Teen Read Week at Bayside

Reading takes you places you might not otherwise have a chance to go. Come by the library this week and participate in all of our Teen Read Week activities.

Welcome Back Bayside!

Well, here we go! Another exciting year at Bayside is underway. As you begin to plan your calendars for this school year, I wanted to let you about the Austin Teen Book Festival held in Austin, Tx on Oct. 1. Their website is www.austinteenbookfestival.com. Scott Westerfield, author of the Uglies Series, will be the keynote speaker. This is a great opportunity to hear authors of Young Adult literature speak to teens about books and writing.

Author Ally Carter

Author of Heist Society (on the 2011-2012 Lone Star Reading list) and soon-to-be-released Uncommon Criminals Ally Carter will be in Houston on Wednesday, June 22, 2011. She will be signing books at Murder by the Book beginning at 1:00pm and at Blue Willow Bookshop at 7:00pm. She also writes the Gallagher Girl series which includes I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You. If you enjoy humor, action and a great story then you will love books by Ally Carter! You will find her books in the Bayside library.

The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet by Erin Dionne

Hamlet Kennedy feels like a misfit in her own family. Her parents are Shakespearean scholars who dress and speak as though they are living in the time of Shakespeare. Equally embarrassing, Hamlet's genuis little seven year old sister will be starting the school year with her - IN 8TH GRADE!! So much for flying under the radar. Hamlet just knows her life is ruined as the start of what was supposed to be her best school year yet is plagued by one embarrassing moment after another.

Lone Star Reading List 2011-2012

Reading to Write

One of the best ways to improve your writing is to - you guessed it - READ! Reading great authors will fill your head with examples of attention-grabbing opening lines, descriptive writing, character and plot development and all the other elements of excellent writing. This month's focus is on short stories. Reading short stories will allow you to see how authors condense all the elements of good writing into just a few pages. As Avi says in his introduction to Best Shorts: Favorite Short Stories for Sharing, "While a novel takes strength from it's many details, a short story takes strength from a few revealing details." Most of the writing you do in school requires those "few revealing details." We have many collections of short stories in the library that you may enjoy as you read to improve your writing. Here are a few:


Best Shorts: Favorite Short Stories for Sharing. Selected by Avi with Carolyn Shute

Horrowitz Horror: Stories You'll Wish You'd Never Read by Anthony Horowitz

The SOS File by Betsy Byars, Betsy Duffey and Laurie Myers

Friends: Stories About New Friends, Old Friends and Unexpectedly True Friends. edited by Ann M. Martin and David Levithan

A Long Walk to Water

Linda Sue Park's latest novel, A Long Walk to Water, is based on the true story of Salva Dut, one of Sudans "lost boys." Two stories are interwoven in two different time periods, 1985 and 2008. Salva's story of war, exile and separation from his family begins in 1985 at the age of 11. The story of Nya, a young villager who walks eight hours a day to provide water for her family, begins in 2008. Beautiful and heart-wrenching, A Long Walk to Water brings to light the current struggles of children in wartorn, developing countries - children the same age as the intended reader. But the story also provides hope and a sense that one individual really can make a difference.

Salva Dut was featured on PBS' Need to Know on Friday, January 7. Go to http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/video/ to watch his segment. It begins about 24 minutes into the program.

To follow Linda Sue Park's blog, go to http://lsparkreader.livejournal.com/