Hello to our readers around the world!

 

Hello to our blog followers around the world!  I've been looking at who is reading this blog lately, and while the majority live here in the United States, there are also a number of you who live beyond our borders.  

 

Here is where many of our our international followers live:

Australia

Canada

China

France

Germany

India

Latvia

Netherlands

Russia

Ukraine

United Kingdom
 

I'd like to ask you some questions:
-- Why are you reading this blog?
-- Have you ever visited Chester County Library here in Exton, Pennsylvania?
-- What do you like and dislike about this blog?

 I would love to hear from you!  Thanks so much for reading this blog!

 

Lisa U.

CC Library

 

Teen Ice Cream Adventure

Thanks to all of you who joined our Teen Ice Cream Adventure here at CCL on Friday night!  There were 43 teens at this Summer kick-off event, and they made a 30-foot-long ice cream sundae (a Chester County record).  There was enough ice cream, chocolate sauce, M&Ms, caramel, peanut butter sauce, and whipped cream for a feeding frenzy, and the fact that everyone helped to clean up afterward was an added bonus!  :)

 

Our next event is a Teen Scavenger Hunt on Friday, July 12, at 4:00 pm in CCL's Youth Services Department.  Online registration is required. You can register online by going to www.ccls.org > Find an Event > Chester County Library > On the calendar, go to July 12 and click on Teen Scavenger Hunt > Fill in your information.  Hope to see you soon!

 

Lisa U.

Teen Event Coordinator

CC Library

2013 Teen Summer Reading Club

Summer 2013 has arrived! Beginning Monday, June 10th, you can register for Teen Summer Reading Club at your local library and receive your Summer Reading Calendar.

Here at Chester County Library, you can mark your calendar each day that you read or listen to books for 60 minutes or more. Prizes will be awarded when you complete 20, 40 and 60 days of reading. Each time your calendar is checked by a librarian, your name will be entered in the Teen Summer Raffle, which will be held on September 6th.  This year's theme for Teen Summer Reading Club is Beneath the Surface.

Mark your calendars for four Friday teen events! Online registration is required. You can register online for these events starting on June 10th by going to www.ccls.org > Find an Event > Chester County Library > On the calendar, find the event date and click on event name > Fill in your information.

Ice Cream Adventure

Friday, June 28 
6:30-7:45 pm
Struble Room
Get “the scoop” on all things ice cream, then help to build Chester County’s biggest ice cream sundae!

Scavenger Hunt
Friday, July 12
4:00-5:30 pm
Youth Services Department
Want to find out what lurks beneath the library shelves? Come to the scavenger hunt and dig up some treasure!

Journaling – Explore Beneath the Surface

Friday, July 26 
4:00-5:30 pm
Struble Room
Express yourself! We’ll give you a journal and some prompts to get you writing. Then “dig deep” and write down your thoughts. You can share what you’ve written with the group, or keep it private – it’s your choice.

Movie Night: Hugo
Friday, August 3 
6:30-8:30 pm
Struble Room
Set in 1930s Paris, Hugo is an orphan who lives in a train station and tries to solve a mystery involving his late father, an automaton (mechanical man) and a special key.  This movie is based on The Invention of Hugo Cabret: A Novel in Words and Pictures by Brian Selznick.

This year we’re offering two new weekly events, which also require online registration.  You can register online for these events starting on June 10th by going to www.ccls.org > Find an Event > Chester County Library > On the calendar, find the event date and click on event name > Fill in your information.

Teen Trivia Tournament
Fridays 2:00 to 3:00 pm
June 28, July 5, July 19, August 2
August 9 (Championship Round)
Struble Room
Compete against other teens from Chester County to test your knowledge of book, library and general trivia at our summer-long Teen Trivia Tournament! Come as often as you can to our four events and see if your cumulative score gets you into the final Championship Round on August 9th.

Chicks (and Guys) with Sticks + Book Talk
Tuesdays 7:00 to 8:00 pm
June 25, July 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, August 6
Youth Services Department
Learn how to knit or work on your own knitting project while the group chats about books!

We hope you'll join Teen Summer Reading Club and visit CC Library this summer, whether you’re checking out great books, movies or video games, or attending an event. Looking forward to seeing you!

Lisa U.
Teen Event Coordinator

CC Library

Book Review: See You at Harry's

How would you like living in a crazy family where your father runs a restaurant and your little brother Charlie is the three-year-old darling of the family?  In See You at Harry's by Jo Knowles, Fern, 12 years old, feels for her older brother Holden who is the target of mean kids on the bus.  Sara, her older sister, acts more like the mother in the family than their mom.  Fern must come to terms with so many feelings about family, especially after the unimaginable happens.  Be prepared to cry and to love these characters.

 

Anna Marie B.

CC Library

Book Review: In the Shadow of Blackbirds

In Cat Winters’ In the Shadow of Blackbirds, World War I rages across Europe, and the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 has killed tens of thousands across America. For her own safety after her father is jailed for anti-war activities, Mary Shelley Black is forced to leave her home in Portland, Oregon, and take the train to San Diego, where her maternal Aunt Eva lives. Soon after her arrival, she learns the unthinkable: her childhood love, Stephen Embers, who ran off and enlisted, died on the front lines in France. An act of desperation leaves her with the ability to hear and see his ghost. He tells her something's wrong--and can't stop talking about looming, murderous blackbirds. So Mary is on a mission to discover what really happened to Stephen, and to find a way to rest his soul in peace.

From our own fears of what new pandemic might be lurking around the corner, to the nightly news of wartime atrocities and PTSD, this book reminds us that, sadly, everything old is new again. Mary is a likeable character, with her psychic interactions with Stephen all the more potent because she still retains her natural and healthy skepticism of the Spiritualist community, which history showed was filled with quite a few hucksters. Stephen's warnings not to trust everyone around her sets us up to keep our eyes open for duplicity, but even then we're horrified by the conclusion to Stephen's sad tale. It's a well-plotted and tidy story with a satisfying ending (given the circumstances), and for those who never knew or understood the times of the first World War, are left all the richer for it.

Though not with the supernatural flair of Blackbirds, other books about teens struggling during the times around World War I are Hattie Big Sky and Hattie Ever After by Kirby Larson, and After the Dancing Days by Margaret Rostkowski.

Debra B.
CC Library