Wednesday Club

Wednesday Club May 5

All teens ages 13-18 are invited to join Miss Kathy and Miss Jennifer in the library program room from 3:30-4:30. You'll be beach bags in preparation for the upcoming summer daze. All supplies and light refreshments will be provided.

Pre-registration is not required, but a signed behavior contract is.

Contact the library's young adult department for further information - nptya@newportlibraryri.org or 401-847-8720 ext. 206.

Recommended Books

Bog Child, by Siobhan Dowd

Teenager Fergus McCann must juggle growing up, falling in love, and coping with his jailed brother's hunger strike during "The Troubles," the political conflict in Northern Ireland between Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists that lasted from the 1960s to the "Good Friday Agreement" of 1998. Along with all that, Fergus discovered the body of a girl buried in a bog in the mountains when he was out running one morning. Learning of her great antiquity--she lived almost 2,000 years ago--and her tragic death adds to Fergus's sense that his homeland has long been inhabited by feuding parties, and has long been a mysterious and much-loved place. Dowd combines elements of mysticism, political intrigue, first love, family life, and a teen's growing sense of himself in a carefully historic but also timeless coming of age story.

Wednesday Club

Wednesday, April 28th

This week the Wednesday Club participants will customize and decorate their own picture frames. Come ready to create!

All supplies and a light snack will be provided.

Registration is not necessary, but signed behavior contract is.

Contact the young adult department for more information - nptya@newportlibraryri.org or 401-847-8720 ext. 206.

Pop Culture Quiz

How hip are you? Take VOYA's Teen Pop-Culture Quiz number 30.

RI Teen Book Award Winner

In the country of Panem, occupying the same geography as the United States but at an indeterminate time in the future, the human impulse to war is reined in by the annual staging of an elaborate reality game in which "tributes," randomly selected from regions of the country, must fight to the death. When teenager Katniss takes her younger sister's place as a participant in the Hunger Games, she believes that her skill as a hunter, learned through poaching small game to feed her family, will give her a competitive edge. What she doesn't know as the Games begin is that the other player from her district, Peeta Mellark, is in love with her. But is he, as the Games say, her mortal enemy too? Or is his profession of love merely part of his strategy to win--and to kill her in the process? This gripping, Survivor-like story continues with a second installment, called "Catching Fire." - Ms. Kathy

Katniss is likable in her "I-refuse-to-be-vulnerable" vulnerability. She learned a lot via the school of hard knocks, but is also, in many ways, naive. Listening to her narrate her trials as a "tribute", which in District 12 is basically a death sentence, readers are drawn into the story almost immediately; experiencing everything and everyone as she does. I'm almost disappointed to know she survives - she is around for "Catching Fire" - because if I didn't the suspense would be crackling in this wonderfully told, beautifully written story. Despite my knowledge there are still times I find myself on the edge of my seat. It is a fantastically exciting story. - Ms. Becky