Farmingdale Library Teens

  K.W. Colyard   Jul 26, 2023 SPEAK   BY LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON I’m sure I’d heard of another book about rape before  Speak  came along. Hell, I might even have read one. But these days? This is the only book I can remember that dealt with one of the myriad possible reactions to sexual assault: silence.  Speak  and other books that deal with similar subject matter have the ability to empower victims of abuse to label what’s happened to them and seek help. ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET  BY JUDY BLUME Once a staple on banned books lists, Judy Blume’s most famous novel has been teaching preteens about puberty — including menstruation and boob exercises — since 1970.  Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret  was far ahead of its time, being one of the first children’s books to show an interfaith family on the page, and — along with Lois Lowry’s Anastasia Krupnik — depicted a child allowed to make up her own m...

  Grace Lapointe   Aug 15, 2023 Magic systems establish a set of rules for what magic can do in a fictional world, and crafting a coherent magic system is an important aspect of worldbuilding. Some popular types of magic systems include magic from books, words, or spells, elemental magic, and magic from supernatural beings. In many fantasies, rules are necessary. Completely unrestricted magic could eliminate any possible plots or be too chaotic for readers. Moral rules demonstrate what magical societies value and prohibit. Magic systems can be like physics — for example, laws of motion — and like metaphysics, revealing a fictional society’s moral and spiritual beliefs. In Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse novels, the Grisha call their power “the small science,” not magic, and contrast it with forbidden magic, called merzost. Despite the comparisons to chemistry and physics, magic is never an exact science. Doing spells or rituals incorrectly, or with th...

  Megan Mabee   Jul 28, 2023 Over the past couple of years, mental health has become a much more frequent topic of conversation. It’s refreshing to find more people discussing mental health with honesty, vulnerability, thoughtfulness, and care. While we still have a ways to go as a society, I’m thankful for how much visibility mental health has now and how the stigma surrounding mental health has lessened. The more people talk about mental health conditions like anxiety, the more the stigma will erode and people will feel less alone in their experiences. When it comes to anxiety, there are a number of resources available to help teens and young adults, from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s  online resource center for anxiety  to  Teen Line ,  The Youth Mental Health Project , and more. Another Rioter created  this handy guide to workbooks and books about anxiety  as well. Fiction books featuring characters navigating menta...