Teen Summer Reading Club: Week #5 (Wrap-Up) & Week #6

Phew! The teen summer reading club and special events/programs have been going strong. As of today, we have 266 teens signed up for the club between two library locations. One of the half-way prizes for this year’s program is an inflatable guitar. I based the number of guitars I ordered on last year’s statistics and I am happy to announce that I have had to re-order more guitars! The teens have three more weeks to turn in their reading logs and get their prizes. I’m excited to have a final tally of how many got half-way through the program and how many completed it and/or did additional reading logs.

Week #5 Wrap-Up

This past week I hosted the second meeting of the Teen Anime/Manga Club. We watched an episode from GXP, which the teens didn’t seem to enjoy very much, and an episode from Black Cat, which they *loved*! At the end we spent some time discussing their favorite anime and manga. The best part of the meeting was this:

A mother entered the program telling me her son was autistic and that she would stay with him, which was fine with me. He happily watched the anime and also discussed some anime he’s enjoyed. At the end of the program, when everyone left, the mother approached me. She told me that they had recently moved to the area and she was so happy that the library hosted this program for teens, especially since her son is homeschooled. With tears in her eyes, she said how nice it was to see that he was not only participating and being social, which surprised her, but that the other teens completely accepted him. I was beyond thrilled to know how beneficial it was to be able to have this Teen Anime/Manga Club. We had a total of 16 teens attend this program.

Week #6

The next few weeks worth of programs are going to be pretty crazy. On Monday I will be hosting a Teen Zumba program, which will allow teens to be active at the library, while learning a new workout/dance craze. On Wednesday I will be assisting with one of two Tween Book Clubs, this group will be reading The Lightning Thief. On Thursday I will be running the second of the two Tween Book Clubs and we will be reading Life As We Knew It. During this meeting we will do the following: introductions with an ice-breaker, overview of the club, watch the book trailer via http://www.youtube.com/, discuss the first ¼ of the book, and then wrap the meeting up by listening to the audiobook version for the beginning of the next section of the book. Both of these Tween Book Clubs will be meeting on the same day for four consecutive weeks.

On Friday I will be hosting the fourth teen program of the week, the Teen Book Club. We will be reading Hate List. During this first meeting, we will do the following: introductions with an ice-breaker, overview of the club, watch the book trailer via http://www.youtube.com/, and discuss the first 1/3 of the book. As with the Tween Book Clubs, the Teen Book Club will be meeting on the same day for four consecutive weeks.

So here’s to a busy, busy week at the library!