Teen Blog

If you like Down to the Wire, you may like other titles in the Specialists series. They include Model Spy, The Winning Element, and Native Tongue, all by Shannon Greenland.

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean.

Taken to Antarctica by the man she thinks of as her uncle for what she believes to be a vacation, Symone--a troubled fourteen year old--discovers that he is dangerously obsessed with seeking Symme's Hole, an opening that supposedly leads into the center of a hollow Earth.

Thanks for visiting our website and for your Book Match request. Also by D.J. MacHale is the new Morpheus Road series. Here are a few more titles you might enjoy:

For City of Bones, I would recommend,

Lament (and its sequel Ballad) by Maggie Stiefvater.

On the day of an important music competition, talented but painfully introverted and nervous Deirdre Monaghan is helped to perform by the compelling and enigmatic Luke Dillon and finds herself inexorably drawn into the mysteries and dangers of the faerie world.

Wicked Lovely (and its sequels Ink Exchange and Fragile Eternity) by Melissa Marr .

If you're a fan of the Chaos Walking series, you'll be excited to hear that the third book in the trilogy, Monsters of Men, will hit U.S. bookstores on September 28, 2010. In the meantime, you can enjoy this trailer and maybe re-read The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and The Answer.

If you haven't heard of this series yet (and you love intense, action-packed, dystopian novels), check out this blog post.

 It was a dark and rainy night . . . but that didn’t stop fans from coming out in droves to hear Maggie Stiefvater at the Salem Church Library, this past Monday! Books clutched in hands, hoping for an autograph, teens and adults alike were eager to hear this famous local author speak about reading, writing, and authorship.

Cafe Book Dixon Smith was great this year- getting together during lunch to talk about the hottest new books for teens! The school library was the place to be on May 12 when 56 students cast their votes and here are the results!

Top Pick:

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.

Other Favorites:

Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin
Cabinet of Wonders by Marie Rutkoski
Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
Comet's Curse by Dom Testa 
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
If the Witness Lied by Caroline B. Cooney
Somebodyby Nancy Springer

Cafe Book is over at Rodney Thompson...it was great to get together at lunch and talk about books.  On May 5th, 55 students voted for the books their favorites.  Here are their favorites.

Top Picks:

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
In a polygamous cult in the desert, Kyra, not yet fourteen, sees being chosen to be the seventh wife of her uncle as just punishment for having read books and kissed a boy, in violation of Prophet Childs' teachings, and is torn between facing her fate and running away from all that she knows and loves.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.

Other Favorites:

The Cabinet of Wonders by Marie Rutkoski
Anything but Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin
Eon Dragoneye Reborn by Allison Goodman
Comet's Curse by Dom Testa

Top Pick:  

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins  - In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.

Other Favorites:

The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman- After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.

Word Nerd, by Susin Nielsen -When some bullies at his new school almost kill him by slipping a peanut into his sandwich, friendless nerd Ambrose, forced to be home-schooled by his overprotective mother, coerces his neighbor Cosmo into taking him to the West Side Scrabble Club, where people accept him for who he is. 

Somebody, by Nancy Springer - At the age of fifteen, a girl who has spent most of her life moving around the country with her father and brother, filling the emptiness inside her with chocolate, remembers her real name, Sherica, and searches the Internet to learn the truth about her mother and her own past.

The Chosen One, by Carol Lynch Williams - In a polygamous cult in the desert, Kyra, not yet fourteen, sees being chosen to be the seventh wife of her uncle as just punishment for having read books and kissed a boy, in violation of Prophet Childs' teachings, and is torn between facing her fate and running away from all that she knows and loves.

Each year we celebrate National Poetry Month in April with our Teen Poetry Contest.

Teens in grades 7-12 from Fredericksburg, Stafford, Spotsylvania, and Westmoreland, are invited to submit up to three originial poems. Out-of-region library cardholders may also enter.

The winners are chosen (anonymously) by University of Mary Washington professor and Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Claudia Emerson.

Entries are accepted online between April 1 - 15.
Winners are selected from participants in grades 7-9 and grades 10-12.

Winners are awarded prizes and invited to read work at Teen Poetry Night at Headquarters Library: Thursday, April 29, 2010, 7:30-9:00

We had 122 poems from 57 poets this year! Here are the winners ...

Did you read a really good book a few months ago, but can't remember what it was? Or maybe it was a DVD, audiobook, or magazine?

Now you can keep track of the items you borrow with "My Borrowing History," a new optional service from the CRRL.

How does it work? Easy!