Recommended Reads: Kindred - A Graphic Novel Adaptation

Kindred (the graphic novel version of the novel by Octavia Butler) asks a really interesting and difficult to answer question: would you save the life of an ancestor who you know is a pretty terrible person just to make sure you could be born? Of course, none of us would ever be in that actual situation, but it is the exact situation the main character, Dana, finds herself in.

You see, Dana is a black woman living in the 1970's with a pretty serious problem: she keeps getting sucked back in time to the days when slavery was legal - and every time it happens it is because she has to save the life of her great-great-great grandfather: a man she knows was a slave owner who forced her slave ancestor to have children with him. If Dana ever decides NOT to save his life, there's a pretty good chance she will never actually be born - or at the very least she could get stuck in the past for the rest of her life, and have to live as a slave.

Each time Dana gets pulled back in time, horrible things seem to happen: she even loses one of her arms, as she tells us in the first pages of the book. Yes, some of the stuff that happens to Dana put the "graphic" in graphic novel, but they are things that really happened to real slaves in our country's past. The book really makes you wonder how far a person can be willing to go to survive. You can borrow it at the link ---> here.

Official rating: 4/4 Booker Bears.

Featured Artist: Dani

Our artist of the week this week is Dani. She made us this awesome pencil sketch of Rider from the Splatoon manga! Excellent work Dani!

Rider from Splatoon by Dani

If you want to read all about Rider's adventures, you can check out the Splatoon manga from your nearest library. Check it out here: Splatoon at YCLD

Featured Artist: Melina Flores

This week's featured work of art comes to us from Melina Flores who drew this awesome picture of Tsuyu from the My Hero Academia anime and manga. Great job Melina!

Tsuyu from My Hero Academia by Melina Flores

If you want to check out Melina's inspiration for this work of art, check out the My Hero Academia manga from your nearest library! They're available here: My Hero Academia at YCLD

Featured Artist: Lilith Trip

This week's featured artwork is a pencil sketch by Lilith Trip. It's fan art from Deltarune and we think it's amazing! In case you do not know, Deltarune is a video game, and is a spin off of Undertale.

By the way, Lilith has an Instagram for her art, @TheDemonWolf1548 so give her a follow to show her some support. 

Great job Lilith!

Pencil sketch by Lilith Trip.

If you want to submit art for our blog, drop it off in person at your nearest library's teen room, or e-mail us a high resolution Jpeg scan at teen@yumalibrary.org

Recommended Reads: Ask Again Later

Ask Again Later is a funny book about a girl with a lot of problems. Firs off, her name is Heart LaCoeur (la coeur is French for "the heart" so her name is literally Heart The Heart you guys!). Second, she has vowed NEVER to be in a relationship because she does not want to be like her mom, who got pregnant and married at a young age and ended up leaving the family when Heart was little. Third, two guys have asked her to prom. That last one doesn't sound like that bad of a problem, except that Heart really doesn't want to go with either of them, she wants to stick to her plan of going to prom with a big group of friends and have a great time. But, she feels REALLY bad about saying no to either of them, because one is just a really nice, sweet guy from drama who she's friends with, and the other is her brother's best friend who has just been dumped by his long-time girlfriend. 

Heart can't make up her mind who to go with, so she flips a coin to see what she should do - and that's when things get weird. Basically, the book is told on two separate time lines - you get to read what happens when Heart says yes to her theater friend AND what happens when she says yes to her brother's best friend. Both turn out to be basically the prom from her nightmares - with the added complication that one of her best friends may actually have a huge crush on her, and may have been planning to ask her to prom himself. 

It's a really fun, lighthearted read and you can download it from Hoopla Digital with your library card. 

Official rating: 2/4 Booker Bears. 

Program Review - Financial Planning After High School

On Thursday, November 8th of 2018 the teen room hosted a program presented by Business Librarian Andrew Zollman on financial planning after high school for teens. Teen Blog contributor Nina Hook was at that program and this is what she thought of it.

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"I am constantly anxious about the future. I think it’s very easy to get caught up thinking about years to come, and how you are going to figure everything out. While the future is unknown, and there is no reason to fret about it, there are ways to plan accordingly to give you the best future possible. 

I recently attended a talk about financial plans after high school for teens at the Yuma County Library and it truly opened my mind to so many options that I didn’t even realize I had. It helped me understand the infinite number of roads the future as in store for me. With the immense variety of topics we covered, this talk was applicable to any and every teen! 

Also, the discussion was great because it answered so many questions that I didn’t even think I needed to ask! There is so much to living on your own that teens don’t even realize. While it was realistic, it helped me understand what I was getting in to, so I could succeed. 

I am pretty set on going to Tennessee for college. I cannot begin to express how much this discussion helped me on figuring out every inch of my move concerning my finances. There were things brought up that I did not even realize were going to financially affect me and my lifestyle. In addition to helping me figure out my financial plans, the discussion shared many helpful tips to help my budget!

Overall, there are 101 ways to get to where you want to go! But I highly recommend figuring out your financial situation before graduating so you can be as prepared as possible. There are so many things unknown to us teenagers, that information like the one I got from the discussion, is vital. 

~Submitted by Nina Hook.

Recommended Reads: The Mermaid Upstairs

The book “The Mermaid Upstairs” by Jami Lilo easily captivated me from the first chapter. The riveting, unique story keeps you on edge throughout the whole book while the realistic aspects relate to your everyday life!

As a teenager, the main character, who is around my age, has a very different life than mine. Nevertheless, I found myself relating to her in so many ways. Rules, boys, and school have never felt so relatable before. The perfect mix of fantasy and reality is found in “The Mermaid Upstairs” and I read the book faster than any before. The anticipation, love, and imagination that was poured into this book is not only eye catching, but mind catching. 

The use of detail to describe the overwhelming change in the protagonist’s life makes the reader feel as if they are experiencing it themselves, without boring them with useless information. When reading in my everyday life, I find myself drifting away from the words due to the overuse of details. However, in “The Mermaid Upstairs” the amount of detail used created an intricate image in my mind while keeping me on focus with the book. The interesting, vivid use of details help the reader zone into the fantasy of the book, while relating to the character’s very real, true problems that many teenage girls have. 

“The Mermaid Upstairs” relates to teenage girls my age and helps us realize we are not alone in our problems with boys, school, family issues, and other similar problems. It shows us the importance of family, to respect your parents, and to be true to yourself in an interesting, fantasy-like way. Showing the true importance of family is often not seen in teenage books, whose main focus is typically romance. However, “The Mermaid Upstairs” captures the importance of family, romance, and friendship all in one. It truly relates, entertains, and shows the morals needed in this world to all, especially the teenage age group. I highly recommend reading it, for it will give you a completely new perspective. 

Submitted by Nina Hook.

(Hi guys - this is Elia. Just letting you know that we do not have this book at the Library at this time, but Nina liked it so much I will do my best to order it for the teen room so we have it to check out! Keep an eye on the catalog to see when it is in!)