Today marks the start of Banned Book week -- a week where we celebrate our freedom to read whatever we want... even if some people think it is unpopular, unconventional, or just plain wrong.

In honour of our right as Canadians to read ANYTHING and EVERYTHING, Calgary Public Library is holding a contest. There are three ways to enter:

• Choose a book from this list and find an article about why it was banned. Respond to this article with counter-arguments for why it should NOT have been banned. If you've read the book, tell us what you thought of it!

• Find a different example of censorship in Canada (other than book-banning) and comment on it.

• Make a poster advertising for Banned Book week and upload it to Teens Create.

Winners of this contest will receive a Gift Certificate to Chapters/Indigo (so you can buy ANY book you want!) and will be announced on Monday October 3rd

What started out as a search for one or two books to tweet about on International Talk like a Pirate Day (Sept 19^th 2011) has totally renewed my intense love for the whole scallywag genre.

Here are our top picks for Best Teen Pirate Fiction, and a couple of other fun things from Calgary Public Library. Avast-Ye!

Pirates: The True and Remarkable Adventures of Minerva Sharpe and Nancy Kington, Female Pirates – If Historical Fiction is your thing, check out this exciting book about two young women from the 18C who are both trying to escape lives of subjugation in the West Indies. They travel the world, they look for treasure, and it’s historically accurate! Look for it in Electronic Resources, too!

Steel – This is a fantasy novel about Jill, a high school student and competitive fencer who finds herself magically transported onto a Pirate Ship when she’s SUPPOSED to be on family vacay in the Bahamas. All I can say is it’s a good thing she’s a fencer and not a Cosmetology major.

Vampirates: Demons of the Ocean – Yeah, you read that right. It’s a paranormal fiction cross-over. But it’s got everything you could possibly want from either genre! Orphaned twins separated by miles of tempestuous ocean, swashbuckling swordfights and treasure hunts, and a crew of bloodsucking undead. Like Miley always says, you get the best of both worlds!

The always-hilarious and super-fun “One Piece” is a great example of pirates in Manga. Monkey D. Luffy’s body has the wonderful properties of rubber, which are super handy in some situations, but not so much when it comes to swimming. Still! He’s not gonna let that stand in the way of him becoming a pirate, or finding the greatest treasure in the world, the legendary One Piece.

We also have all the classics, like Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (available in hardcover, electronic copy, graphic novel, audiobook, DVD, Muppet-version… you name it!) and the popular standard Pirates of the Carribbean – we have all the DVDs and Blu-Rays (with the new one on order so you can already place holds), Soundtracks, Visual Movie Guides, The Pirate's Code --Guidelines, and the awesome children’s books about Young Captain Jack (on the paperback spinners).

And one last tidbit… if you’re struggling with your Arr’s and Aye’s, your Calgary Public Library card gets you a free subscription to Mango Languages, including their pirate translator!

Going on a school trip? Bored? Get sick reading on the bus? Many of your favourite books are now being produced as Audio Books & Book CD's. Play them in the car while going to Vegas with friends or family. Down load one of our E-Books sound recordings from Overdrive on our e-library and listen on your i-pod while biking around the river or play a book cd on a cd-walkman while on the bus to school. In fact sitting outside sun-tanning while sipping virgin margaritas listening to an Audio Book might just have become one of my favourite weekend pastimes. Especially if they could get Leonard Cohen to do the voice... One of my favourites recently has been Wildwood Dancing by Juliette Marillier narrated by Kim Mai Guest. Kim's soft voice is intruiguing and one of the great things about listening to her describe all the beautiful Romanian worlds like "Piscu Dracuili", from Transalvania, is that I didn't have to guess at the correct pronounciation everytime. On CPL's Overdrive you can listen to an audio sample - giving you a chance to decide whether not the book interests you. You can also search for other audio books narrated by the same narrator (from other authors). Sometimes the author narrates their own book - most times not. Cybele's Secret - a companion novel to Wildwood Dancing is also available on Audio Book - I read this one just to compare - and I admit you can probably read faster than most people can speak... however can you read while baking, knitting, cycling, driving or drawing?

And there's some of your favourite titles! Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld won an award (Read by Alan Cumming). As did Will Grayson, Will Grayson which you'll like if you like Glee! (by John Green and David Leviathan) narrated by Macleod Andrews and Nick Podehl (both Odyssey Honor Audiobooks Award).

And of course there's the Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Colins- all three books are available on Audio and Book CD.

Others that have won awards include Alchmey and Meggy Swan (Karen Cushman, narrated by Katherine Kellgren), The Knife of Never Letting Go (Patrick Ness, Mp3 narrated by Nick Podehl), and Revolution (Jennifer Donnelly, narrated by Emily Janice Card and Emma Bering). (Also Odyssey Honor Audies)

Mirror Mask - by Neil Gaiman Narrated by Stephanie Leonidas was quite enchanting and highlights the complexities of fighting with your mom...

I asked Alex what her Audiobook picks would be. She said, "If you'd rather listen to a book than read one, I highly recommend the mp3 copy of "An Abundance of Katherines" -- John Green's words hardly need someone to read them since they leap right off the page, but the narrator of this one does a great job anyways!

If you've never treated your ear canals to the audioCD of HARRY POTTER, you're in for a real surprise! Jim Dale has won TWO grammies and TEN Audies (Audio Awards) for his readings -- he has a different voice for every character and they're all phenomenal. I fall asleep to one of these books almost every night. I bet I could recite Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Princeby heart!!! There are also loads of audio books that are read by celebrities! Check out titles like "InkHeart", performed by Brendan Fraser and "Series of Unfortunate Events" read by the amazing Tim Curry!"

Personally though I think listening to Harry Potter before bed might explain some of the horrifically fantastic dreams Alex has reported having! Just saying... Those ones might be better for those long rides on the bus ;0)

It’s that time again! That time of year where we Calgarians count ourselves lucky if we can milk a solid 8 weeks of sunshine out of our summer. That time where we laze around Prince’s Island Park trying not to get eaten alive by mosquitoes and geese. That time where we revel in the glory of reading books about… well… ANYTHING … as long as it’s not Polynomial Equations, Chemical Nomenclature, or (horror of horrors) Short Historical Fiction from the Canadian Prairies… Unless, you know, you’re into that sort of thing.

Whatever sort of thing you ARE into, Calgary Public Library is where it’s at. So... Gear up for this summer's YOUTH READ program! Full of challenges created by YOU, we have amped up all our Grand prizes, added new Weekly prizes, as well as ways to intereact with other teens, share your ideas, art, poetry writing and smarts! All this on top of your favourite activity - reading!

We’re running our YOUTH READ program from June 16^th until August 31^st, with contests, events, and some pretty sick prizes to be won all summer long!

*Go to the About This Contest page to learn how Youth Read works and be sure to check out our prizes. If your stymied about what to read, find out what others are reading. Challenges include: Cook/Invent a fabulous recipe, photograph it and submit it. Pick a celebrity & recommend a book they should read. Make a comic strip of a scene from your favourite book. Write a haiku book review of your favourite book and more!

So kick back, relax, and crack the spine of a new favourite, it’s time to YOUTH READ 2011!

DISCLAIMER: The creators of this site do not, in any way, recommend the cracking of book spines that have been borrowed from the Calgary Public Library. We also don’t recommend you crack the sides of your iPad or your e-Reader either. Or your own spine for that matter -- we can’t afford to pay your chiropractic bills… In fact, let’s just not crack any spines whatsoever. Instead, let’s kick back, relax, and gently-open-the-covers-of-a-well-loved-book or serenely-upload-the-WMA-files-of-an-e-book… it’s time to YOUTH READ 2011! (Yay.)

If you haven't noticed, the bloggers here in the Teen Zone get pretty freakin' psyched about books. And there's one coming out on Tuesday that has us positively tingling. It's called "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children", and I have literally had my copy on hold from the second I heard about it.

Inspired by the freaky and crazy photography that came out of the Victorian Era, author Ransom Riggs pulled together some of the weirdest ones he could find, and wove a story around them.

It's about sixteen-year-old Jacob's discovery of an abandoned building that used to house children of extraordinary --and possibly dangerous-- talents. It's been labelled "tense", "moving", and "wondrously strange" and even though the book hasn't been released to the public yet, 20th Century Fox has already scooped the movie rights.

So here's the deal:

We're so excited about this book, we're going to start giving it away for free! We have several copies available to be won through the TEENS CREATE portion of this website.

There are two ways to submit an entry:

1) Create an image of the weird and wonderful. You're free to use digital photo-editing tools, but why not try playing around with perspective and exposure the way the Victorians used to? They loved things like carnival freak shows, fairies, and the paranormal.

2) Write a limerick as a caption to one of the photos in the image above! For example:

"There once was a man so balding,

That the back of his head was appaling.

He'd cover it with paint

(which attractive, it ain't)

and it earned him some awful name-calling."

Believe me, it won't be hard to write one that's better than that.

Once you've created your entry, all you have to do is log-in to TEENS CREATE, and upload your image or your limerick. Make sure you indicate somewhere in the title that it's an entry for "The fReAkY cRaZy Contest".

The contest closes June 16th, so you have about two weeks to get cracking. Once we have all of your submissions, we'll enter them in the draw for the book prizes. We'll inform everyone shortly after that who the winners are!

And just in case you guys need some paranormalic, steam-punky, or down-right creepy reads to tide you over until this one comes out, check out these:

You guys aren’t going to believe this. It’s seriously the best thing EVER and I’m not even just saying that. This is going to be the highlight of my life. Well… it’ll make Top 5 at LEAST.

Cineplex Sunridge and Chinook are offering HARRY POTTER PASSPORTS for $24.99 that will allow you to see the first SEVEN MOVIES again on the BIG SCREEN, as well as buy advance passes for the last movie on July 15^th. It also gives you a chance to win a trip to London for the premiere, and you can download a copy of any of the first movies at a discounted price.

Yeah, I know, right?

The only catch is that they’re only offering two showings per movie, so if you can’t make them, you’re going to miss it.

Still, that’s better than trying to cram all seven of them in on July 14^th (I realized the hard way that movie marathons stopped working after OOTP came out…)

If you’re fan-girling/boying as hard over this as I am, comment on this blog about the geekiest thing you've ever done in the name of Harry Potter. I’ll go first (in the comments section).

Gringott’s account is a little low on sickles at the moment? You can always check out all 7 of the released films on DVD or Blu-Ray from the Calgary Public Library!!!

And just in case you guys need a little something extra to tide you over, you HAVE to check out Team Starkid. Their phenomenal shows “A Very Potter Musical” and “A Very Potter Sequel” are TOTALLY AWESOME. If you haven’t seen them yet, I won’t spoil the fun, but you’re going to LOVE gLee’s Darren Criss as Harry, and he’s not even the best part!

Hey all!

CPL’s Movie Maniacs Blog is holding a contest giving away free tickets to KUNG FU PANDA 2!! All you have to do is follow this link to the Movie Maniacs page, where they ask you to leave a comment naming any ONE person who voice-acted in the first movie (it’s almost TOO easy). Don’t forget to leave a name and number they can reach you at!

So the casting of “The Hunger Games” was pretty high on my radar for a while there, but I just couldn’t keep up with the constant drama that Hollywood was putting us through – Who’s going to be the perfect Katniss? How do we please Team Gale and Team Peeta at the same time? What ethnicity is Rue supposed to be anyways? At any rate, I checked a couple of days ago, and most of the cast now looks set in stone. Here’s the problem… aside from Josh Hutcherson being cast as Peeta (…WHAT?!?! Adorable little Josh from Bridge to Terabithia is now old enough to play hunky Peeta!??!?!), and Elizabeth Banks being cast as Effie… I realized I have NO IDEA WHO ANY OF THESE PEOPLE ARE! A preliminary search of IMDB told me that the guy playing Gale used to date Miley Cyrus, and the girl playing Katniss was in this movie that surprised everyone at the Oscars last year. But I have seriously never heard of any of them before! So here’s my question: Is a cast of relative Unknowns better than an All-Star cast? Will this help separate Suzanne Collin’s characters from other characters that better-known actors have played before? (I once watched a movie that had Rupert Grint in it, and I was like “Ron Weasley? What are you doing here?) And finally… if you could have your ultimate Dream Cast, who would star in The Hunger Games?

"Beastly", the new movie starring Vanessa Hudgens and Alex Pettyfer was released Friday, ranking 3rd in Box Office Hits for the weekend. If you haven't heard already, it's the modern re-telling of 'Beauty and the Beast', and it's getting some really great reviews. What's more, all our copies (and E-Copies) of the original book keep whizzing off the shelves, so put yours on hold now!

CPL's TeenZone Blog, Movie Maniacs Blog and Interact PR are teaming up to bring you one 'beast' of a contest to celebrate the release of the movie!

To win one of our book prizes, just comment on this blog post with the title of one OTHER novel by 'Beastly' author Alex Flinn, which you can find through the library catalogue. Make sure to leave your full name (the one you use for your Library Card) so we can contact you and get you your prize!

You can also come to Crowfoot Library, Shawnessy Library, or the 2nd Floors at Central and Fish Creek Libraries this weekend (March 11-13), to pick up some cool 'Beastly' swag, including posters, notebooks, and some phenomenal bag charms! Come to the desk and say "BEASTLY" -- prizes will be given out on a first come, first served basis.

There once was a woman in Calgary,

She was OUTRAGEOUS, her name was Sheri-D

She made jokes 'bout her age,

brought her dog on the stage,

and now we all love Slam Poetry.

(Sheri-D Wilson @ The Calgary Spoken Word Fesitival. Photo by James Tworow)

Sheri-D would hate that. She would absolutely loathe it. It's too "lalalalalalalalala" and not enough "ZWEEEEEEEP deepee DA de zoop DWA da". Sheri-D Wilson, called "The Mama of Dada" (well, she certainly is surreal...) is one of Calgary's most successful spoken word poets. AND NOW (imagine this next part as if I were a radio-announcer) FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY (okay, back to normal), she is appearing at CPL's "2nd Saturday Slam" -- a series of workshops and competitions taking place on the second Saturday of every month.

Last week, youth from around the city came to the Central Library for a two-hour long workshop with Sheri-D and Tyler Perry, teammates from the Calgary Spoken Word Society. Participants received constructive (if slightly psychotic) criticism about their poetry and lyrical stylings that was well-worth the trip downtown: One guy had to translate, ON THE SPOT, every other line of his poem into his native Creole and then SING IT to a room full of people. It was suggested to another girl that she re-write her intensely emotional and angry poem as if it were a love letter. Yet another poet had to read her work as if it were a children's storybook -- Sheri-D sat on the side acting like a three-year-old to help the artist visualize the scenario better. Feedback was as entertaining for the audience as I'm sure it was enlightening and frustrating for the performers.

The day was a complete blast, with advice that ranged from language lessons ("Observe the slight cliches..." Sheri-D says, "Poetry is Manipulation") to life lessons ("Empower yourself! Get mad! Take 'em down!"), and even included some words for your L.A. and English Teachers:

"If your teacher asks you 'What does this Poem mean?', you just give them my number and I'll teach them a thing or two about poetry. POEMS HAVE NO MEANINGS".

The next Saturday Slam will take place on March 12th from 1:00-2:30 in the John Dutton Theatre at the Central Library. This event will be an actual slam competition, and some exciting news was given to prepare us for it: The ultimate winner of the Second Saturday Slam series will be given a spot on the Calgary Slam Youth team, and a chance to go to finals in 2012 as an adult performer!

If you have any questions about Slam Poetry and Sheri-D's work in particular, you can check out her homepage. The links for the Calgary Spoken Word Society and Youth Slam can be found here or here. Any questions regarding the Second Saturday Slam series at the Library can be phoned in to (403) 260-2657 (Services for Children, Teens and Families). And if you want to get a jumpstart on your entry for the competition, check out resources like this one, this one and this one.

See you on the 12th!