Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Enter your poem to win!

Do you live in the BayviewHunters Point, Visitacion Valley, Potrero, or Portola neighborhoods, otherwise known as San Francisco's District 10? Do you write poems? Do you dream of fame and a little fortune?

If you answered yes to all of these questions, enter your poems in the Poets Eleven District 10 poetry competition.

Fame? If you win, you read your poem as one of 3 featured readers at the Poets Eleven District 10 Event, to be held at the Bayview Branch Library on Wed. Dec. 13th from 6-7:30 pm. You also get published with winners from the other city districts.

A little fortune? You win $50, a plaque, plus a little something else from the city's very own Poet Laureate, Jack Hirschman.

Hurry, because the entry deadline is Wed. Dec. 6. Email your poems to: poets11@friendssfpl.org


Questions or more info? Contact Teen Librarian Wendy at 355-5757, wkramer@sfpl.org, or AIM screen name wde3de3.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Make Your Own 2007 Calendar

D.I.Y (Do It Yourself) Calendar

Are you tired of never knowing what the date is? Did you wake up this morning and still think it is October? Maybe you need a quick gift for a friend? well, a CALENDAR is the answer!

Use paint, paper, markers, and much much more (so much more I don't have the space to fit it all in) to Customize and Decorate a COMPACT CALENDAR that fits snuggly in a CD Case! Then topped off with a customized magnet! Hang it in your locker, on the fridge or just give it as a gift!

Tuesday, December 5th
3:30-5:30pm

Parkside Branch
1200 Taraval ST
(415)355-5770
for more info contact: kolson@sfpl.org

Tuesday December 12th
4:00-6:00pm

Excelsior Branch
4400 Mission ST
(415)355-2868
for more info: dscappaticci@sfpl.org

Monday, November 20, 2006

Homework is Boring!

Face it, homework can be a real bore. Now, I am not advocating for teens to abandon homework though I do want to acknowledge that there are often more exciting things to do with one's time.

That said, I thought I would share some resources that can make homework a bit easier.


The Dog Ate My Homework: And 1,001 Even Better Excuses to Get Out of School, Avoid the Doctor and Every Other Situation.

Everyone forgets to do their homework, and often waits until the last minute to think of an excuse to tell the teacher. Don't wait till the last minute to make an excuse, prepare your solid as stone "excuse" ahead of time. Now I know what you must be thinking, "this sounds like homework, preparing my excuse ahead of time?" Well, it is not homework, it is "preparedness"! So take time some time today to get all those excuses in order, because you never know when you will forget to do your homework.






Thursday, November 02, 2006

Do you love a good poem?

Have you tried your hand at writing poetry? Of course you have. So post your poems here! The following is a poem from a local San Francisco teen.

Imperfections
by K. Fong

I see fog and mist outside my window. It's really foggy, but this is innate October weather in San Francisco. It's actually kind of beautiful; in an odd Edward Scissor hands type way. I can see an indistinct outline of the Golden Gate Bridge, with its rusted copper paint and arches. Residential homes are in neat little rows, like dominoes ready to be knocked down. There are many imperfections to some of these houses, some are old, and some are new, some are yellow and some are blue.

Looking for a good poetry book? Well check out the library of course. Have a suggestion? post it here.





New Month....New Reviews

Looking for a book to read? The rain has returned to San Francisco. And that means there will be plenty of hours spent indoors as the rain falls and falls and falls. So why not pick-up a book? Check-out the latest reviews by teens at the Chinatown Branch.


SHOOTER
-Walter Dean Myers

The book Shooter by Walter Dean Myers is a fictional book based on shooting cases that are in high schools. If you look though the newspaper and reviews of high schools in the past year, you can tell that the shooting cases in the schools had gone up a bunch. Shooter really illustrates the point of view of the teenagers in the shooting cases. The book, Shooter, is basically a bunch of interviews that the police did in order to see who and what happened at this school where a shooting case had started. It was a really serious case because of the suicidal behind the case as well. In one of the scenes in the book, the main character was actually writing his name in blood at the walls. There was a series of shootings at the school and a lot of students were harmed in the shoot out. In this event, you can tell that the plan of a couple of kids can create a lot of danger in one school. Shooter shows that cases like these are a serious issue and we have to care about it. I find the book a really fun, but a very emotional book to read as well.
-Jennifer, Chinatown Branch


The Great Gatsby
- F. Scott Fitzgerald


This is the best book I ever read, because from this book, you can see how evil people can be. There are many characters that want only money, the like to show off, everybody cheated with each other and they didn’t even know until the end of the book. Like Gatsby and Daisy love each other, but Daisy married Tom because Tom’s old money. What was worse is Tom like Myrtle, which is Wilson’s wife. They are all dishonest.

I think the ending is pretty good because Gatsby and Myrtle died. It’s good for Tom and Daisy. They probably had a better life without Gatsby and Myrtle.
-Ashley, Chinatown Branch


The Minister's Daughter
-Julie Hearn

The novel, The Minister’s Daughter, by Julie Hearn is intriguing and packs a punch of mystery. The minister’s daughter, Grace, accused the cunning woman’s daughter, Nell, a witch. The novel is set in a time when people are heavily influenced by the Church and punished people who believe otherwise. In a village where witches are condemned, how was Nell supposed to escape the noose of the gallows? And how was Patience supposed to confess the dark secret that she has? The book circles around three characters that conflict each other: Nell, the cunning woman’s daughter; Patience, the simple looking, simple minded sister of Grace; and Grace, the beautiful and the sly daughter of the minister. This is a suspenseful book you wouldn’t want to let go till you finish the book.
-Huiting Rose, Chinatown Branch



The Joy Luck Club
-Amy Tan

Joy Luck Club is a story of four women with different hopes and dreams that come together from a hard life in China in hopes to have a better life in the US. They found each other and became best friends but none of them truly told their own stories about themselves till the very end. They each have children, all Americanized, closed-off from their Chinese cultures because, at the time, it was not important. This book emphasizes in how a Chinese mother’s impact on their Americanized daughters, the assimilation of different cultures that changes their lives, the daughters who wanted freedom to search for who they are and love their life in their own way. The mothers, upon seeing their daughters are reminded of their youth, of how they were similar to their daughters when they were young; always looking for a better life than what their parents had planned out. This book taught me how to be a better person. You would have thought it looks easy but being a Chinese-American is hard. We must understand how to conjoin these two cultures. I must live in the old ways while I must adopt the new. The book showed me the other side of China that I never notice but exists. I never thought of how my mother lived when she was young, how her Chinese culture has impacted me. Other people should read it too because they would know and understand more about us. It teaches how we need to continue to a new world but also not forgetting our history of who we are. Without history we would not exist.
-Mona, Chinatown Branch

Have you read these books? Post your comments. Do you have a book to recommend? Post your comments.

*Wonder why it rains so much in San Francisco this time of year?
check out this book

Weather of the San Francisco Bay region / Harold Gilliam