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Giveaway WINNERS Announced (Plus an Anaemic Links Round-Up)

13 Apr

Our regularly scheduled programming has been… well, rather irregular this week. The normal posting schedule will resume again next week.

The (belatedly announced – sorry!) winners of the YA Library UK Giveaway are M, who wins a copy of The Ultimate Teen Book Guide, and Lee Mumbray-Williams, who has won a bundle of three new YA novels! Congratulations to both of you.

A few links:

The Edge authors give their top eight writing tips for aspiring young writers.

The Worcestershire Teen Book Award announced their 2011 winner on 22nd March.

As always, I recommend having a look at Teen Librarian, UKYA, and Teen Librarian’s Toolbox.

You should expect a brand new post on Monday!

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Links Round-Up (in Brief): UKYA, Teens & Autism, E-Readers, and More

5 Apr

UKYA, a new website “celebrating Young Adult fiction from the United Kingdom.” Read posts at Teen Librarian and Small Blue Thing to find out a bit more about UKYA.

Teens and Autism is an article written by a young person whose younger brother has autism.

A new study suggests that e-readers encourage boys to read more.

This article about “a real-life ‘Hunger Games’” in North Korea might spark a discussion amongst pupils or members of your teen reading group.

This isn’t exactly new, but if you want updates on The Reading Agency’s MyVoice project, check out the latest MyVoice Roadshow news.

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Links Round-Up: Two Months’ Worth of News, Activities, Conferences, Contests, and Giveaways

29 Mar

Regular posts resume on Monday, after a six week hiatus. In the meantime, catch up on some teen librarian news.

News and Relevant Reading

CILIP has revealed the full scale of the library cuts.

The Booked Up scheme has been withdrawn and replaced with a scheme that requires schools to pay.

The EDGE has taken over the March edition of Teen Librarian Monthly and provided the world with lovely gems like “Story Time for Teens,” “You Should Read This! It’s Great!: Be Wary of Telling Teens to Read,” and “Guardians of Innocence
How One Writer Feels About the Taboos of YA Fiction.”

Anne Harding makes some good points related to Ofsted’s “Moving English Forward” report and pleasure reading for secondary school pupils.

Activity Guides

April is Script Frenzy month, during which young people (and adults) can dedicate the month to writing 50 pages of a script. Click on the link above to find more information and teaching resources.

World Poetry Day (21 March) has passed, but the Guardian’s guide to teaching poetry has good ideas for any day of the year.

My Fake Wall and Fakebook allow you to design fictional Facebook pages “for study purposes.” So you could, for example, design a “Facebook” page for a fictional character, an author, a historical figure, et cetera. Check out the Fakebook pages of Hermes and Martin Luther. I can imagine a ton of fun uses for this, especially in a school library!

Conferences and Training

YLF Scotland Spring Conference running four sessions for working with teens: http://teenlibrarian.co.uk/2012/03/22/youth-libraries-group-scotland-spring-conference/ £35 +VAT, Friday April 27th. Be there!

Lighting the Future – the joint Youth Libraries Group, School Libraries Association and School Libraries Group conference – will take place in 8-10 June. There are some panels and workshops useful for those working with young people. For those who need assistance there are several bursaries available. See the Lighting the Future website and Youth Libraries Group regional pages for more information on financial assistance.

Anne Harding is offering a one day course for secondary school librarians on cost-effective methods of promoting reading and library use to pupils. The course will take place in Sutton on 17 May and cost £89/120 (early bird/standard).

Awards and Booklists

Winners of the Carnegie Award will be announced in June. For now you can have a look at the shortlist.

Several YA novels have been nominated for the LGBT Children’s/Young Adult category of the Lamba Award.

Bali Rai writes about his favourite YA novels.

Action Librarian has compiled a useful list of YA books with Muslim protagonists.

Contests for Teens

Young people ages 11-19 can enter the International Young Person’s Short Story Award from now until 24 July. The prize is £2500 plus publication! (Info via the wonderful Chicklish.)

Contests for Teen Librarians

Tell the Siobhan Dowd Trust how you spread a joy of reading in your school and win £1000 worth of books!

Win a Set of Eight Signed Novels from EDGE Authors! Contest ends 31 March.

And of course the YA Library UK Teen Book Giveaway is open until 2 April.

If you have a piece of news you think should be included in the Links Round-Up, email me at yalibraryuk@gmail.com or Tweet @yalibraryuk.

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Hiatus Update (and a Few Good Reads on Youth and Libraries)

5 Mar

Weekly posts will resume on 2 April 2012. Thank you to everyone who sent a note after my previous post!

The deadline for the Teen Book Giveaway has been extended until 2 April, so enter in (and spread the word!). Winners will be announced by Friday 6 April.

No doubt you miss YA Library UK terribly and are dreading the empty, empty month of March. Never fear, for in the interim you can read a few other wonderful blogs:

I highly recommend the February issue of Teen Librarian Monthly, which (among many exciting things!) includes a fantastic introduction to Nerdfighters and a information on Speak Up for Libraries. Teen Librarian also recently posted an article about John Green and Nerdfighters.

Author Janet Dickey provides a free (and teen-tested!) outline for running a teen writing workshop.

Teen Librarian’s Toolbox is one of my favourite blogs for inspiration. A few interesting recent posts include projects for getting teens involved with poetry, an introduction to Pinterest, and a giant list of craft projects.

Did any of you give books away to young people for World Book Day? What are your plans for World Book Night next month? Will any of you be handing out books to or with young people?

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Links Round-Up: On Work Experience, Teen Involvement, and a PRIZE DRAW

9 Feb

When YA Library UK reaches 100 email followers to this site (and, hopefully, 400 Twitter followers!) there will be a prize draw for followers in the UK! So far my ideas are as follow: 1) YALSA’s Cool Teen Programs for Under $100 (plenty of stuff in here that still applies in translation) or 2) a bundle of new YA releases! Or, 3) I could pick several winners for several new YA releases. There’s also 4) Something else (activity packs? Promotional materials?). What do you think? What would you most like to win? Comment, tweet, et cetera. (There are currently 98 email followers, so it’s very close!)

Now back to your regularly scheduled links round-up:

New research suggests work experience reduces the drop-out rate, leads to greater employability of young people.

How to put ‘the “Teen” in Your Teen Space’, a post about getting teens involved and excited about your library’s activities.

In response to The Hunger Games‘ pending release, Springfield-Greene County Library has created Hunger Games website, and a roster of a week’s worth of library activities for teens.

Pinterest is the “rising star of social media”. It’s easy to use, highly visual (like Tumblr!) and worth getting your library involved with while it’s hot.

A new book website called Small Demons finds and lists all the things mentioned in your favourite books: places, people, other books, movies, music, et cetera. The site is still in its nascent stages and doesn’t have many books added yet, but in time it could serve as a great help in planning programmes and displays (for example, I can imagine around a popular book of “books and/or music and/or films enjoyed by the characters”).

This is from 2011 but it’s new to me (and thus maybe to you): Sherman Alexie on why the greatest books for young people are “written in blood”. Alexie writes, “I have yet to receive a letter from a child somehow debilitated by the domestic violence, drug abuse, racism, poverty, sexuality, and murder contained in my book. To the contrary, kids as young as ten have sent me autobiographical letters written in crayon, complete with drawings inspired by my book, that are just as dark, terrifying, and redemptive as anything I’ve ever read.”

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Links Round-Up: University Applications Fall, but Graphic Novels and Teen Events Are Awesome

2 Feb

Don’t forget, Saturday 4 February is National Libraries Day!

University applications set to show slump after tuition fee hike of about 9%. This does include overseas students. I’d be interested in seeing figure for UK students. This is the steepest fall in 30 years.

Read about a week in the life of a secondary school librarian on Big, Friendly Librarian.

Teen Librarian has compiled a list of great graphic novels about the Holocaust.

Photos from a completely amazing Harry Potter-themed party for teens (seems like this could also be used with children, or maybe even put together by teens for children!).

I love this visual list of ideas for a Teen Summer Read programme called “Own the Night” (her teen library Pinterest is also worth a look in). As far as I know there haven’t been any recent summer reading programmes for teens in the UK (anyone know differently? Give a shout in the comments!), but it’s one of my librarian dreams. I do know that Southend Library held one some years ago (through the Reading Agency, I believe) and it was quite a success. There’s certainly potential there.

Wondering what Pinterest is and how you can use it in your library? Read 5 Ways to Use Pinterest in Your Library.

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Links Round-Up: Cuts and Youth, DIY Your Education, and More

27 Jan

National Libraries Day poster - 4 February 2012What will you be doing for National Libraries Day on February 4th? Here are some suggestions. Does anyone have plans to get local teens involved?

Update on cuts to youth services:

Children’s services bear the brunt of grant cuts, says a new research paper put out by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. (Thanks Anne Harding for the link – and co-authoring the research.)

Related: cost of illiteracy to UK ‘tops £81bn each year’.

DIY your brain:

Nerdfighters/vlogbrothers John and Hank Green have released Crash Course onto the world. Crash course provides introductions to world history and biology. If you’re not already familiar with him, John Green is also a very popular YA author, and the series will no doubt be popular with teens. Check out the introductory Crash Course video

Speaking of John Green: I Hacked John Green’s Wesbite introduces librarians to (positive) hacking and provides some free tools to use with teens.

Since we’re on the topic of hacking and computers, I recommend Codeyear, a free coding course. It’s offered via the (also free) Codecademy. Why should teens (or librarians) care? Read Douglas Rushkoff on how he’s learning to code – and why you should too. I also recommend Rushkoff’s book Program or be Programmed.

Book and writing competitions:

Secondary school students can enter the Read This! competition to win vouchers for themselves, and an amazing book voucher and author visit for their school! Deadline: 16 March 2012.

The Gentleman Press writing competition for ages 13-21 is open until 31 January 2012.

Young people can enter to become Amnesty International’s young human rights reporter of the year. Deadline: 20 February 2012.

Teen librarians/YA lit:

Poetry inspires YA novelists. This reminds me of a Sylvia Plath-themed session that went over surprisingly well with a group of older teens. I handed out various books of her poetry and The Bell Jar.

Don’t forget to read the January edition of Teen Librarian Monthly!

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Links Round-Up: Advocating for Teens and Reading, Halloween, etc.

26 Oct

News

University applications for 2012 are down 9% (BBC News).

The Booktrust Teenage Prize has been suspended for the time being due to funding problems.

Resources, Research, and Programming

“‘You’ve changed my life’: teenagers, reading and libraries” is a new article by Anne Harding about how libraries can support and encourage reading amongst teens (especially disadvantaged teens).

How to Be An Advocate for Teens (by Gretchen of Librarified) is an excellent primer to advocating for teens within your library and community.

Teens are as complex as adults, but they are going through physical and mental development that makes some of their behaviour difficult to parse. Check out What Kids Need: The Building Blocks for Children and Youth to find out more about youth development.

Teen Librarian’s Toolbox has collected a number of entertaining zombie-themed activities for teens (just in time for Halloween!).

Teen Librarianship

Author and librarian Megan Honig wrote a wonderful post about why she became a teen librarian. She writes that, “My compassion for teens, and my desire to be a trustworthy, boundaried adult who can serve as a resource for teens comes from that experience too. Looking back, I think about how few adults—none, really—were able or willing to support me.”

Halloween Fun

Spinebreakers is holding a Halloween book giveaway/writing competition for teens. The deadline for entries is 31 October.

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Links Round-Up: Strong Opinions, New Research, Resources, and More

4 Aug

Teen Library Programmes

Make Music at the Library Week yields amazing results, including a view of one of the teens involved seemingly overcome by joy at the outcome. Find out more about the project here.

Opinion

Needless to say, this call for more teen librarians by Justin Hoenke on Tame the Web is brilliant and timely. Hear hear!

In the Library with the Lead Pipe tells you why you should be reading YA.

Salon.com makes the case for raunchy teen lit.

YALSA conrasts dystopian and post-apocalyptic teen books.

Research

A new paper in The Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults demonstrates the value of using graphic novels to motivate struggling male adolescent readers.

Teen Librarian Resources

A student guide to copyright was recently produced by the School Library Association. It’s an excellent resource, though I would have liked to see a brief mention of fair dealing.

YALSA offers advice for librarians who may face book censorship or removal.

YA Literature and Movie News

A list of YA books published in August is brought to you by Reading Teenage Fiction.

Youth Services Corner provides a list of the movies based on books August to October 2011.

Interviews and Awards

Teen Librarian shares an interview with Jacqueline Woodson, “one of the few queer, Black or feminist writers of bestselling contemporary children’s books.”

Also from Teen Librarian: information about the Stan Lee Excelsior award for graphic novels and manga. The prize winner is chosen by young readers ages 11-16.

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Links Round-Up: A Call for Interviews, Training Opportunities, a Day in the Life

16 Jun

Call for Interviewees

Ana Silva, an MA student and aspiring librarian is currently writing her thesis about library services for young adults. She would like to interview librarians and literacy professionals who work directly with teenagers. Interviews would be brief, via online chat, and take under an hour. If you are interested in increasing the body of teen library services by contributing an interview, please contact Ana at ANA-LUCIA.P.SILVA (at) stu.mmu.ac.uk.

Training

Two upcoming courses of interest: the first, for librarians who want to work with secondary school teachers, takes place on 21 June. A course for working with young offenders will be led by John Vincent and Anne Harding on 29 September 2011.

There is also a free webinar, But Graphic Novels ARE Reading!: Partnering with Teachers and Parents being offered by the American School Library Journal on 21 June, 7-8 PM GMT.

Teen Librarian Thrills and Skills

For those looking for a little perspective, YA Librarian Tales’ Day in the Life of a Teen Librarian.

The latest issue of Teen Librarian Monthly contains some useful information about making, reading, and collecting ‘zines. Zines are often popular with teens, and are worth knowing a bit about!

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