Get Inked! Indian Bollywood Food/Henna Teen Night

Namaste! Did you know that India is home to several hundred languages and 18 official ones? One of them is English, the language of this post! I feel like we’re already in the Indian spirit

According to CultureGrams, a set of encylopedias about different world cultures in our Reference section, Indians are religious, family oriented and philosophical. Women generally wear saree or a colorful pantsuit, considerable jewelry, and hindu women may have a bindi, a red dot on their forehead to denote femininity, gracefulness and marital status. Men wear western-style suits or dhoti, a large piece of cloth wrapped around the waist.

In India, excessive hand gestures are considered rude. In fact, when they have to point, they often point with their chin.

When it comes to food, Indians know how to do it right! Literally – they eat food with their right hand instead of using utensils. A lot of the country are vegetarians for religious reasons. Hindus don’t eat beef because cows are sacred, and Muslims don’t eat pork or alcohol. So what do they eat? Delicious rice, roti (flat wheat bread), and spicy curries. Mmmmmm :n  <–It’s a dude with his mouth open, waiting for something scrumptious.

If you’d like to try some of this delicious food for yourself, join us for Get Inked, our Teen India Night. Come apply a temporary henna tattoo and taste delectable Indian dishes as we celebrate food, henna, and Bollywood!

Disclaimer: We will be applying the henna as a temporary tattoo. It is possible that henna application can result in an allergic reaction and can stain clothing. This application may last up to 6 weeks before wearing off, and there is no way to speed the removal. (So maybe not your boyfriend’s name if you think you might break up soon - talk about awkward)

Registration is requested.

Wednesday, February 15
7:00 – 8:30p
Calvert Library Prince Frederick

Pinterest – a community pinboard for inspiration

Everyone once in awhile, I’ll run across a website that makes me feel like I don’t know what’s happening on the Internet anymore.

For the past few weeks, that website for me has been Pinterest.com, an online pinboard where you can keep track of the ideas you love and share them with others.

This place is cool. Like, really cool. I’m inspired by so much cool stuff that I’m on cool overload and I’m going through a cooldown (like a meltdown, but  for cool people).

I think I’ll make one of the dinner recipes and post an update about it. Has anyone here successfully made a Pinterest project?

 

 

Anna and the French Kiss (book review)

DISCLOSURE: I don’t read romances and I’m a blunt kind of girl who (it just so happens) went to an American school overseas. I read this book after consulting a list of “good YA fiction” and this got the top slot. Why? Good question. Let’s try to answer that, shall we?

CAVEAT: If you loved this book, clench your teeth and read on. Thanks!

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins is exactly what you’d expect from the cover art and not-so-transparent hook about our hero, the American transfer student in Paris and her myserious love interest:

Will a year of romantic near-misses end with their long-awaited French kiss?

Pffffffffft.

Right, so Anna, this Atlanta born-and-raised gal with daddy issues is forced (OMG what? Nooo!) to go to an American high school in Paris (the horror! THE HORROR!!) for her senior year (not my senior year, daddy!). To be fair, she’s in love with a real jerk back home, so I can understand her hesitation to leave. Oh wait, she’s not in love with him, she just really likes him and they awkwardly kissed this one time. Oh wait again… he’s also a jerk. On top of that, she has this beater of a car that she likes to drive around a lot, and she knows that she won’t be able to drive in Paris, and, darn it, that really really sucks.

So yeah, we’re super sad for Anna right now, aren’t we, guys?

Pfffffffffft.

Cut to Paris where she is putting in zero effort to learn French – the one thing that might actually help her adjust to life in the city – and is having a hard time fitting in for some reason. Poor Anna. But things aren’t all bad news for her. She has confusing feelings for this gorgeous piece of work boy with the oh-so-awkward name Etienne St. Clair, and he’s just as confused about her. Sigh. Too bad he has his own daddy issues…. and a serious girlfriend. But that’s ok, because, you know, she has the jerk who’s waiting for her back home.

Pffffffffft. (Ok, I’ll stop.)

Thus the scene is set for the slow but eventual realization of feelings, which doesn’t exactly lead down a straight path. In fact, it’s constantly barricaded by sabotage (from other people, but mostly from themselves).

I wish they did more to break those barriers simply than to just ignore them until everyone just forgets about them. There wasn’t too much active problem-solving or character development through the story. Ok, so she apparently understands French all of a sudden for a pivotal scene toward the end of the book (Seriously! Anna doesn’t even realize that she knows French and is surprised that – OMG – she does!). Other than miraculous language skills, we also see her realize that she likes to dump her friends when she gets upset. (But who doesn’t?)

What we don’t see is her striving to achieve her heart’s desire  – she just lives in her own world and gets upset at everyone when things don’t go her way until finally, we see the boy do all the work at the end.

Pfffffffffffft. (I know I said I wouldn’t, but I couldn’t help it.)

Am I expecting too much from YA romance books? I sure hope not.

Rating

8 out of 10 if you like YA Romances
6 ouf of 10 if you don’t

Find Anna and the French Kiss in the Calvert Library catalog.

Teen Whodunit? Victorian Murder Mystery This Month

You don’t need to have the controversial public life of Robert Downey, Jr. to dress up in Victorian clothes and solve mysteries! Just come down to Calvert Library Prince Frederick on January 18 at 7pm with your handsome sidekick (::droolJudeLawdrool::) and help us solve a murder most foul, most egregious, most treacherous, most. . . well, you get the idea.

And what about this fish? Good question. You’ll just have to come by and find out what that’s all about.  Oh, and hey, when you do, could you let me know? The murderers won’t tell me, either.

Read more about the event in our original TEEN Whodunit post, including how to dress and act … *ahem*… ::sticks out pinky finger and sips tea delicately:: … Victorian.

Find the Future (by being trapped in a library all night)

How old will you be in 10 years? Mid to late 20s? Early 30s? What will you be doing in the world and, more importantly, what kind of world do you think it will be? What kind of world do you want it to be?

Our counterparts up at the New York Public Library decided that they wanted to know what kind of questions young adults have about the future, and then locked them inside the library all night until they answered those questions.

The result was a feat of collaboration that is both enticing and downright weird. It’s as important as it is pretentious – at the vanguard of both leadership and nerdiness.

On May 20, 2011, 500 teens and young adults flooded into the doors of the iconic New York Public Library to play a game called Find the Future, which you can now play online. The concept began with the identification of 100 objects (also called artifacts) that represent profound change in human culture. Participants searched through the library until they discovered each object, and then the real truth was revealed.

Each object came with its own story.

Each story carried within it a piece of wisdom, a stir of emotion, a question of humanity.

Each question of humanity invited participants to search within themselves for the answer.

More to the point, each of those objects served as inspiration for a new idea for a book – a book which was written and bound that very night. (It would be really great to read through the book, but I’m not sure how to get access to it without planning a road trip to Manhattan.)

For an insider’s viewpoint, give a read to Brian Fiore-Silfvast’s post where he describes what it was like to explore the library in the dead of night. You can also watch the video put together by the NYPL staff for an overview of the event.

I have such a love-hate reaction to this game.

I really love that the library is getting involved in its community and facilitating a way for people to come together and share ideas. I hate that this is such a foreign concept that they had to make it into a game for it to work. I love that the library is sharing its passion for learning from the past as we move into the future. I hate that it looks like no one used library resources to do any research (notice all the smart phones and laptops?). I love that this happened, but I hate that nothing seems to have come from it.

Was the library the best place for this to happen? Could it just as easily taken place in a museum? What did anyone learn from this experience? How will it benefit those who weren’t there?

Perhaps I should lock myself in a library overnight until I answer these questions for myself.

Desert Crossing (book review)

In Desert Crossing by Elise Broach, 14-year-old Lucy Martinez, her 18-year-old brother Jamie, and Jamie’s friend, Kit are traveling from Kansas to Phoenix to spend their vacation with Lucy and Jamie’s father.

While driving through a blinding desert rainstorm, Jamie hits something in the road.

 Only an animal, they think.

 When they backtrack to find it, they find a dead girl on the side of the road. She looks about their age. The nearest house belongs to Beth, a middle-aged reclusive artist who calls the sheriff and lets Lucy and Kit stay at her house while Jamie, the driver is taken into custody.

The sheriff’s department investigates and learns that the girl was dead before being placed on the road.  All three are free to go on but Lucy is determined to find out what happened to the girl. She demands that Kit help find out.

From this point, the plot becomes somewhat improbable and filled with convenient coincidences but you are so caught up in the story that you suspend your disbelief of the events.

The author starts out her book …

There are some kinds of trouble you never see coming, like those thunderstorms that start from nothing at all. One minute the sky is bright blue and distant. Then, all of a sudden, it’s dark and thick with clouds, pressing down right on top of you. The leaves turn silvery and twist in the wind, the air starts to hum, and the rain comes, so heavy and fast you can’t even see. You almost never make it to the house on time.

Recommended (7 out of 10)

Find Desert Crossing in the catalog.

Using GIMP to create library posters

Ever wonder how Calvert Library creates its unique flyers and posters? The answer is GIMP, the free Photoshop analogue, plus some good ol’ librarian creativity.

Today I thought we could look under the hood and find out how we transform photographs into something really eye-catching.

First, we need a concept. We have events going on all the time, so it’s not hard to find inspiration. For today, I needed to create a poster for our upcoming book sale. Since the Library could really use the extra money this year, I really want our poster to stand out.

So, not this:

Instead, I thought I’d try something different. Something with some kick. I need to find a girl. But not just any girl…

This girl:

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/o5com/4951618678/

I searched Flickr and used the advanced search feature to filter the search for only Creative Commons works that allow commercial use and modification. (Calvert Library isn’t really a commercial enterprise, but I don’t like to take liberties with other people’s work).

Next, I needed her to be at a book sale. This book sale:

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18569670@N07/5554154554/

 It’s not our book sale, but it looks like it could be. Next I removed the backgrounds of both images using the paths tool in GIMP and layered them one on top of the other:

Next, a little threshold action to make a nice black and white image:

Note : these are still 2 layers, the girl and the books

Looks great, but now what? Well, the girl should stand out a little from the books, so let’s add in some color with the gradient tool to the background layer:

 

I like the way the books look here, and notice how I added a copy of the book she’s holding to that same layer? Ahh, those tricky clever librarians.

Now let’s jazz her up with her own color gradient:

Nice! Looks like we might be done with the graphics. Let’s go ahead and put it in our poster.

And there you have it – a brand new poster to entice everyone to come to our next book sale. It’s a fundraiser for Calvert Library, so we hope to see you there!

Until next time!

Amazing Book Art

We’re always looking at three things here in the library : (1) new events to bring teens together to do fun things, (2) new ways to look at our book collection, and (3) new “Hey Girl” photos of Ryan Gosling loving the library.

And guess what? We just found something that actually combines 2 out of 3 of these magical ideas. No, it’s not Ryan Gosling roaming the stacks telling us what books to order, silly. Stop judging my dreams.

So what is it? It’s book “upcycling”! Like it or not, the library runs out of space and needs to either sell ($2 for hardbacks) or straight up recycle (nicer than saying “throw away”) quite a few books throughout the year. Perhaps we can have a night where everyone would grab one our our books fated for book heaven and transform it into something amazing.

Do you think the public would be receptive to this idea, or would there be outrage that the library would allow this to happen to its own books? What do you think?

In case you’re interested, here are some books we could use as inspiration (to read, not to turn into a fancy mobile). I wonder why our library doesn’t carry these books. Hmmm…

The Repurposed Library
by Lisa Occhipinti

Playing with Books
by Jason Thompson

New Planet, New Ideas

A few days ago, NASA announced the discovery of Kepler-22b, a potentially habitable planet or, to Star Trek nerds, a Class M planet.

The planet has a lot of similar qualities to Earth : It’s temperature is about 72F, it’s about 2 and a half times the size of Earth, and it takes 290 days to orbit its sun, which is very similar to us.

So here’s the ultimate question : if humans travel to Kepler-22b one day, what should we take with us? What books would best portray human history in all its glory (and sometimes misery)? And if you were on that trip, what books would you take just for yourself?

The planet is 600 light years away, so we have some time to think about it.

As for me, I’d take The Idiot’s Guide to Making Alien Friends and Colonizing Planets.

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel (series review)

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott

YA Fantasy Series

This review is by request. If you’d like to request an honest review of any YA book by our oh-so-lovely YA librarians, please leave a comment on our Book Review Recommendation post.

These five books (see below) will enchant any fan of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. The books follow the secret lives of famous alchemist Nicolas Flamel and his companions as they use magic and mythological folklore to hunt evil and restore order. Each book introduces real-world characters like Joan of Arc, Billy the Kid and Shakespeare as the heros travel through time.

This book has action from. the. very. start.

Two teenage twins, Josh and Sophie, are spending their summer working in San Francisco at a bookshop and coffee shop next to each other (books and coffee? No need to guess why our librarians love these characters!), when they are caught in a battle between Nicholas Flamel and John Dee. The story moves at a fast pace as Josh and Sophie are taken with Nicolas to Paris to escape “the forces of evil.”

Nicolas believes Josh and Sophie are the two described by a prophesy that foretells that they will save the world… or destroy it. The twins are swept into the battle as they travel from one country to another. They meet vampires and witches and gargoyles in their efforts to find out about their destiny.

By the way, our favorite was Scottie, the Irish vegetarian vampire. :3

We definitely recommend this highly entertaining series. (9 out of 10)

Get the Books from Calvert Library

NOOKColor

Good news! Books 1 through 5 are on our YA NOOKColor, which you can check out if you’re over 18! Not over 18? Get one of your parents to check it out for you. Either way, you get the eReader for a full 3 weeks, and it’s even loaded with apps like Angry Birds, Secret of Grisly Manor, and other games.

Books

Prefer books instead? Order them from the catalog:

#1 The Alchemyst
#2 The Magician
#3 The Sorceress
#4 The Necromancer
#5 The Warlock