Last week, we posted about YALSA’s Thinking Big About Advocacy Contest, an opportunity for you to share your advocacy successes, inspire your fellow librarians, and win $500.00 for your efforts. Today, we are highlighting one of the biggest advocacy movements championed by librarians in the past five years: Gaming in Libraries.
In reality, gaming in libraries is not a new idea: chess has been played in libraries for nearly 150 years, and during the Great Depression, toys and games were often circulated in public libraries. What has changed over the years are the games themselves. While board games are still in the mix, the presence of gaming consoles (Xbox, Wii) in libraries has been on the rise since 2006. (more…)
Two more fabulous female authors have offered Skype visits: Carolyn Mackler and Ellen Hopkins.
The author of the Printz Honor Book, The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, Carolyn’s latest title is Tangled. In between those two titles came Guyaholic and Vegan Virgin Valentine, both funny yet touching stories to read. A mother with two young sons, Carolyn managed to find time to serve as a judge for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in 2008.
Carolyn has a great sense of humor, so be sure to get her talking about her adventures with a hockey puck. She’d really like to speak for about 30 minutes with a book club that’s reading one of her titles; you’ll have to bid early and often to outbid everyone for this Skype visit. She has a charming blog where you can meet her “up close and personal.”
The verse novels of Ellen Hopkins have captivated teens and caused consternation for adults because she writes about problems teens face every day. When one of her daughters because addicted to crystal meth, she wrote her first book called Crank, which has been followed by Glass and the recently released Fallout. Her other fiction titles include Burned, Impulse, Identical and Tricks. When Ellen first began writing, she wrote nonfiction and has written approximately 20 nonfiction books for children.
It’s obvious that Ellen cares about teens and the problems they encounter and knows how to describe their anxieties. She is a favorite writer for teens whose books have appeared on both Quick Picks lists as well as those in The New York Times. You can learn much about her by taking time to read her blog and then be ready to bid on her visit. Just as with Carolyn, you may be bidding early and often to chat with Ellen Hopkins.
