This Saturday get ready for a special Second Saturday Slam. This month One Book One Calgary teams up with the Calgary Spoken Word Festival 's crew to deliver a slam with a twist. Come enjoy, compete and/or listen and judge. Bring some of your poems that explore some of the rich themes in Canadian author Steven Galloway's novel "The Cellist of Sarajevo". This could be something related to music or art, the enduring power of the human spirit, diversity, or war and peace. Contestants will be chosen on a first come first serve basis. AND CSWF always offers really valuable and encouraging feedback. I've learned a lot as a poet in the ones I've attended (yes I DID dare to read some of my poems in public - therefore... I dare you!). Thanks to Sheri - D Wilson, Andre Prefotaine, Jen Kunlire and others!!!

And by the way if you haven't checked out the poetry of these guys and gals - they are fantastic!

The OBOC website also has some great books on it as well as book lists. My favourite being the ones that relate to the Human Spirit and Art and Music. Additional suggestions for great verse novels would be Orchards by Holly Thompson and Roses and Bones which includes Psyche in a Dress by Francesca Lia Block.

And as a side note - For the whole month of November we have a cool painted piano that you can see inside of downstairs on the main floor of the library! Come play a tune on your way up or down to the John Dutton Theatre.

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

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:

So you've read and own the entire Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins? The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld? And you're hungry for more? (Pardon my pun).

I am really excited by the buzz around a new series called Divergent by Veronica Roth - apparently worked on during college when she should have been doing her creative writing homework at Northwestern University, a choice, which has transformed her into a graduate and full time writer. I, for one, am really excited because everyone is abuzz about a new series called Divergent by Veronica Roth - apparently worked on during college when she should have been doing her creative writing homework @ Northwestern University - a choice - which has now transformed Veronica into a graduate and full time writer.

A Dystopian novel at it's best, the heroine Beatrice, lives in a society where ONE choice made at the age of 16 determines - your friends - your beliefs - and your loyalties FOREVER. The choice - which of the 5 factions: Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful) and Erudite (the intelligent)- to belong to, can seperate or unite you with you family, previous friends, schoolmates and former interests. One is not supposed to be "Divergent" (gifted in more than one faction). If one is - as Beatirce discovers, it can mean death. She makes a choice and renames herself Tris, joining her faction hiding a pretty big secret. Tris then discovers a growing conflict threatening to unravel her seemingly perfect society. Her secret may destroy her or help her save those she loves most...

The first book has just come out and hit CPL's library stacks. There will be two sequels books to follow.

I'm all in!

If you liked the Hunger games you might also check out Graceling by Kirstin Cashore and the companion novel Fire - both gripping all night reads. In Graceling if a person is born with 2 different coloured eyes they are "graced" with a special gift or ability that becomes aparrent as they mature. When Katsa discovers that she is graced with killing she becomes a pawn used by her uncle, the king. Katsa, however, has other ideas about how she wants to live her life and a gripping suspense/romance novel ensues.

And if you like Graceling you will also enjoy The Healer's Keep a companion novel to Vicoria Hanley's The Seer and the Sword

"The Giver" by Lois Lowry will also interest those who like Divergent as well as 1984 (George Orwell) and Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)(both found in our adult fiction collection)

NOT interested in dating? Ever wonder how to be alone? Into Spoken Word? Poetry Slammin? The Jams going on @ CPL every 2nd Saturday of the month. The next one is Saturday May 14th 2011. Wonder how all this could be related?

Tanya Davis' video "How to be Alone" went viral on the internet in 2010 watch it here check out her website here. She did an outstanding performance at Extra-Sensory In-vox-ication- Poetry and Music Event #3 on Wednesday March 30th at the Calgary Spoken Word Festival.

Also performing that night were Ian Ferrier, Louise Bernice Halfe - Sky Dancer, Tyler Perry and Robert Priest.

Robert Priest performed a VERY uh - short- poem - uh hum which surmised all of the word - "Brevity". Start. Finish. That's all folks. He is one on the writers in the FREE Online Words Aloud Study Guide for High School Drama, LA and Media Arts. Check it out and brush up on your slamin' skills!

The Golden Beret Award was given to Ian Ferrier from Montreal by last year's winner, Calgary's own Sarah Murphy.

The Spoken Word Festival continues in Banff this week if you want to go to the mountains and check out some rockin' poetry! - April 15th Student Speak check it out here.

April is National Poetry Month in Canada! Upcoming Poetry events in Calgary include:

April 11th 8pm - Salon: A Gathering of Word Artists - Cafe Koi 1011 1st SW - Come perform on the open mic!

It’s also time for Flywheel!

April 14th 7:30pm Pages Books on Kensington - 1135 Kensington Road NW

Join host Meghan Doraty for the April Flywheel Reading Series with readings from local poets Beth Langford, Stuart McKay and Juliet Burgess. Gayleen Froese will be launching her new book, Grayling Cross (NeWestPress).

April 20th 7-9pm - City of Poets: New Poetry Celebration in the John Dutton Theatre @ Central - Celebrate the launch of new books by Calgary poets Rosemary Griebel and Kirk Ramdath. Listen to readings from Calgary favourites Weyman Chan, Richard Harrison, Jen Kunlire, and Bob Stallworthy. Kirk Ramdath has been doing a lot to promote the spoken word scene in Calgary with his blog Passion Pitch and the FREE magazine WAX check it out here.

Freedom to Read Week happens every year and is a chance for us all to think about our right to choose what we read. Every year our right to read what we want to is challenged in many ways. Books are often banned, reporters lose their jobs because of opinions they are expressing, and often material is not even published or purchased because of its content. So, we are holding a contest to celebrate the freedom to read!

Here are the rules:

Express your thoughts on the freedom to read with words, film or graphic arts.

Choose one of the following methods:

Make a poster: draw, paint, or use photography and other graphic arts (8 ½ x 14” or 11 x 17”)

Write: a poem, short story, or essay (max. 300 words)

Create a film: (3 min. or less)

All content must be original, except for short, cited quotations.

Criteria:
1. Persuade an audience and support your point of view.
2. Use techniques of form effectively to engage an audience.

Contest is open to Calgary students in Grades 7 – 9. Include your name, school, grade, and telephone number with your entry. Enter by email: freedomtoread@calgarypubliclibrary.com AND upload to Teens Create (http://www.calgarypubliclibrary.com/teenscreate); OR submit your hardcopy to any Calgary Public Library location. One entry per person. Entries must be received no later than Wednesday February 9th 2011.

And of course...there will be prizes!

Feeling creative?

Be sure to check out our new Teens Create website. From now until May 15 if you submit a piece of writing, photography, art or even a video to the website, we will not only post it online, but enter you into a draw for prizes!

If you have any questions about the contest please feel free to email us at teenzone@calgarypubliclibrary.com

So, I was reading the encyclopedia the other day when I stumbled across a...

Let's start that again.

So I was looking something up in the encyclopedia the other day, because I had to, not because I read encyclopedias for fun or anything, when I found something interesting in the Britannica online. A dictionary of quotations!!! I know awesome right? Well if you still need convincing then check this out:

"People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us" -Iris Murdoch

After reading oh... about 30, some of which were great and some of which were... to quote my old home-ec teacher: "just awful," I starting wondering about what makes a quote worth remembering. (Words from the wise, baking powder and baking soda are not interchangeable)

"You know everyone is ignorant, just on different subjects" - Will Rogers

The quotes in Britannica’s dictionary come from an interesting variety of sources. There are authors, comedians, tyrannical dictators, musicians, people I've never heard of so I don't know what they do, religious leaders and politicians. Some of them are funny, some of them not so funny, some are inspirational and some serve as warnings. In fact the only thing which seems to unify the quotes we choose to remember (or at least write down in gigantic quote dictionaries) is their ability to sum up a big idea, very succinctly and with style.

"The person who knows “how” will always have a job. The person who knows “why” will always be his boss." - Diane Ravitch


Great quotes are great to add into great essays to make them greater. Especially if you have trouble expressing an idea without using the same word four times in the same sentence. Quotations are also great if you have to write a speech and you need a little extra zing to emphasize your point.

"It is only the wisest and the very stupidest who cannot change" - Confucius

So the next time you're writing a paper, or a speech, or an ad for your used rollerblades on Craigslist check out the Merriam Webster's Dictionary of Notable quotations or one of the great quote books in our collection. You might find something you can use.

Every year we have an essay contest to celebrate Freedom to Read Week. Check out this link to read our 2010 winners!

We'd like to thank all of this year's participants, we hope you'll take part in Freedom to Read Week 2011!!