New!

Book Bag For Sleep Away Camp!
If you are planning to spend a few weeks at Sleep Away Camp do not forget to take a backpack with fun summer reads already prepared for you!  This bag can be checked out for the whole summer (June 1 - August 30).  Bags are limited and available on a first come first serve basis.  Merrick Residents Only.

Donate!

iPod Donation Drive

Do you have an IPod you’re not using anymore? We need them!

During this summer we are collecting old IPods for the Music & Memory. This non-profit organization  brings personalized music into the lives of the elderly or the infirm through digital music technology, vastly improving their quality of life. iPods can be dropped off at the Teen/Media Desk starting June 1-August 23.

Summer Volunteer Programs

Community Service Credit will be Awarded 

Registration begins May 22 @ Teen Media Desk

Summer Reading Club Volunteers

Grades 8-12

Volunteers will help to review summer reading reports and give away prizes in the Children’s Room. Volunteers must be available for at least two hours a week from11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m., 2:00-4:00 p.m. or 6:00-8:00 p.m. from June 25-August 15. Applicants must be available for the training session on June 19 at 6:30-7:00p.m. 

Sign up limited to 20 volunteers only.

Book Buddies 

We are looking for friendly, enthusiastic volunteers in grades 7-12 who will read to tots in our Children’s room. A Training Session will take place on Thursday, June 28 at 6:30p.m.

Volunteers must be available on Mondays from 4:00-5:30 p.m. starting July 9-August 6.

Sign up limited to 10 volunteers only.

Fantasy

Top Ten Teen Fantasy from Booklist Magazine

 Between. by Jessica Warman. Gr. 8–11.

After a night of partying, Liz wakes up to her dead body thumping against the side of a boat—and she begins to investigate her own drowning. Perfect for teens who like complex and supernaturally disturbed characters.

The Drowned Cities. By Paolo Bacigalupi. Gr. 9–12.

Two damaged children, Mouse and Mahlia, are the focus of Bacigalupi’s brutal novel that further explores the dystopian world depicted in the 2011 Printz winner, Ship Breaker. A propulsive page-turner.

Froi of the Exiles. By Melina Marchetta. Gr. 9–12.

In this second installment of the Lumatere Chronicles (following Finnikin of the Rock, 2010), Froi is sent on a deadly mission into the neighboring kingdom of Charyn, where he discovers tangled webs of deception.

 The Galahad Legacy. By Dom Testa.  Gr. 7–10.

This powerful final book in the Galahad series finds the battered crew having to make a number of impossible choices: take the offer of the advanced Dollovit race to live in controlled comfort or gamble it all on the harsh conditions of Planet Eos.

Grave Mercy. By Robin LaFevers.  Gr. 9–12.

In this dark, sophisticated novel set in the late fifteenth century, Mortain, the god of death, has sired 17-year-old Ismae to be his handmaiden.

Human.4. By Mike A. Lancaster.  Gr. 7–10.

This fast-paced plot follows 15-year-old Kyle Straker as he relates a story of great historic value to beings of the future. But what kind of beings?

 The Obsidian Blade. By Pete Hautman. Gr. 8–12.

In this killer start to a trilogy, Tucker Feye, hoping to find his missing parents, steps through a “diskos” and is wormholed back through time.

The Scorpio Races. By Maggie Stiefvater. Gr. 8–12.

Once a year, the island of Thisby hosts the Scorpio Races, a beachside contest involving man-eating water horses and riders who often perish in the process. Against this thrilling backdrop, a love story blooms.

Ship of Souls. By Zetta Elliott. 2012.  Gr. 6–9.

Gritty realism meshes with poetic mysticism in this novel about Dimitri (“D”), who thinks he’s found a one-of-a-kind “bird,” which is actually a being named Naru who needs help rescuing the souls of dead soldiers located at Manhattan’s African Burial Ground.

 The Wikkeling. By Steven Arntson. Illus. by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini. Gr. 5–8.

Henrietta and two friends are being followed by a lurching apparition called the Wikkeling that demands to know, “Where do you go?” Terrazzini’s silhouette artwork adds to the delightfully creepy tone of this fascinating dystopia.

Program This Week

Cancelled

CPR Classes for Teens

Saturday, May 19th from 11 am to 3 pm.  Fee $5.00. Registration begins 4/21.

This class is presented by IIdiko Catuogno, a certified Red Cross CPR/AED First Aid Instructor.  Learn how to reduce the risk of injury to infants and children, respond to emergency situations, and care for an infant or child who has stopped breathing.

Crime Fiction

This Year's Best From Booklist Magazine....

 The Butterfly Clues. By Kate Ellison.Gr. 9–12.

Unable to control her obsessions, 16-year-old Lo finds herself digging into a local murder. Ellison’s debut is a page-turning blend of violence, romance, and surprising glimpses into one girl’s tumultuous mind.

Chopsticks. By Jessica Anthony. Illus. by Rodrigo Corral. Gr. 10–12.

A teen piano prodigy goes missing, but that’s just the tip of this mixed-media novel’s tricky iceberg. Is her disappearance a result of her affair with an Argentinean neighbor or her increasingly unhinged performances?

 The Girl Is Murder. By Kathryn Miller Haines.  Gr. 7–10.

Peppered by irresistible 1940s slang, this observant historical mystery has 15-year-old Iris putting to use what she’s learned from her private-detective dad. Passionate, multilayered teen noir.

I Hunt Killers. By Barry Lyga.  Gr. 9–12.

Billy Dent was the serial killer, not his 17-year-old son, Jazz. But when a copycat begins replicating the famous murders, the cops bring in Jazz to help. Now if only he could bury his own killer instincts . . .

The Isle of Blood. By Rick Yancey. Gr. 9–12.

The Monstrumologist series takes a swerve into outright mystery: hundreds of pages of crackling, capering British-versus-Russian espionage occur before we meet this volume’s monster.

 Kill Switch. By Chris Lynch. Gr. 9–12.

As Da’s mind begins to go, he starts leaking secrets of his government past—and dangerous old cronies start looming. So desperate young Daniel hits the road with Da in tow. Compact, unpredictable, disorienting, brilliant.

Paper Covers Rock. By Jenny Hubbard.  Gr. 9–12.

This twist on A Separate Peace involves a pretty straightforward boarding-school death. But it’s Hubbard’s twisty, out-of-sequence delivery that turns the whole truth into a devastating patchwork mystery.

Wonderstruck. By Brian Selznick. Gr. 4–8.

Two parallel stories set 50 years apart—one told in text, the other solely in illustrations—drive this kid-friendly mystery about silence, opening one’s eyes, and the interconnectedness of life.

May 6, 2012

Programs This Week...





Cooking with the Baking Coach            Chinese Cooking
Tuesday, may 8th @ 6:30 pm.  Fee $3.00. Registration begins 4/10.
This time around we are cooking fried rice and egg rolls.

CPR Classes for Teens

Saturday, May 19th from 11 am to 3 pm.  Fee $5.00. Registration begins 4/21.

This class is presented by IIdiko Catuogno, a certified Red Cross CPR/AED First Aid Instructor.  Learn how to reduce the risk of injury to infants and children, respond to emergency situations, and care for an infant or child who has stopped breathing.