Teen Book Club - March - Recap!

The TBC got together a little late this time to discuss March's pick, but they did!  Here is what we read & discussed:

Paul Fleischman offers teens an environmental wake-up call and a tool kit for decoding the barrage of conflicting information confronting them. We're living in an Ah-Ha moment. Take 250 years of human ingenuity. Add abundant fossil fuels. The result: a population and lifestyle never before seen. The downsides weren't visible for centuries, but now they are. Suddenly everything needs rethinking - suburbs, cars, fast food, cheap prices. It's a changed world. This book explains it. Not with isolated facts, but the principles driving attitudes and events, from vested interests to denial to big-country syndrome. Because money is as important as molecules in the environment, science is joined with politics, history, and psychology to provide the briefing needed to comprehend the 21st century. Extensive back matter, including a glossary, bibliography, and index, as well as numerous references to websites, provides further resources.

Here are the discussion questions we used:

1.  General thoughts.  What did you think of the book?
2.  How readable was the book to you?  Did you enjoy the writing?
3.  How much had you thought about the portrayal of the environment in media before reading this book?
4.  Were there any facts in this book you were surprised to read?  Anything you thought was true, that this book proved false?
5.  What was the most interesting thing you learned from this book?
6.  Will you be changing anything in your lifestyle after reading this book?  Why or why not?
7.  What do you think was the main message the author was trying to convey?  Do you think he succeeded?
8.  How has reading this book changed the way you will read news on the environment in the future?
9.  Will you be checking out any of the resources mentioned in the book?
10.  Ratings and final thoughts!

Ratings

Melanie - 7/10 - Good short book to get to know better the troubles going on with the environment.
Catherine - 6/10 - Interesting, but a little bit hard to read.
Librarian Karyn - 6/10 - Tons of information about an important subject and great resources, but writing a little bit dry and slow.

If you enjoyed this book, there are MANY resources mentioned in the book and in the source descriptions in the back of the book.  However, if you would like to read a fiction book, why not try one on environmental disasters?

Carbon Diaries 2015 by Saci Lloyd - In 2015, when England becomes the first nation to introduce carbon dioxide rationing in a drastic bid to combat climate change, sixteen-year-old Laura documents the first year of rationing as her family spirals out of control.

Hurricane Song by Paul Volponi - Twelve-year-old Miles Shaw goes to live with his father, a jazz musician, in New Orleans, and together they survive the horrors of Hurricane Katrina in the Superdome, learning about each other and growing closer through their painful experiences.

The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher - In a world where water has become a precious resource, Vera and her brother befriend a boy who seems to have unlimited access to water and who suspiciously disappears, prompting a dangerous search challenged by pirates, a paramilitary group, and corporations.


For April we are reading The List by Siobhan Vivian – Discussion April 29th

Every year at Mount Washington High School somebody posts a list of the prettiest and ugliest girls from each grade--this is the story of eight girls, freshman to senior, and how they are affected by the list.

Teen Book Club - March - Nonfiction!

For March the Teen Book Club is trying out some nonfiction - 

Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines by Paul Fleischman

Paul Fleischman offers teens an environmental wake-up call and a tool kit for decoding the barrage of conflicting information confronting them. We're living in an Ah-Ha moment. Take 250 years of human ingenuity. Add abundant fossil fuels. The result: a population and lifestyle never before seen. The downsides weren't visible for centuries, but now they are. Suddenly everything needs rethinking - suburbs, cars, fast food, cheap prices. It's a changed world. This book explains it. Not with isolated facts, but the principles driving attitudes and events, from vested interests to denial to big-country syndrome. Because money is as important as molecules in the environment, science is joined with politics, history, and psychology to provide the briefing needed to comprehend the 21st century. Extensive back matter, including a glossary, bibliography, and index, as well as numerous references to websites, provides further resources.

Copies of the book available at the front desk

Discussion - March 25th 6:00-7:00pm

February Book Club Recap - We ♥ Eleanor & Park!

The Teen Book Club met last night to discuss the February book club pick...

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell (audiobook)

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits--smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

Discussion Questions

1. What did you think of the book?  First impressions?
2. Did you like the narrators?  What do you think they did well, not well?  Do you think it was good to have the two narrators?  How would the book have been different with just one?
3. Did you enjoy the writing in this book?  Would you be interested in reading other books by this author?  Why or why not?
4. How do Eleanor and Park's parents shape their outlooks on the future, relationships, and life in general?  How do they differ?
5. Is Eleanor's mother a "good" mother?  Why does she stay with Richie?
6. Do you think Eleanor and Park's relationship would be different if the story was set in 2015 instead of 1986?  How would it be different?  How would it be the same?
7. Steve says he is Park's friend - is this true, is he a true friend?  Are Steve and Tina "bad guys" in this story?  Do you think Tina and Eleanor could ever be friends?
8. Why are music and comics important in Park's life?  How are they important in Eleanor's?
9. Was Eleanor right to run away?  Should she have left her brothers and sister behind?  Was there anything else should could have done to help them?
10. Why do you think Eleanor does not open any of the letters from Park?  At the end of the book, what do you think those "three words" Park read are?
11. Casting call!  Do you have anyone in mind to cast as Eleanor or Park?
12. Ratings and final thoughts?

Ratings:

Catherine - 10 - Just read it, its amazing, an awesome audiobook.

Hannah - 10 - I love the book so much that I can't even say how much I like it.

Librarian Karyn - 10 - A sweet love story with authentic teen voices, and the narrators for the audio book made it even better!

Melanie - Didn't finish yet, withholds her rating until she does

If you liked this book you might also enjoy...

Another book by the same author 

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell - In Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan, but for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she's really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it's what got them through their mother leaving.Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.Cath's sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can't let go. She doesn't want to.Now that they're going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn't want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She's got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can't stop worrying about her...

Another award-winning audio book   

Glory O'Brien's History of the Future by A. S. King -  Graduating from high school is a time of limitless possibilities--but not for Glory, who has no plan for what's next. Her mother committed suicide when Glory was only four years old, and she's never stopped wondering if she will eventually go the same way...until a transformative night when she begins to experience an astonishing new power to see a person's infinite past and future. From ancient ancestors to many generations forward, Glory is bombarded with visions--and what she sees ahead of her is terrifying: A tyrannical new leader raises an army. Women's rights disappear. A violent second civil war breaks out. And young girls vanish daily, sold off or interned in camps. Glory makes it her mission to record everything she sees, hoping her notes will somehow make a difference. She may not see a future for herself, but she'll do anything to make sure this one doesn't come to pass.

Another book set in the 1980s 

Dancer Daughter Traitor Spy by Elizabeth Kiem - Marya is a ballet dancer born of privilege; her mother, Sveta, is the most popular ballet dancer in the Soviet Union: the regime's glamorous face to the west. When her mother disappears, Marya and her father suspect their lives are in danger and arrange a harrowing defection. But Marya has a secret - like her mother, she can see glimpses of the future: a gift coveted by the powers-that-be in the Soviet Union. Worse, she is sure her father is doomed to be murdered at their new home in Brighton beach.

Book Club Book - March 

Eyes Wide Open by Paul Fleischman

Paul Fleischman offers teens an environmental wake-up call and a tool kit for decoding the barrage of conflicting information confronting them. We're living in an Ah-Ha moment. Take 250 years of human ingenuity. Add abundant fossil fuels. The result: a population and lifestyle never before seen. The downsides weren't visible for centuries, but now they are. Suddenly everything needs rethinking - suburbs, cars, fast food, cheap prices. It's a changed world. This book explains it. Not with isolated facts, but the principles driving attitudes and events, from vested interests to denial to big-country syndrome. Because money is as important as molecules in the environment, science is joined with politics, history, and psychology to provide the briefing needed to comprehend the 21st century.

New Books for October ~ Part 8

Sixteen-year-old Callie Knowles fights her compulsion to write constantly, even on herself, as she struggles to cope with foster care, her mother's life in a mental institution, and her belief that she killed her father, a minister, who has been missing for a year.

Classic Malley--to avoid being shipped off to boarding school, she takes off with some guy she met online. Poor Richard--he knows his cousin's in trouble before she does. Wild Skink--he's a ragged, one-eyed ex-governor of Florida, and enough of a renegade to think he can track Malley down. With Richard riding shotgun, the unlikely pair scour the state, undaunted by blinding storms, crazed pigs, flying bullets, and giant gators. 

We're living in an Ah-Ha moment. Take 250 years of human ingenuity. Add abundant fossil fuels. The result: a population and lifestyle never before seen. The downsides weren't visible for centuries, but now they are. Suddenly everything needs rethinking - suburbs, cars, fast food, cheap prices. It's a changed world. This book explains it. Not with isolated facts, but the principles driving attitudes and events, from vested interests to denial to big-country syndrome. Because money is as important as molecules in the environment, science is joined with politics, history, and psychology to provide the briefing needed to comprehend the 21st century. Extensive back matter, including a glossary, bibliography, and index, as well as numerous references to websites, provides further resources.

In a futuristic landscape ravaged by war, a colony's hopes for survival hinge on one teenage boy in this fast-paced, action-packed story. Querry Genn is in trouble. He can't remember anything before the last six months. And Querry needs to remember. Otherwise he is dead weight to the other members of Survival Colony 9, one of the groups formed after a brutal war ravaged the earth. And now the Skaldi have come to scavenge what is left of humanity. No one knows what the Skaldi are, or why they are here, just that they impersonate humans, taking their form before shedding the corpse like a skin. Desperate to prove himself after the accident that stole his memory, Querry is both protected and tormented by the colony's authoritarian commander, his father. The only person he can talk to is the beautiful Korah, but even with her, he can't shake the feeling that something is desperately wrong. Whatever is going on, Querry is at the center of it, for a secret in his past not only makes him a target of the Skaldi's wrath, but the key to the colony's future.

A promising and popular student in middle school, Leon Harris has become a committed "slacker" but with graduation approaching and his middle school girlfriend possibly returning to town, Leon's best friend Stan, who claims to be Satan, helps him get back on the right track--for a price.

Tomorrow is Earth Day!

Here are some great books about going green for teens~

Hot Topics - 363.7 SIV

This book lays out the inside scoop on the biggest issues affecting our planet, such as global warming and overflowing landfills; offers dozens of tips on how to shop, dress, eat, and travel the green way; includes interviews with teens like you who are involved with fun, innovative green causes; shows that being environmentally conscious can be a natural part of your life -- and your generation's contribution to turning things around.

Nonfiction - 333.72 MCK

 Global warming, climate change, toxic waste, and more: it sometimes seems the environmental challenges we face are just too huge for individual actions to matter, but they're not-and here's the proof.True Greenis based on the practical experience of Clean Up the World, a grassroots environmental movement that has inspired more than 40 million volunteers in over 100 countries to take action since 1993. Whether you live in a city apartment, a suburban house, or a country farm, these simple, straightforward methods produce positive effects not just on our planet but on your pocketbook, too. For example, showering accounts for one-third of a typical home's water use, so making each shower slightly shorter results in real conservation over the long run. An average washing machine annually produces about 200 pounds of greenhouse gases, but a cold water wash can save about six pounds in emissions per cycle. Many electronic devices draw power even when "off," so actually unplugging them when not in use will save both money and electricity. Outdoors, mulching your garden can cut evaporation by as much as 70%, reducing the need to water often and conserving resources. True Greenexplores six key areas where small changes can make a big difference: In the Home; In the Garden; At Work; Shopping; Travel; and In the Community. Dozens of illustrated spreads provide positive, practical, simple-to-implement tips and a summary of their environmental contribution; in addition, a reference guide to useful websites offers access to priceless additional information, global and local alike.

Hot Topics - 363.7 SAV

  Today s teenagers are standing at the crossroads of environmental history. Global warming will fundamentally change the world as they know it within their lifetime. But how to keep their healthy environmental awareness from becoming environmental anxiety? The secret is to provide them with education and tools for positive action. Written in easily accessible language, The Green Teen combines simple and quick eco-friendly tips, interviews with green teens, ideas for organizing and communicating environmental change, and a host of resources in a handy grab-and-go format. Teens will learn: How the choices they make each day impact the environment How to fit eco-friendly decisions into their tight schedules and budgets How to effectively get today s decision makers involved in environmental stewardship Teens want to learn how to minimize their environmental impact at home, at school, and in their communities and get their concerns recognized by school officials, politicians, media, and even their own parents. The Green Teen is the book that will help them do it, and it is also a must-read for parents, grandparents, teachers, and school administrators who want to help the next generation make environmentally responsible choices. Jenn Savedge is the author of The Green Parent: A Kid-Friendly Guide to Earth-Friendly Living , an avid environmentalist, and a recognized authority and frequent speaker on reducing the environmental impact of the family. Her articles have appeared in national print and on-line media, www.thegreenparent.com.

How will you make the earth a better place this year?

Lots of new books for February ~ Part 4

A Million Suns by Beth Revis

Check the Catalog

When Elder discovers shocking news about Godspeed, he and Amy race to discover the truth behind life on the space ship. They must work together to unlock a puzzle that was set in motion hundreds of years earlier, unable to fight the romance that's growing between them and the chaos that threatens to tear them apart.

 Ravenwood by Andrew Peters

Check the Catalog

On Arborium, the last forested island in the future, fourteen-year-old Ark, who lives in a mile-high city set in the tree tops, overhears a plot to rob Arborium of its wood, a natural resource more precious than gold.

 Blood Sun by David Gilman

Check the Catalog

Desperate to uncover the secret of his mother's death, fifteen-year-old Max Gordon, pursued by enemies, travels from the bleakness of Dartmoor to the rainforest of Central America, where the environmental devastation hides a sinister secret.

 Charles and Emma: The Darwin's Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman

Check the Catalog

Provides an account of Charles Darwin's life and evolutionary theory, examining how his personal life affected his work and vice versa because of his wife's strong religious beliefs.

Buried Thunder by Tim Bowler

Check the Catalog

Just after fourteen-year-old Maya's family acquires the Rowan Tree Hotel she is drawn into the nearby woods, where she finds three bodies that disappear before police arrive, and soon Maya feels hunted by both human and supernatural forces.