Introducing... Lego Club!

Our CEO, Marie, had an idea at the beginning of the summer to begin a Lego Club here at the library. We're having our third meeting tomorrow and so far Lego Club has been a huge hit... because everyone loves Lego of course!
Each session has a theme. So far we've done zoos, outer space, and tomorrow we're planning on having a theme of architecture. Shhh, don't tell the kids! Each session opens up with five minute madness. We suggest that the children build a certain object in only five minutes. After this session, we share a little bit about our creations.
Our next activity lasts around 45 minutes. This is the main building activity related to the theme. During our outer space week, we gave the children 45 minutes to build a planet. The features that they built on these planets were unbelievable. The planets were able to sustain their aliens (built during the five minute madness) with food and water, offered defence methods with laser beams, and some even features methods of transportation. 
For the rest of the session, the children can continue to work on their 45 minute project, or if they would rather, they can free build. 
We wrap up each session with a round of sharing, a giant round of applause and take pictures of each creation. The creations go on display until the following week on the shelves in the children's sections of the library.
Our Lego Club is a drop in program. If you're looking for a fun way to channel your child's creativity, this may be it! During the summer, Lego Club will take place every Friday from 1:00-2:30pm. Feel free to drop in and see what it's all about!

Nicholas and Brooklyn display their zoo.

Come Home by Lisa Scottoline - Jordan

I like books about relationships, specifically books about family connections. I also enjoy books with legal ties and theories and a slight element of suspense. I found all of these present in Come Home by Lisa Scottoline.
Come Home features Jill Farrow, a widowed, divorced, and now-engaged pediatrician who has lived an imperfect life, and admits to making flawed decisions. Jill's life seems to be finally coming together after a rocky past with her upcoming wedding and now-steady home life when she is shockingly reunited with her former step-daughter, Abby, who brings news of her father's (Jill's ex-husband's) death... and possible murder. 
Jill, who evidently cannot forget her obligation and motherly love toward her former step-daughter, makes a number of rash decisions in order to assure Abby that her father's death was not a murder. But then Jill begins to uncover some suspicious facts and becomes fixated on her ex's death.
Predictably, this puts a strain on the relationship between Jill and her fiancé Sam, and the sudden reappearance of her step-daughter Abby leads to friction between Jill and her daughter Megan.
This book kept me up late at night trying to unravel the mystery. I would recommend this book to any fans of Jodi Picoult. It was definitely a great summer read.

NEW IN YOUNG ADULT FICTION - Blog by Sandy

 Clockwork Angel

 by Cassandra Clare

            A light entertaining read with a fast paced, intriguing plot that is set in Victorian London.  If you like Demon Chasers, Vampires, Warlocks and Magicians this is the book for you.  It is a prequel to The Mortal Instruments Series but can be read on its own.  It consists of danger, action and romance as a young girl travels to London to find her brother only to learn hidden secrets about herself. The female characters are tough, opinionated, forthright, and fearless. Of the male characters one is emotionally challenged while the other is physically challenged but both are strong, cocky, and handsome.

My eReader Experiences - Jordan

Summer for me largely involves sitting in a lounge chair in my backyard with a novel. This year though, I've switched up a part of my old routine in favour of a recent innovation. I will admit that my dog-eared paperbacks have been swapped for a Kobo eReader. If I hadn't been generously given the Kobo by a family friend, this day might not have arrived so soon, but to my surprise, I can now comfortably read from an eReader with the same ease and familiarity of a print book. 
When I received this eReader, I borrowed a few books from Overdrive that I had been eager to read for some time but had not been available in print here at the library. If you're new to eReaders, my first recommendation would be download an eBook that you are genuinely interested in. Don't download the first available book you find just to try out your eReader as this not-so-favourable experience will likely create a negative association with your eReader. I believe this was my biggest mistake when I had borrowed an e-Reader from the library about a year ago.
If you've used Overdrive at all, you probably know most titles have extensive waiting lists on them. There were a few titles I wanted to read that weren't available on Overdrive (or in the library), so I purchased these from the Kobo store. This was so easy. Much easier than taking a twenty minute drive to the nearest Coles. Definitely a plus side to using an eReader. Probably not so great for my Visa bill but that's another story. 
Since getting my Kobo, I've also had the chance to use a family member's iPad as an eReader. The backlight display makes reading in bed so easy, and getting books from Overdrive takes just a few clicks. I'm  trying to trade my Kobo for the iPad... Just dreaming though.
If you've used an eReader in the past and didn't like it, I'd say pick it up and give it another try. Maybe try a different model and see what features are of importance of you and what you can do without. A lot of people are hesitant to abandon the print book... and that's completely unnecessary. There's no reason why you can't find an eReader that you love and enjoy the best of both worlds!

Check These Books Out! - Chris

Allah, Liberty & Love  by Irshad Manji - A great follow up to her earlier, The Trouble With Islam. Manji urges Muslims and non-Muslims to break free from the tribal interpretations of Islam. Great Stuff!

The Power of Habit  by Charles Duhigg - Using a variety of examples from nailbiting to football, the author shows how habits are formed and changed. Interesting and inspiring.

Annabel by Kathleen Winter

Book Blog: Annabel by Kathleen Winter

Last month, it seemed like I was hearing about Kathleen Winter’s Annabel over and over. First of all, the book club discussed it. Then, when deciding what to put on the Staff Picks shelf, Helen mentioned that she absolutely loved it. As I looked into the book, I figured it would be the kind of book that I would enjoy.

Annabel explores the concept of a hermaphrodite child born in Eastern Canada. The child is forced into embracing his male identity, and goes by the name of Wayne, but as he ages more feminine tendencies become evident within him. Despite his father’s attempts to masculinize Wayne, over time, he begins to sense there is something present within him that causes him to be different than the other boys he encounters. Eventually, he begins to really question – is he Wayne, or is he Annabel, the female who he senses lives within him?

This book is truly amazing, as evident through the many awards it has won, including Amazon.ca Best Book of the Year 2010 and New York Times Editors Choice in 2011. I will definitely be recommending this book to patrons in the future.

Untamed - A House of Night Novel (Spoilers!)

I just finished the fourth House of Night novel, Untamed, last night.


I really wasn't impressed with Untamed when I first began reading it. While I liked the other books, I've begun to find them extremely repetitive. The fact that Damien uses advanced vocabulary has already been established, and yet it is still mentioned way too many times in every book. While I can understand the authors explaining this to new readers, it is extremely overdone to the point that it becomes annoying.


I also started to get annoyed with the dialogue of other characters as well, mainly during conversation involving the twins. It's just not believable for me that conversation would actually progress like that between older teens. 


Thankfully, the plot quickly advanced and previously introduced ideas were addressed and developed which made the rest of the novel enjoyable. Once I really got into it, I forgot about the annoying writing style (except when the twins were speaking to each other). The progress in the war on humans and the exposure of Neferet's true evil motives are what really kept me reading. In fact, wanting to know how this war on humans progress is what caused me to check out the fifth book in the series today. I suspect that the fifth book will be even more action-packed.


All in all, I am still this series when I'm able to overlook some of the more irritating aspects of the Casts' writing and will continue to recommend this title to other readers of Young Adult Fiction.