The importance of saving your work - a cautionary tale

You know how everybody - teachers, parents, librarians - are always reminding you to save your work? (the dreaded "if the computer dies all your work will be gone). It'll happen to you at least once in your life, hopefully only once.

Apparently it happens to adults, too. Check out this animated short about how the files for the movie Toy Story 2 were almost lost.

What's in a Name?

Have you ever wondered how to pronounce your favorite author's name?

Let's try Rick Riordan (author of the fantastic and wildly popular Percy Jackson Books):

I've heard it pronounced "rear-don", "ree-ordon", "roar-don" and several others.

Well now you don't have to wonder, just cruise around this cool web site of hundreds of authors pronouncing their own names!

(and in case you were wondering about Riordon, it's pronounced "RYE-ordon", but don't trust me, check it out for yourself!)

Summer Reading - starting early!

So now that we've got the Summer Reading program all on-line (for your convenience) we're rolling it out a whole month early this year!

Starting May 1 you can register for the Teen Summer Reading Program here, where you can set your goal, log your books, write reviews, and be eligible for prizes (sounds pretty good, doesn't it?)

And don't forgot to check back in this space for more information about summer classes and club for teens. We'll have some old favorites (jewelry, knitting) and some new programs (juggling, duct tape crafts), and as always they are totally FREE!

Spring Break!!!

Next week is Spring Break week for Mountain View schools - wahoo!

Time to relax, decompress, see a movie (or three) and enjoy sleeping late, if you can!

If you're looking for something to do there's always a lot to choose from at the library - books, magazines, games (lots of new Wii and DS games), music, movies - and it's all free!

Teens and movies - life lessons?

It seems like every teenager on the planet has gone to see Hunger Games. Teens spend a lot of time and money at the movies.

So what do they get out of it?

How about some horrible life lessons! Check out Cracked.com's article on 5 Horrible Life Lessons Learned from Teen Movies.

Even if you haven't seen some of these movies it's funny anyway!

More Homework Help - hooray!

After some unexpected staff changes and some reduced hours for the past few weeks I am happy to announce that we have hired some new Homework Assistants and will be back to our regular schedule for free Homework Help starting next week.

As a reminder, here's the schedule:

Monday 3:30 to 8:30
Tuesday 3:30 to 6:00
Wednesday 3:30 to 6:00
Thursday 3:30 to 8:30

It's free, available to anybody in grades 6 through 12, and there's no need to make an appointment, just come on down!

Post Hunger Games Hangover

Wow!!!

Everywhere I went during the past week people were talking about The Hunger Games movie. And with good reason.

Last Friday's movie opening broke all sorts of records with an incredible $155 million dollars in ticket sales on opening weekend (click here for NY Times article). I talked to people who've gone twice already, and it was all over the news and the radio.

And for good reason - what an amazing movie! I know not everyone loved it (click here for a meh review) but most reviews were really good (click here for the San Jose Mercury News review, which was fantastic).

Here at the library we have so many holds that I just ordered another ten copies of the book - bringing our total to 30 copies in the regular collection plus 8 copies in our Friend's Collection. That's the most copies of any one book I've ever ordered!

Given that there's probably going to be three more movies (apparently Woody Harrelson, who plays Haymitch, confirmed in an interview that there's going to be a total of four movies) we have a lot more to look forward to!

If you want to add your name to the hold queue for the first book in the series go here.

If you're looking for other great books like The Hunger Games check out the titles on this list.

If you've read any great books lately that are like the Hunger Games, let us know and we'll add it to the list!