Game Day Saturday!

Stop by the Teen Department on Saturday November 15, to play one of our board games or to have a go at a jigsaw puzzle.

Don't be bored - play a board game!

This week we received an exciting parcel in the mail, which turned out to be a new family board game called Tapple! from USAopoly. They are interested in what teens think of their new games, so please call in on Saturday and let us know what you think!
We will of course also have Scrabble, playing cards, Jenga and Yahtzee available for some good old-fashioned fun.

A Day To Remember

November 11 is Veterans' Day here in the United States, Armistice Day in the United Kingdom, and Remembrance Day in Canada: It is a day for us all to remember the sacrifices made by previous generations of citizens around the world so that we can live freely today.

From: The Daily Telegraph newspaper

2014 marks the centenary of the start of World War One in 1914, and is being commemorated in England, with an art installation at The Tower of London of 888,246 ceramic poppies representing each of the British and colonial lives lost in that war. Click here to find out more about Blood-Swept Lands and Seas of Red, created by Paul Cummings and designed by Tom Piper.





One of these poppies will be on display here at
Oxford Public Library in 2015





In honor of Veterans' Day, and because I have always been fascinated by the experience of ordinary people in extraordinary situations, I recently re-read an excellent book, based on the true story of the Navajo Indian Codebreakers who served as U.S. Marines in World War Two.

Imagine that you are one of only a few people during World War II, in this country, who knows a code that might help defeat the enemy and end the fighting in the Pacific. Would you volunteer to serve your country? Ned Begay finds himself in this situation; he is a Navajo Indian, descended from people who were persecuted for decades by white men and forced to move from their sacred land. Yet he and his friends are willing to support the US Government in this time of war, and Ned becomes a Marine:

            “I realized right away that our job was a really important one. In order to win battles, Marines needed to communicate fast at long distances. In those days before computers, that meant using radio. However, anyone, including the Japanese, could listen to our radio messages. To keep the messages secret, the Marines sent them in code. But the Japanese broke every code our American forces used.  A new kind of code had to be created.” (p.73)

This book describes many of the famous battles of the Pacific, such as Iwo Jima, from a different perspective than you may have heard before, and allows us to see behind the stereotypes to the gentle, brave characters of the Navajo people. This is a popular Accelerated Reading title and one that should be read by all Teen patrons so that they understand something of what their predecessors did, in humble service to their country. You can find this book in the Teen Fiction section at OPL.

 Bruchac, J. (2005). Code Talker: a novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue

The third book in Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Cycle series, Blue Lily Lily Blue, picks up where Dream Thieves left off. 

The hunt for the Welsh King Owen Glendower continues, but a more pressing concern seems to be the whereabouts of Blue's mother, Maura, who mysteriously vanished at the end of Dream Thieves with very little explanation except to say she was going "underground." As the teens' search leads them to explore a series of caves, new discoveries are made and new secrets are reveled. Turns out there are three ancient sleepers, not just Glendower...and one of these must NOT be woken, no matter what. The Gray Man's former employer Colin Greenmantle, who was no more than a vague threat last time around, is a more solidly-rendered villain in this book. He and his diabolical wife, Piper, have arrived in Henrietta to seek the Greywarren (an object that allows the holder to take objects from dreams), not knowing the something they seek is actually a someone. Tension builds throughout the book, and time seems to be running out for everyone: For Blue, who must find her mother before it's too late... For Gansey, whose prophecized year to live is nearing the end... For Adam, who is getting pulled deeper and deeper into Cabeswater... For Ronan, whose dreams are becoming increasingly deadly... Finally comes the cliffhanger, which will leave readers desperate for the final book.

Did you love The Raven Boys & The Dream Thieves? Then you HAVE to read Blue Lily Lily Blue! 

Haven't checked out The Raven Cycle yet? What are you waiting for?? --AJB

Book Hedgehogs This Saturday

Book Hedgehog Craft
Saturday Nov. 1
Noon-3 p.m.

Stop by the Teen Department on Saturday afternoon and make an adorable Book Hedgehog. 

This fun craft is part of #TeenCraftSaturdays @ OPL program, which happens the first Saturday of the month.

Crafts are drop-in only (no registration required), but we still have limited supplies. So be sure to get here early, because when supplies run out, they run out forever.

Belzhar, by Meg Wolitzer

What if you wanted something so badly, you actually convinced yourself it was reality? Meg Wolitzer explores this in her addicting novel Belzhar.

After her boyfriend, Reeve, died, Jam was inconsolable...so her parents sent her to The Wooden Barn, a boarding school in Vermont that's sort of a halfway house for emotionally damaged teens who aren't crazy enough for the psych ward (but are too fragile to mix with regular society). Jam obviously doesn't want to be there. She wants to be with Reeve. But Reeve is dead, and they can never be together again.

Or can they?

Jam is stunned when she is one of five students selected for Special Topics English, taught by the mysterious Mrs. Quenell. Everyone who has ever taken the class has claimed it changed their lives, but have remained secretive about the details. So Jam goes, not knowing what to expect.

What happens as a result of this exclusive membership is she and the other Special Topics students are allowed limited entry into the magical world they dub "Belzhar." This is a place they can go where the terrible thing that happened to them, the terrible thing that put them in The Wooden Barn, never happened and life is as it should be. For Jam, this means she can be with Reeve again. But she soon discovers they can only relive past memories. They can't create any new experiences. And she can never stay for very long. But this is enough for her.

As Jam and her classmates approach their last visit to Belzhar, they learn the truth about the place: That Belzhar gives them what they want to see...but it also reveals the truth about their trauma, the parts they blocked out the first time around. That during their final visit, they must re-live every sordid and terrible detail of the worst experience of their lives. This means Jam must re-live Reeve's death and face the awful, psyche-scarring truth about what really happened that day.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from Belzhar. I'd picked it up because I'd read a fabulous review that revealed just enough to spark my curiosity...but didn't give it all away. And it was good. Very, very good. Unusual, but very good...and I kept reading. I wanted to know what happened as much as the characters did.

Yes, there was a bit of a twist at the end (no spoilers). Not one that put my jaw in my lap, but still one that surprised me and changed the way I felt about Jam. Previous to the twist, I had felt a twinge of sympathy for her, certainly, but that was it. After all, she seemed to be getting better. Then the twist...and I realized how sick and twisted she really was. Far beyond what I first believed. 

Confused? Curious? 

Read the book. --AJB

Halloween Movies: Saturday!

Halloween Spooktacular Film Festival
Saturday October 25
10a.m.-4 p.m.

Looking to scare up some Halloween fun? Stop by the library this Saturday (October 25) and catch a spooky movie or more. The fun will begin when the library opens at 10 a.m. and run all day long. Watch one...or watch them all! And watch out for treats throughout the day. One thing's for sure: you'll sure to be in the Halloween spirit. So attend...If you dare!

Parents: Movies are PG and PG-13 and will be scary. We don't want to be the cause of any nightmares, so please make plans for younger siblings.

Even in Paradise, by Chelsea Philpot

I initially picked up Chelsea Philpot's Even in Paradise because I was desperately looking for a read-alike for We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, a book I devoured earlier this year and have ever since been seeking something of comparable awesomeness. Even in Paradise seemed like it had promise for that (maybe it was the cover similarities). 

Paradise did have some striking similarities to Lockhart's masterpiece (If Liars were to have be told from an outsider's point of view), but it also reminded me a lot of Perks of Being A Wallflower in that the narrator recounts an almost magical time in her life when she was swept into a golden world by friends who are too good to be true.

Unlike most of the students who attend St. Anne's, Charlotte is fairly normal and relatable: She's not rich or the daughter of someone famous. She doesn't wear expensive clothes or have an impressive (or infamous) background. She's a scholarship student, studies art, and is friendly with most but has no best friend. She's normal. And kind of boring.

That all changes the night she saves a very intoxicated Julia Buchanan from being busted for underage drunkenness, a behavior that would surely cause the girl to be expelled. From that point, Julia takes Charlotte ("Charlie") under her wing and introduces her to a world of beautiful things and beautiful people. Charlotte is charmed and awed. And she's more than a little bit in love with Julia's brother, Sebastian. It was the magical sort of friendship Charlotte always dreamed about but never expected to personally encounter.

But not all is as golden as Charlotte first believes.

On the surface, the Buchanan family seems the picture of perfection: Beautiful, rich, privileged, famous, and always smiling in the spotlight. But beneath all that gloss and glitter lurks a dark tragedy: Years ago, Julia Buchanan, her sister Augustine ("Gus"), and Gus's boyfriend , David, were in an auto accident. Julia walked away with only bruises. Gus and David weren't so lucky. 

This is something Julia was up front about right away. 

The twist, the truth no one knows (or will admit to), is this: Julia, then 14, had actually been the one behind the wheel on that fateful night...and the guilt that she was responsible for the two deaths has been eating away at her ever since. 

In a perfect storybook ending, Charlotte would help Julia overcome the tragedy. She would be the rock while her friend healed and got past the guilt and sorrow. And the two of them would grow closer because of it and become lifelong friends.

But this is not a perfect storybook ending. Julia is too broken for such a recovery. And instead of trying to face her guilt and the tragedy, she distances herself from everything and everyone that reminds her of it. And that includes distancing herself Charlotte. 

The ending is not a happy one. It's messy, it's cruel, but it's also realistic. Sometimes friendships last, but quite often they don't. Sometimes there is a falling out. Sometimes people grow apart. And sometimes there is no explanation for why a friendship ends. It just does.

But there's also hope for a new (albeit different) beginning. The reader knows Charlotte will be OK despite everything.

So was Even in Paradise the We Were Liars read-alike I was hoping for? No. Not quite. Not even close. I guessed the twist early on. In fact, I guessed it the first time Julia and Charlotte ever talked about the accident. There were no jaw-in-my-lap surprise endings that left me with that "OMG!" feeling long after I finished the last page. 

But I really liked Even in Paradise even though it wasn't what I was hoping for. I liked it for it's own awesome qualities: The characters and the ways their relationships developed... that hazy, nostalgic quality to the narration that made everything that happened to her seem almost too good to be true... The way the plot was built. 

Definitely recommended! --AJB