Farmingdale Library Teens

 by  Aurora Lydia Dominguez   Dec 1, 2021 It’s the fall season, and with it comes the promise of snuggling up with a good book while enjoying the gorgeous weather creeping up into the holidays. For me, with a birthday in October, fall always means a lot of fun and time to celebrate life, and I also enjoy Halloween and all the spooky festivities that come with it. I always also have a few long standing autumnal traditions that I try to enjoy year after year and follow me right into the holiday season. One tradition that I always follow is that I pick a nice thriller or two to enjoy at the time, especially during my days off from teaching around Thanksgiving. There’s something about this time of year that makes me want to enjoy a good book filled with twists and turns that will keep me on the edge as I quickly flip the pages. I adore those stories that weave a little mystery with their character development and keep us wondering what happens next. It’s usually what I am in the mood for,

 by  Lyndsie Manusos   Nov 24, 2021 Book festivals are the ultimate book lover’s experience. I used to work in digital products for an encyclopedia post–graduate school. With that experience came the great fortune of being able to attend a couple book festivals and conventions, namely the ALA conference and Book Expo. It was an amazing experience to attend events where everyone has a love and respect for books in all their brilliant forms. Much has happened since then — having kids and, of course, the pandemic — and it’s became much harder to attend book festivals. Due to the pandemic and various calls for more accessibility, more festivals are now offering virtual options. Some festivals either cancelled or went fully virtual in 2020 and 2021, and going into 2022, many will continue to offer virtual options or year-around virtual events. For a parent like myself, this is great news, and I am excited to add a few festivals and conferences to my wishlist. If you’re planning to attend on

 by Tirzah Price 11/17/21 The holidays are upon us, and I don’t know about you, but I can barely get through this season without giving into watching the 1994 film adaptation of  Little Women . Though I hesitate to call it a Christmas movie or book, you can’t ignore that’s how the story starts out, offering some very cozy holiday vibes that I just want to sink into this time of the year. And since the release of the 2019 adaptation directed by Greta Gerwig (which is very excellent), I now have two delightful adaptations in rotation. So as a nod to Louisa May Alcott’s classic book and my love for these films, I thought I’d share three  Little Women  retellings/remixes that you might want to check out if you love the classic book! JO & LAURIE  BY MARGARET STOHL AND MELISSA DE LA CRUZ You’ll like this reimagining set in 1869 about Jo, who is shocked and delighted to find success after the publication of her first novel. Her publishers love it so much they demand a sequel, but Jo is st

By  Tirzah Price  Nov 10, 2021   Cheerleading is a sport that doesn’t often get the respect it deserves for the sheer amount of athletic skill and strength it takes — I’m always amazed at the gravity-defying routines and stunts. There have been a handful of great YA books in recent years that depict cheerleaders and what it takes to be good at the sport, but I’ve also enjoyed reading some 2021 YA novels that also look at the social aspects of being on the cheer squad, from toxic friendship to performative allyship to the political stances that athletes take. Let’s dive in! Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms by Crystal Frasier, Val Wise, and Oscar O. Jupiter This looks light a lighthearted and fun graphic novel, but it also packs a punch. Annie is a pleasantly anti-social senior who is told that she needs to find an extracurricular…or else. Somehow, she finds herself pushed into trying out for the cheer squad, and she’s surprised by how welcoming and nice all the girls are. She e

 by  Jaime Herndon   Oct 27, 2021 I can remember the first time I really felt “seen” in a book. It was Judy Blume’s  Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret . Margaret’s parents had an interfaith marriage, like my parents. I’d never seen that before in a book, and it felt special to me. I don’t remember reading many of the Holocaust books people say they read as kids (Lois Lowry’s  Number the Stars  comes to mind, which is actually about a non-Jewish girl), although we did read  The Diary of Anne Frank  in school. To put it bluntly, we didn’t need to read many of those books at my Jewish day school. The history was in many of our families, with grandparents having numbers on their arms or stories of escape. It was in some of our teachers whose histories we whispered. We studied the Holocaust intensely our 8th grade year. I don’t think it was until after I graduated and went to a public high school that I realized Holocaust kid lit and YA lit was A Thing. Sometimes I cringe when looking at

 Here are the November and December picks!  First titles in a series are marked with a *. NOVEMBER 2 BEAUTIFUL WILD BY ANNA GODBERSEN High society intrigue and deliciously shocking scandals meet a gripping fight for survival in  this  sweeping romance, sure to thrill fans of Kiera Cass and Katie McGee. Vida Hazzard can see her future: aboard the heralded “Millionaire’s Ship of the West,” she’ll charm the young scion Fitzhugh Farrar, resulting in a proposal of marriage. But Vida didn’t plan on Fitz’s best friend Sal, a rough-around-the-edges boy with a talent for getting under her skin. Nor did she anticipate a hurricane dashing their ship to pieces, along with her dreams. Stranded on an island with both Fitz and Sal, Vida is torn between the life she’s always planned for, and a future she’s never dared to want. As they desperately plot a course for home, Vida will discover just which boy can capture her wild heart—and where her future truly lies. BLAME IT ON THE MISTLETOE BY BETH GARRO