Shoutout to Yuma Catholic High School!

At the end of November the Main Library's teen room hosted over 100 students from Yuma Catholic High School. They came in to get brand new library cards and tour the building, which some of them had never been in before! They also learned how to navigate the library's website and catalog with a little quiz the library staff made up for them.
We just wanted to take a minute and tell them we appreciate them stopping in and we hope we see them a lot more in the future! Hope you enjoy using your new library cards guys!

Teachers - if you would like us to come visit your Middle School or High School classes, we would be more than happy to! E-mail us at teen@yumalibrary.org for more information!

Recommended Reads: Binti

     Sometime in the distant future, Binti, a girl from the African Himba tribe, is such a gifted mathematician that she has become the first of her people to be given a scholarship to the prestigious Oomza University.
    The problem is, Himba people do NOT leave their tribe. EVER. Tribal tradition is very strict and no one, especially no girl, has ever left their land - let alone gotten on a space ship and flown across the galaxy to the Oomza University planet. But Binti knows she has to do this. It is her dream, and nothing is going to stop her - so she leaves without telling anyone where she is going.
    And that's when the trouble starts. Binti's school ship is attacked by the warlike Meduse - a race that is at war with Oomza University because of something very precious the school stole from them long ago. Everyone on the ship is killed and Binti is now more alone than ever, forced to fight for her life against creatures who don't understand her, and think of her as nothing more than an animal, or worse.

Binti is the first book in a trilogy, and bonus - each book is super short so you can read the whole trilogy super fast. Even though it's short there is a lot to the story though, and it will definitely keep you interested throughout. If anything, I thought maybe the story was TOO short, and the author wrapped the first book up too fast, I wanted to keep reading.
You can find Binti as a book from the Main Library at the link here, or as an audio book from Hoopla Digital .

Official Rating: 3/4 Booker Bears!

Escape Rooms Are Back at Main Library!

One of out most popular programs in the teen department is back: Mrs. Eva Cervantes is bringing back her super fun monthly escape rooms, each month with a different theme.

The program returned on October 17th with a spooky themed room just in time for Halloween. 18 teens were given 45 minutes to work together to solve a series of puzzles with themes like Dracula and Edgar Allen Poe and tried their best to unlock multiple locks to get to a treasure hidden inside the lock-box. (The treasure was candy, and who doesn't want free candy)!

In the end, the teens managed to complete the escape with just about 3 minutes left on the clock! Good job to everyone who participated.

If you missed the October escape room, make sure you stop by for the November room, which will run at 4:00 PM on Wednesday, November 14th, 2018. The theme will be Harry Potter. Mrs. Cervantes is also planning a Nightmare Before Christmas themed room for December! The date on that one will be decided soon.

They made it with 3 minutes, 16 seconds to spare!

Recommended Reads: Dead Girls Don't Lie

If you love mysteries, and are looking for something with a great plot twist, we recommend Dead Girls Don't Lie by Jennifer Shaw Wolf.
It's not a new book, it's been out since 2013, but it is definitely one we would call a "hidden gem."

The plot goes like this: Jaycee had a best friend named Rachel. They grew up together in a really small town, and were pretty much inseparable until Rachel (who is half Mexican in a town where being Mexican is NOT considered a good thing to be) started hanging out with some local gang members and changing basically everything about herself and keeping secrets from Jaycee. Then something horrible happens: Rachel is shot dead, in what SEEMS to be a gang-related drive-by shooting. This is the second gang-related death of a teenager in the small town - the first was a teenage boy who had been hanging out with Rachel and her gang friends.
Then Jaycee gets a text - from Rachel. The text basically lets Jaycee known that Rachel's death is not what it seems to be, and that a lot of people in town are keeping some really dark secrets, including Rachel and Jaycee's mutual crush and his two brothers (one of whom is a Sheriff). Rachel's message tells Jaycee the only person who can be trusted is a guy named Eduardo, a known gang member with a rap sheet. Jaycee knows she needs to figure out what really happened to her BFF, but she is not only dealing with her first real relationship, but she's hiding some secrets herself - and if they get out her life could be in danger too.

This book is definitely a mystery with a lot of twists and turns. It kept me guessing until almost the very end, and then the twist ending was totally unexpected. It is available to check out from the library in both regular book and e-book here: Dead Girls Don't Lie at YCLD.

Official Rating: We give it 3 out of 4 Booker Bears!

Reviewed by: Elia, Teen Services Manager

Featured Artist: Angel Lander

This week's featured work of art was created for us by Angel Lander who tells us this is an original character she created based on the video game Undertale. She calls the character "Arial Bold." AMAZING!

Featured Artist: Aidean Garcia

This week's featured artist is Aidean Garcia who drew himself as a Super Saying from Dragon Ball! Very nice job Aidean! We love it!

Featured Artist: Pablo Sanchez

This week's featured art is an amazing pencil drawing by Pablo Sanchez!

Congratulations Pablo! For the rest of this week, your art will be our blog's background image!