Books Bring Teens Together This Summer

The weekly book discussion groups for teens truly has them “talking it up” and “speaking out” this summer.

Once again the library is hosting the two groups: “Speak Out” for students going into grades 10, 11 and 12 and “Talk It Up” for those in grades 7, 8 and 9 as part of its designed to keep kids’ minds sharp over the summer break.

The six-week program is about halfway done and both groups have a number of kids taking part each week interacting with the library’s new part-time teen librarian Claire Santoro, library board president Lisa Traina and a college interns who are helping to lead the discussion.

Mimi Hui library director says they would have liked to see more of the older students involved in the “Speak Out” book group.  Not as many students are taking part as they have in previous years. Many of the younger kids are taking full advantage of their “Talk it Up” book group.

Last Wednesday found them taking part in a discussion of “Face on the Milk Carton” which was followed by some game play with the group leaders.

Hui says there will be some author visits planned in the coming weeks. Most exciting is that they are taking it up one notch and will do a special Skype with the author event for the kids in the Wednesday ‘Talk It Up’ group next month.

Hui says Skype-ing with an author is something technologically cool and different for the kids to take part in.

The book list for the “Talk It Up” group includes:

-       “Hope Was Here” by Joan Bauer

-       “Face on the Milk Carton” by Caroline Cooney

-       “Raven’s Gate” by Anthony Horowitz

-       “A Mango Shaped Like Space” by Wendy Mass

-       “Flash” by Carl Hiassen

“Speak Out” group is reading:

-       “Perfected by Girls” by Alfred C. Martino

-       “Scarlett” by A.C. Gaughen

-       “Brightly Woven” by Alexandra Bracken

-       “The White Cat” by Holly Black

-       “All Unquiet Things” by Anna Jarzab