Farmingdale Library Teens

Tomorrow is Halloween. I thought I'd share how some of the things we do for the holiday were originated. Trick or Treating: In olden times, it was believed that during Samhain, the veil between our world and the spirit world was thinnest, and that the ghosts of the deceased could mingle with the living. The superstition was that the visiting ghosts could disguise themselves in human form, such as a beggar, and knock on your door during Samhain asking for money or food. If you turned them away empty-handed, you risked receiving the wrath of the spirit and being cursed or haunted. Another Celtic myth was that dressing up as a ghoul would fool the evil spirits into thinking that you were one of them so that they would not try to take your soul. In the U.S. , trick-or-treating became a customary Halloween tradition around the late 1950s, after it was brought over by Irish immigrants in the early 1900s. The traditional Halloween colors of orange and black actually stem from t...

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has announced the official titles of the 2015 Teens’ Top Ten. Teens all over the world voted starting Aug.15, with voting lasting through Teen Read Week™ (Oct. 18-24, 2015). Altogether, over 27,000 votes were cast for the   24 nominees. The official 2015 Teens’ Top Ten titles are as follows: "The Shadow Throne"   by Jennifer A. Nielsen (Scholastic)  " I Become Shadow"   by Joe Shine. ( Soho Teen) "To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before"   by Jenny Han. (Simon & Schuster) "My Life with the Walter Boys"   by Ali Novak. (Sourcebooks) "Heir of Fir e"   by Sarah J. Maas. ( Bloomsbury ) "The Bane Chronicles"   by Cassandra Clare. (Simon & Schuster/Margaret K. McElderry) "The Young Elites"   by Marie Lu. (Penguin/G.P. Putnam's Sons) "The Kiss of Deception"   by Mary E. Pearson. (Macmillan/ Henry Holt & Company) "Sin...

Today is National Chocolate Day. Here are some interesting chocolate facts to help you celebrate: Hershey’s produces over 80 million chocolate Kisses--every day. The English chocolate company Cadbury made the first chocolate bar in the world in 1842. In 1875, Swiss Daniel Peter discovered a way of mixing condensed milk, manufactured by his friend Henri Nestlé, with chocolate to create the first milk chocolate. The first chocolate chip cookie was invented in 1937 by Ruth Wakefield who ran the “Toll House Inn.” The term “Toll House” is now legally a generic word for chocolate chip cookie. It is the most popular cookie worldwide and is the official cookie of Massachusetts . In 2002, Marshall Field’s in Chicago made the largest box of chocolate. It had 90,090 Frango mint chocolates and weighed a whopping 3,326 pounds. The largest chocolate bar ever manufactured was in Italy in 2000. The bar had a weight of 5,000 lbs. Every second, Americans collectively eat o...

The National Book Foundation has announced the finalists for the 2015 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. From a longlist of 10 titles, previously announced on September 14, five books were selected. The winners of the 66th annual National Books Awards will be presented at a November 18 ceremony in New York City . The finalists in the Young People’s Literature category are: Benjamin, Ali. The Thing About Jellyfish. Ruby, Laura. Bone Gap. Sheinkin, Steve. Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War. Shusterman, Neal. Challenger Deep Stevenson, Noelle. Nimona. 

Books about Bullying You can look at non-fiction bullying books in the call numbers 302.343 and 371.58 Fiction Books Bock, Caroline. LIE.    YA FIC Bock Told in several voices, a group of Long Island high school seniors conspire to protect eighteen-year-old Jimmy after he brutally assaults two Salvadoran immigrants, until they begin to see the moral implications of Jimmy's actions and the consequences of being loyal to a violent bully. Butler , Dori Hillstead. The Truth about Truman School . YA FIC Butler ; 6-8 Tired of being told what to write by the school newspaper's advisor, Zibby and her friend Amr start an underground newspaper online where everyone is free to post anything, but things spiral out of control when a cyberbully starts using the site to harrass one popular girl. Cohen, Joshua. Leverage . YA FIC Cohen High school sophomore Danny excels at gymnastics but is bullied, like the rest of the gymnasts, by members of the football tea...

Topic Students are asked to write an original and creative essay that demonstrates an understanding of political courage as described by John F. Kennedy in Profiles in Courage. The maximum word count is 1,000 with a minimum of 700, not including citations and bibliography. Use at least five varied sources such as government documents, letters, newspaper articles, books, and/or personal interviews to address the following topic: Describe and analyze an act of political courage by a United States elected official that took place during or after 1956. Include an analysis of the obstacles, risks, and consequences associated with the act. The essay may concern an issue at the local, state, national, or international level. Eligibility The contest is open to United States high school students in grades nine through twelve attending public, private, parochial, or home schools; U.S. students under the age of twenty enrolled in a high school correspondence/GED program in any of the...