all formats!
The period of time from the late 1930s to the end of the 1950s is commonly known as the "Golden Age" of science fiction. The Golden Age was noted for the volume of science fiction produced due to the large number of science fiction-oriented pulp magazines and the depth of the creative talent involved. Many of the writers working in this period established concepts that would have a tremendous cultural impact on their readers.
The GBBC is an annual, four-day event that takes a snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. It's an easy, fun, and free way to help the birds. Anyone can do this for as long or as little a time as he pleases, and their Web site has good information on how to get started, .
Over the course of the twentieth century, many authors have emerged to define the popular perception of science fiction. These authors have created some of the most-read science fiction works and continue to have an enormous influence on the science fiction world to this day. It is the work of these authors that has made the genre into a more diverse and critically respected field.
I'm here in blustery, snowy Boston with about a thousand librarians and publishers gathered in the convention center to find out what books have won the prestigious awards for young people's literature. There’s a buzz of speculation as people ask each other, “What do you think will win?” or “What is the book you gave your heart to this year?”
It’s one of life’s ironies that you don’t realize how much someone’s impacted your life until they’re gone. More specifically, you realize that you never told that person how much they meant. It isn’t until they pass that you think, “Oh! I wish I had said something!” You think about how that person shaped who you are, in major or even subtle ways, and sometimes realize that you wouldn’t be you if it weren’t for that person’s influence, guidance, or mere presence in your life.
