Holiday Ornament Craft

Hello everyone... with Thanksgiving on its way and Christmas waiting in the wings... I thought I'd share my new art activity for the upcoming season. Create fun Christmas tree ornaments with green popsicle and glittery stick-ons. If you're a librarian or a busy teacher, use your older students or volunteers to paint the popsicle sticks a lovely shade of green. We used acryllic paint and the hot glue gun to place sticks together.
Here's what you need:
- Popsicle sticks ( box cutter to cut one end shorter than the others for the base of the tree)
- Sparkly stickers or rhinestones
-Paper stars ( printed from Word or you can use an Elison die-cut for these)
- Brown paper for the stems
Place the pieces together in a triangle and glue the ends with a hot glue gun. (I recommend teens and adults using the glue gun of course! )
Use white Elmer's glue for the sparkly ornaments and allow time to dry.
Hang with a ribbon and enjoy on your tree!
Also, here's some fun holiday books that you can enjoy this season:

Auntie Claus by Elise Primavera--- A holiday book like no other! Filled with a great lesson and a fun read aloud for all ages.
Grades K-2nd

Saranormal by Rivers-- A great book in the series based on a character who has paranormal talents and is haunted by them during the                                                      wintery season. 
                                          Grades 4-6th.

Fall Reads

Hello fellow readers,
Don't be afraid to share you favorite books for tweens, teens and young adults with me on this blog. This fall, I'm trying to catch up on some great reads I learned about from my recent visit at the CLA Conference and also from my library's YA Meet and Greet.

Here's a few covers I'm interested in reading... What are you reading this fall? Comment below...

Create a Frankenstein for Halloween

Hi Friends!
I found a super cute Frankenstein craft. There is a lot of pre-cutting needed but if you have older teens or volunteers at your school or library ... this is a great project for them.  The template is located here: http://fromabcstoacts.com/frankenstein-sun-catcher.
I made the craft more cost effective by not using contact paper. This will create a sturdy Frankenstein instead of a suncatcher. You can take the green paper away so that light flows in, just keep in mind that it may be harder for little ones to glue the pieces this way.

Here's what you need;
-  Green tissue paper
-  Glue and Black Crayons
-  Black and White Cardstock
-  Printer

Directions: 
Pre-cut the green tissue paper into 1-inch squares. Various shades of green are fine.
Print out the template and begin gluing the squares to the frame of Frankenstein boxed shaped head.
Carefully attached the squares line per line. Similar to how you would add fringe to a pinata.
Glue eyes, bolts, eyebrows etc...
Draw some scars and a smile for scary fun!

The Flipside by Shawn Johnson

This book, written by Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson was absolutely fabulous. Charlie, is a championship winning gymnast who also uniquely attends public school. As she juggles both worlds, she has made an earlier decision to keep both lives a secret from some of her closest friends. Although, her best friend Gwen and family warn her that these two worlds might collide one day... Charlie decides to take some risks that almost end up costing her everything she has worked so hard for. Mix in a cute boy, his snide ex-girlfriend, friendship issues, and behind the scenes gymnast issues for a "hard to put down" teen book. Teens and readers should take a look at Shawn Johnson website for more fun and some interesting YouTube videos that tell about some of her struggles. What a great role model for teens and young adults! 

Great adult book for teens - Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

Hello fellow readers... if you're out there! I just finished a great book that was one of the best Chinese immigrant stories that I have ever read. Kimberly moves from Hong Kong to Brooklyn to better her life along with her mother who is widowed tragically. In Hong Kong, Kim was at the head of her class and her family was fairly well off. Now in America, they live in a cockroach infested apartment in Brooklyn due to her aunt's selfishness and she has to work in a sweatshop. Kimberly's only escape is school, but even this proves to be difficult as she struggles with English and making friends when she herself is so different. It's a heartbreaking story of trying to achieve your dreams with a strong love story at the heart of the book as Kim falls for a boy who knows all about her struggles.
High school teens who loved Memoirs of a Geisha and even Esperanza Rising will truly become attached to this book. Check it out.

Jinx by Meg Cabot

Hello August readers,
I hope you had an enjoyable summer thus far. As it nears the end, my brain is already traveling into early fall so that I can begin thinking about Halloween and sweater weather. With that said, I have just finished a great audio book by Meg Cabot titled Jinx. Back in the days, when I was once a middle school librarian this was a book that circulated many, many times in my library.
Jinx, is a young teen who has left her small town in New York to live with her cousin Tori and her family. Tori, is not too happy about her cousin reappearing in her life, and has a few secrets up her sleeve. She is well aware that Jinx has been granted special powers from their family heritage of witchcraft that skips generations. While Jinx tries her very best to fit in, she soon discovers that the magical powers within her is causing animosity between her and her cousin. As the situation deepens, Jinx soon finds herself in danger and must embrace her magic powers to overcome her cousin's wish to do her harm.
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually did. Readers of fantasy fiction may enjoy it, especially since the general theme is very interesting. As a avid teen reader, I felt it was a little slow to start however the ending made up for it just the same. Hope you like it!

Ocean Art Activities

This month I geared up with about 50 guests to create fun ocean themed art activities. Here are the instructions for the crab.
You will need:
1. Orange or Red pool noodles
2. Scissors
3. Googly eyes
4. Red or Orange pipe cleaners
5. Print out of crab claws ( from Word)
6. White school glue

Instructions:
Cut your pool noodle into nice "cheerio" shapes. Bend your pipecleaners for the eyes and crab legs.
Glue on the googly eyes, and attach the claws by poking through the end of the pipecleaners. I found the claw images by simply "googling," cartoon crab claws. Enjoy!

What am I reading in August?

August heat and L.A traffic has me reading indoors in the evenings and listening to audio books on my way home from work. This month, I picked up two very different reads one is teen and one is adult fiction. "The Paris Wife," by McClain is a fictional story based on the true events of Hadley and Ernest Hemmingway's marriage. If you know Hem, he was not the easiest man to get along with. The second book, which I am listening to on audio, is a fun magical teen read based in Georgia titled, " The Magnolia League."
Before you ask, no I have not finished the entire book ( either one). However, I am hopeful that I will make it to the last page (of both) before Labor Day.
Perhaps you can catch up with me and we can discuss the endings? Hmmmm??!
Please note: I am talking up " The Paris Wife," on my teen/tween blog as many high school students are required to read The Great Gatsby and they may enjoy McClain's book as well since it reflects upon the same era. Happy reading!

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Choldenko

Moose Flanagan is a twelve year old boy living on Alcatraz Island with his sister, who is not like other children. It's 1935 and the family has just moved here since their father works on the infamous island. Moose has to deal with taking care of his sister who has a disability, sharing a home on an island with convicts, and handling the warden's daughter Piper who is always thinking of a new scheme on how to meet Al Capone. That's right! I said Al Capone! At this time he has been sent to prison on Alcatraz for tax invasion and also because he has tried to swindle his way into better perks at every prison he has been sent to. All Moose wants to do is protect his sister, make some friends, and stay out of trouble but he soon discovers that he may need the help of the most notorious gangster to help him save his sister's education.
This is a great tween read with much excitement and many chapters that will pull on your heart strings. I would definitely recommend this book to older tweens as there are some issues in the book that come up with "coming of age," ideas.

If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan

This modern story is set in Iran and includes two young women, who love one another and must keep their relationship a secret or risk being punished to the extreme; death. The story is heartbreaking, as Nasrin and Sahar must hide their relationship especially because  Nasrin's family has promised her to a man for marriage. Sahar thinks of a perfect solution, she can undergo surgery to change into a man since this procedure is legal in Iran while homosexual relationships are not.While this is indeed drastic, Sahar needs to dig deep to find out if their love is worth such a transition.
I recommend this read to older teens and those in the LGBT community who are looking to read about characters who are not your regular run of the mill middle class type. It's nice to see an author take risks and invite us into a world we don't know a lot about.