Ages 11-18
Blog Post
DVD Bits - Listen LOUD!
by ryanikoglu
"It Started as a Concert. It Became a Celebration."
If you LOVE Rock-n-Roll, don't miss The Last Waltz by Martin Scorsese. This is the film account of the last concert of The Band in 1978. Read more on Internet Movie Data Base. The opening credits instruct "Listen Loud"!
Blog Post
Creativity Camp Theme of the Week: Eco-Friendly Art!
by Cherie Lee
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After finishing your eco-friendly art projects, come find books on the back of the new shelf in the library's youth department that talk about the Earth and ways we can save it!
Blog Post
Da Vinci and His Times
by cecile
Eyewitness Books does wonderful travel guides and historical guides.
Filled with beautiful illustrations and photos, Da Vinci and His Times depicts this genius of the Renaissance very nicely. It delves into the times in which he lived by describing the city-states of Italy, the Catholic Church, the architecture, the perfecting of proportion and perspective in painting, fashion, Da Vinci’s studies of the human body and flying machines and much more. If you read it you can find out who invented platform shoes in the 16th century!
This is just one in the Eyewitness series. The AADL has many more including Knights and Castles, Ancient Egyptians, Ancient China, Shakespeare and the Wild West.
Spend a summer afternoon reliving history and it will be like you were there (almost!).
Blog Post
Scrapbooks From Scratch
by Bertha
Bring your collected items (photos, ticket stubs, sports ribbons, etc.) from home and create your own scrapbooks.
Thursday, August 7, from 2:00-4:00 pm at the Pittsfield Branch. Grades 6-12.
Check out Cool Scrapbooks or The Simple Art of Scrapbooking to get inspired. See you there.
Blog Post
2nd Annual Manga Drawing Contest Winners!
by erin
Our 2nd Annual Manga Drawing Contest has drawn to a close! This year our hard working judges were Jerzy Drozd and Shannon Towsend. They each spent hours judging the entries and providing feedback to each and every entry - thank you! In case you don't know what manga is click here. If you missed this year and are looking to find other places to post your work Jerzy made a great resource sheet. You can check out all the entries in this year's contest in our image gallery.
Click Read More to see the list of the winners!
Grades K-2 Category:
1st Place – Angela Wang
Runner-Up – Susanna Wu
Honorable Mention – Desiree Lu
Best Fan Art – Kareem El-Tawil
Best Original Character – Oliver Mayman
Grades 3-5 Category:
1st Place – Rosa Chen
Runner-Up – Natalie Liu
Honorable Mention – Alice Wu
Best Fan Art – Eric Ren
Best Original Character – Sally Lee
Grades 6-8 Category:
1st Place – Angela Wang
Runner-Up – Angela Huang
Honorable Mention – Zbyszek Sikora
Best Original Character – Genna Liu
Best Fan Art – Rujia Zha
Best Comic Strip – Connor Quigg
Grades 9-12 Category:
1st Place – Caitlin Dooley
Runner-Up – Lena Ji
Honorable Mention – Tracey Fu
Best Original Character – Lauren Houser
Best Fan Art – Stephanie Mannheim
Blog Post
Read Winning "It's All Write!" Stories Online
by Bertha
So many teens have created imaginative and thoughtful stories and submitted them to AADL's "It's All Write!" short story writing contest. Go to the "It's All Write!" page now to read some of these stories on-line, as well as find writers' names and story titles since 2004. Prize Winning Stories can be checked out in booklet form from the library's collection or you can get the entire 2008 selection of winning stories online. Applause goes out to all these teens.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #120
by muffy
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society*, a winning debut from the aunt-niece writing team of Mary Ann Shaffer & children's author Annie Barrows is at once "a warm, funny, tender, and thoroughly entertaining celebration of the power of the written word." ~ Library Journal
This novel is presented as an exchange of letters between Juliet Ashten, a Times columnist turned novelist, and the members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society during the waning days of WWII. Guernsey, a small fishing British island, was occupied by the Germans during the war. Amid privation, war atrocities, Juliet saw the possibility of her next book - an incredible story of a little pig, a missing prisoner of war, the intriguing man who found her name on the flyleaf of a book by Charles Lamb, and a community with secrets and a big heart.
"Reminiscent of 84 Charing Cross Road", readers might also seek out Peter Ho Davies' The Welsh Girl for readalikes. Highly recommended, and a sure bet for book groups. (Also available as an audiobook download)
* = Starred Review
Muffy's note: Mary Ann Shaffer was born in 1934 in Martinsburg, West Virginia. She became interested in Guernsey while visiting London in 1976. She died in February 2008, just before the publication of her book.
Blog Post
3rd Annual LEGO ® Contest Winners!
by erin
Once again our annual LEGO® contest was a blast! Families dropped off their entries on Tuesday night and all day Wednesday, the judges deliberated for almost 3(!) hours and then we packed the house with people wanting to look! This year we had over 130 projects entered into the contest - making it tougher for the judges to decide. Thanks to our judges Eli Neiburger, AADL Associate Director of IT and Product Development, Eric Klooster, AADL IT Component Developer and finally Duane Collicott, local LEGO® enthusiast and Brick Bash Master. Those that placed 1st Place, Runner-Up and Honorable Mention each got gift cards to Toys R Us, plus an award medal. Award medals were also given to those who placed in the special categories. NEW this year! Stay tuned later this summer for the LEGO® Contest Photo Gallery of every project submitted!
Without further ado behold the winners!
Blog Post
Creativity Camp Theme of the Week: Famous Artists
by Cherie Lee
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From Da Vinci to Warhol kids can check out the back of the new materials shelf in the youth department for lots of cool information on master artists and their masterpieces!
Blog Post
GBS- Playwright and social activist
by Maxine
Today, July 26, is the birthday of George Bernard Shaw, British playwright, famous for his wit and social commentary in plays like Pygmalion, later made into the hugely successful My Fair Lady. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1856 to a mother who was a professional singer and an alcoholic father who was a failed merchant. He moved to London in his twenties and tried unsuccessfully to write novels. Under the auspices of the socially progressive Independent Theatre, Shaw had several of his plays performed but he was given the most artistic freedom and support by Harley Granville Barker, manager at the Court Theatre. Shaw was also very active in the Fabian Society, a group that advocated the rise of socialist ideology and policy in Britain.
Among the many oft quoted lines of Shaw's is this one: "Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children."