Division of Library and Information Services
   
FLYP Forward 
September  2015
Volume 8, Issue 6  

Newsletter Topics 

Info to Go

 

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

 

Sneak Peek Book Reviews

Quick Links

   

Florida Electronic Library

 

Florida Memory 

 

 Florida Library Webinars 

Special!

By signing up for a 

CSLP account, public youth services staff gain access to resources not included in the CSLP manuals.  

Upcoming Webinars

 

Virtual Reality 2015: A Renaissance

9/16/15
Noon - 1:00 p.m. Eastern

Chat With Jana: Get Ready, Get Set, Change!
9/16/15
3:00 - 4:00 p.m. Eastern 

 

  Storytime Trios: Themes Made Easy

9/24/15

2:00 - 3:00 p.m. Eastern

 
Ongoing Training
If you work in a Florida library, you are eligible to enroll in more than 350 self-paced courses offered through WebJunction Florida.

Have a WebJunction account but can't remember the password? Try "WebJunction"
(case sensitive), and you'll be prompted to reset your password.
2015 Celebration Weeks and 
Promotional Events 
The links below will show you how to
 bring these promotions to your library. Don't forget to share your activities with others!

Hispanic Heritage Month

Little League Month


9/16/15

9/17/15

9/19/15

9/21/15

9/25/15

9/26/15

Info to Go

 

Chat With Jana: Get Ready, Get Set, Change! 
Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, 3:00 - 4:00 p.m. Eastern 
During this webinar, Youth Services Consultant Jana Fine will share about the changes afoot for this fall regarding materials and FLYP workshops. 

Summer Stories 
Do you have any great stories from summer? Please share them for inclusion in the next FLYP Forward. Contact Jana Fine at [email protected] for more information.

2016 Summer Manual Purchase 
This year, the Bureau of Library Development will not be ordering paper or DVD manuals. Instead, additional funds will be added to your allotment to purchase manuals in the format of your choice for each of your library locations. Please send any questions you might have to 

YouTube       
Miss any Chat With Jana webinars? You can watch them on the Bureau of Library Development's YouTube channel. 

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Like us on Facebook. Check out all of the information submitted by library staff from around Florida.  

 

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Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

 
Disability History and Awareness Weeks
Florida observes Disability History and Awareness Weeks in the first two weeks of October. In order to expand knowledge, understanding and awareness of individuals with disabilities, we are looking for programs that promote disability awareness. Please share your programs with Jana Fine at [email protected].

2015 Teens' Top Ten
Encourage the teens in your library to go online and vote for their favorite books at YALSA's reads4teens website.   
 
AWE Early Literacy Video Contest Winners
Congratulations to the teen volunteers at Dunedin Public Library, who won the AWE Early Literacy video contest. The Library will receive a new AWE Literacy station! 
 
Snoopy Is Honorary Chair for Library Card Sign-up Month 2015!
Snoopy, the world-famous beagle, has been known as The Flying Ace, The Masked Marvel, Man's Best Friend and The Literary Ace, among other personas. In September, he's especially proud to serve as Honorary Chair of Library Card Sign-up Month. Check out ALA's webpage for downloads and information as well as an opportunity to share plans. 

It's Not Too Late to Plan a Great Teen Read Week™!
 
During Teen Read Week, reach out and engage teens who don't normally come to the library, whether they're homeless, in foster care, recent immigrants, or belong to some other segment of the community. Reaching some of these groups can be a challenge, but YALSA has resources to help. 

Programming Librarian - Blog: Storytime Stretching 
Programming Librarian is an online space where library professionals can share, learn and be inspired to present excellent programming for their communities. Find out how you can incorporate yoga poses or movement exercises into programs for ages 2 to 4 through the blog post about Storytime Stretching.

Core Professional Values for the Teen Services Profession
YALSA has published Core Professional Values for the Teen Services Profession, a document that describes nine core values that define professionalism for those who work for and with teens through libraries. This document provides examples of sample indicators for practices that resonate with each value. YALSA offers the Core Professional Values as fundamental underlying principles to guide the decisions, actions and behaviors of library staff working with and for teens.

Sneak Peek Book Reviews


Block, Francesca Lia. The Island of Excess Love. New York: Henry Holt & Co, 2014. 
This is the sequel to Block's Love in the Time of Global Warming. Keeping with the filter of classical literature, we continue Pen's tale with the guidance of Virgil's Aeneid. I've spent a long time trying to decide how I feel about this book. I really enjoyed its predecessor for its bold choice of characters. While those characters haven't disappeared (which could easily happen in a post-apocalyptic world), they instead accompany Pen on her new journey insignificantly until the plot calls upon them for catalysts and resolutions. While I do feel cheated out of that history together, it is important to remember that, underneath all of its allegories and disaster, Pen's story is ultimately about dealing with the transition from adolescence. I feel more forgiving when I remembered how fickle my own friendships were as a teen -- friends could be bonded as survivors one semester only to be strangers the next. While maybe not as fulfilling as the first installment, Pen's story is no less captivating in Island. You will find yourself racing through the story to find out what happens. Growing up, like the apocalypse, gives no promise of a happy ending. If nothing else, the books in this series make great companions for their classical counterparts that should help more youthful audiences understand the epics of old.

Amanda Street

[email protected]   

Wilderness Coast Public Libraries 


Minor, Wendell. Daylight Starlight Wildlife. New York: Nancy Paulsen Books, 2015.
Luminous gouache and watercolor wildlife paintings are the centerpiece of this book of contrast. Through the full-page illustrations, which bleed off the page, readers explore the world of diurnal (daytime), nocturnal (nighttime) and crepuscular (twilight) animals in side-by-side beauty. Several illustrations juxtapose creatures who use a rural backyard during the day (a woodchuck looking at the reader) and at night (skunks looking down the path). Other illustrations are double-spread to intensify the impact of the animal in motion (such as a barn owl on the hunt).

Since there is no true story to follow, the one-line-per-page text is simple yet thoughtful and informative. Some vocabulary would be complex for early readers (such as "plod," "swoop," "flutter," "crouch," "pounce," "sprightly" and "stealth"); however, early listeners will be lulled by the pace of the lyrical verses. The book ends with an illustrated list of fun facts about each of the animals featured in the book.
Recommended for parents (lap time), librarians (story time) and young readers interested in the natural world, learning time (day vs night) and the beauty in their own backyards.

 

Cherry, Allison. For Real. New York: Delacorte Press, 2014.

For a supposedly realistic novel about reality TV called For Real, this book wasn't very realistic at all. The story is about sisters plotting revenge on a cheating ex-boyfriend and carrying it out on a reality TV show. How often would one get that chance? Oh, it just so happens that we need more teams on our show and you two are a perfect fit -- how convenient!

 

The younger sister, Claire, is supposedly a reality TV trivia nut, but she falls for every trick her sleazy teammates throw at her and doesn't really use her trivia knowledge at all. That was the one thing she claimed to be good at, yet the reader never sees it. The older sister, Miranda, is awful. She's selfish and treats her sister poorly. No other character has any substance and the reality TV show (and others mentioned) was cheesy -- and not in a funny way. The whole book left me feeling very unsatisfied. The characters were pretty terrible to each other and nothing good really happened to anyone. I guess that is fairly realistic after all.

 

Acampora, Paul. I Kill the Mockingbird. New York: Roaring Book Press, 2014.

I Kill the Mockingbird is the story of best friends Lucy, Elena and Michael. Lucy has had an emotional year: her English teacher died and her mother is battling cancer. Now it's time for summer, and the friends are excited to see To Kill a Mockingbirdon their summer reading list. Lucy knows everyone in her class doesn't like the novel, so she hatches a plot to get the entire town to talk about the well-known classic book. The plot involves the three friends creatively distributing every copy of To Kill a Mockingbird in every bookstore within a 50-mile radius and using social media to create a conspiracy to spark interest. 

 

Lucy continues to try not to worry about her mother, whose prognosis is that she only has a few weeks left to live. She also starts to realize that Michael is becoming more that just a friend and wonders if she is ready for the pressures and challenges of high school. I Kill the Mockingbird is a cute, literate and touching story that social media conscious middle school students will enjoy. Each character is fully developed as well as likable and relatable. Readers will cheer for Lucy, Elena and Michael as they work together, amaze themselves with the power of a cultural moment and enjoy a summer of fun, friendship and literary mystery.  

 

Allison Culver

[email protected] 

Bartow Public LibraryPolk County Library Cooperative    


Steiger, A. J. Mindwalker. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.

In Mindwalker, teens Lain Fisher, Ian Wellick and Steven Bent must decide for themselves what they believe and how far they will go to support their beliefs. In Aura, the capital of the United Republic -- the former United States -- life for the three Greenborough High School students is about to change in unexpected ways. Mindwalkers Ian and Lain, star trainees at the Institute for Ethics in Neurotechnology, or IFEN, are friends and co-workers. During the day they are average high school students, but after school they walk through the memories of others in order to help them forget. But when Lain meets Steven, a Type 4 -- the bottom of society's acceptable psychiatric normalcy -- her beliefs, training and loyalties will be tested beyond anything she ever imagined. From the discovery of a possible conspiracy to falling in love for the first time, Mindwalker has the perfect mix of friendship, excitement and self-analysis.

Amy Natale
 
Shakespeare, William and Courtney Carbone. Srsly Hamlet. New York: Random House, 2015.

Courtney Carbone dedicates Srsly Hamlet as follows: "To all my extraordinary English teachers, I'm sorry." And I can see why. Warning: Shakespearean purists, you may want to skip this book. All others: keep reading. It is advertised as "tl;dr One of the greatest stories every told ... in texts"  (tl;dr = too long; didn't read). With the help of tons of emoji and status checks, this book is a blast to read. The book is funnier if one has read the original version. I am looking forward to reading this series' version of Macbeth! Please keep 'em coming!

 

Vanessa Barrantes
[email protected]
Broward County Library

Krys, Michelle. Charmed. New York: Delacorte Press, 2015.
Indigo "Indie" Blackwood is a popular, beautiful L.A. high school cheerleader and a witch. Her mom was killed in a war between "the Family" (witches and warlocks) and "the Priory" (sorcerers). She has a hot warlock boyfriend, Bishop, an aunt who is now her legal guardian, and a non-magical BFF, Paige, who has been kidnapped and sent to Los Demonios. Los Demonios is an alternate-dimension prison for witches and sorcerers who have done very bad things, such as killing humans and sticking their heads on staffs. 

Indie is an incredibly loyal friend who feels responsible for her best friend being stuck in Los Demonios. She finds a way to travel there and get Paige back, but it's not at all a simple process. There are chases and captures, bloodshed, physical and psychological pain, deception, and heartache. On top of everything, Indie is a relatively new witch, so she's still learning the basics, like how to defend herself from fireballs, flying daggers, dragons, etc. She finds out who her father is (he disappeared when she was 3) and that her boyfriend's ex has defected to the other side. The popular in-crowd at school, which she used to be part of, has turned on her, so Indie's now dealing with the fallout of being the butt of the queen bee's jokes and anger at an ex-friend's betrayal. There are major plot holes but also great action and romance as well as snappy dialogue. It's recommended that you read the prequel, Hexed, to get the back-story and understand the characters' relationships. Both books are fast, fun summer reads.

Yang, Gene Luen and Sonny Kiew. The Shadow Hero. New York: First Second, 2014.

Isn't becoming a super hero the dream of every child? Well, not Hank. All he wants is to work in his father's grocery store and have a peaceful life, but his mother has other plans. She will stop at nothing to turn Hank into the famous champion she knows she deserves. And that is the very general backstory of the Green Turtle, the titular hero of The Shadow Hero

 

Mixing Chinese culture and history, violence, and super powers, Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew tell a powerful tale of what it means to accept who you are and who you are meant to become. Interestingly, in the original Green Turtle comics, the hero was just a man skilled in fighting trying to protect China. The Shadow Hero "reboots" the series with a more mystical approach but maintains the honest intentions of the original work. Young readers will enjoy the beautiful art style and comic relief as well as seeing Hank go from bullied to brave. There is a lot of violence in the work but nothing gratuitous, making it appropriate for most tweens and teens to enjoy. And they might even learn a little history to boot!

 

Amanda Street

[email protected] 

Wilderness Coast Public Libraries 

 

Florida Library Youth Program