News
TAB Minutes
December
Teen Advisory Board Minutes
by
Kerry Howard
 The meeting was called to order at 4:07 p.m. Deborah reminded everyone that next month is Bring-a-Friend to TAB meeting, so be sure to bring a friend as TAB needs new members. The new Teen Zone will receive a neon sign in the near future and hopefully we will get a bulletin board in the Teen Zone where we can post messages and announcements. Abby Freier did not attend the QPL board meeting because of a conflict so there was no board report minutes. The next editorial meeting will be Wednesday, December 28th for the folding. January Book Club will read The City of Ember by Jeanne Duprau. If you would like a copy of the book, please contact Deborah.
Programming in January will be a Steampunk Jewelry Workshop on Saturday, January 14th, at 2:00 p.m. Ann Greenbank from Ben Franklin will conduct the workshop. Please register so we know what supplies to purchase. February programming will include a workshop on improvisation conducted by Brandon Thomsen on Friday afternoon, February 17 from 3—5 p.m. in the Large Meeting Room. Please be sure to reserve a spot for both workshops. In March, the library will walk in the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Saturday, March 17th, which is the actual holiday. Please reserve time to join us for the parade. TAB members will walk again this year and hand out candy and favors. We will then return to the library for Irishfest where TAB members will help with the event. Please be thinking about ideas for the upcoming Summer Reading Program. The theme this year is Reading is Delicious. We will brainstorm movie titles at the next TAB meeting. We will also discuss possible programming ideas.
Deborah thanked TAB members for helping usher at the QCT holiday show on Friday, December 2nd. She apologized because the show was sold out and members did not get a chance to see the show. She also thanked everyone for helping with the Cocoa and Cookies with Santa event as well as the Tree-Lighting Ceremony. The library will host a pizza party in January as a thank you for all your volunteer efforts.
Deborah discussed the importance of the January meeting as we need to recruit new members to TAB. Please be sure to bring someone new to TAB who might be interested in joining our group. The TAB meeting ended at 4:41 p.m. due to the TAB Christmas Party. Members had a chance to exchange gifts and share their very favorite Christmas story. On behalf of all the members of the Teen Advisory Board, we wish you a very Happy New Year!
Book Reviews
The Pianist by Wladyslaw Szpilman
Book Review by Kerry Howard
The Pianist by Wladyslaw Szpilman is one of the best accounts of the Holocaust by far. This autobiography is astounding in that it is told in such detail with a sense of other world passivity, as if he were someone else telling his story. This novel seems to perfectly highlight the inhumanity of humans during this frightful genocide without gruesomeness or prejudice, or even hatred toward the Germans who had ripped his life apart. The strength that can come from within is so much more powerful than the outer physical strength, something the Germans learned the hard way from the millions of innocent Jews they had murdered. Wladyslaw Szpilman has to have the best luck a Jewish person could have in the Holocaust. He spent nearly all of the Holocaust with his family of six, consisting of him, his father, mother, two sisters and his brother. Also, he was the only one of them who escaped the train to the gas chambers because of his fame as a pianist. He had so many friends before Germany took Poland, where he lived in Warsaw, and so many fans of his piano talents that he had several places to hide out and people to turn to for help when he escaped. He received help from all kinds of sources, including a German double agent, but not without extreme efforts and hardships, for the penalty was death if one was caught harboring a Jew.
It is amazing how the German soldiers could be so cruel to the Jews. Szpilman tells how he watched the German officers and the Jewish police torture their victims for pure amusement. They would shoot people in their stomachs just to see them writhe in pain on the ground. Often when they encountered family prisoners, they would shoot the children first in front of their mothers and laugh at their agony while they held their lifeless child in their arms. On one account he described how a band of German police officers forced several Jews to stand in front of their car while pointing a large search light on them. The officers told them to run, and as they drove behind them they slowly shot them down with a machine gun. The last man tried to run to the safety of the next street, and almost made it, until the searchlight turned around and he was killed. The inhumanity of the people described in this book is so astounding that the reader will often find him or herself reading with his/her eyes wide with shock and their mouth agape.
A major strength of the book is that Szpilman describes his feelings about the events around him in passing, almost as if he were just remembering that he lived them, and these were not history textbook accounts. All of his emotions consist only of the basics needed to understand the situations, such as physical pains of hunger, his loneliness after his family was killed, and his gratefulness toward all of the people who helped him in his fight for survival. Wladyslaw doesn’t once complain, but simply states the conditions of himself and his surroundings and occasionally throws in a shocked emotion. No one wants to read a book filled with rants about how unfair his life was. Szpilman makes his book well worth reading and leaves all ranting to his astounded readers.
The only weakness of the book seems to be the necessity to do some minor researching to find the value of the Polish zloty, which he so often refers to without reference to its value in US currency. However, it is possible to find the translations by going online. To save the reader some trouble: 1 US dollar is equal to 2.6669 Polish zloty, and 1 Polish zloty is equal to .37497 US dollars. From there one must only multiply those numbers to understand the worth of the many amounts Wladyslaw Szpilman refers to throughout his story.
Szpilman’s amazingly accurate experience of the Holocaust reminds us exactly how dreadful life was for the Jews of that time. The Holocaust was unlike most wars because it had so little to do with government, but instead, the social network of people all over the globe. Hitler influenced the views of the public so radically, that it sent the entire world spiraling into a terrible war of pure prejudice, not even of politics. He even tells of how while he was working in a concentration camp of sorts, an Aryan woman pointed to him and said to her husband, “Look, a Jew!” The Pianist will bring up memories of past history lessons in school on the Holocaust, but causes them to really sink in and make an impact on the reader’s understanding of the time period. It opens his eyes to just how gruesome the whole matter was. History classes cover up so many of the details and focus only on the main events of World War II, especially Hitler and his German army. They fail to go into any real depth on the Jews themselves and their lives during the war. Unlike history classes, this book goes into the very heart of the Holocaust and its victims. Wladyslaw really proved his point on how humans stereotype each other, and those generalizations lead to prejudices, which in some extreme cases can lead to genocide. His writing is so powerful that it makes the reader see what he saw, and feel what he felt. When he describes the bombing of Warsaw, the reader can hear the shells and grenades in the distance, and see the fiery red horizon, thick with black smoke. The reader can feel the rumble of the ground beneath them and the trembling of the collapsing building around them.
Wladyslaw Szpilman covers every detail of his experience, leaving his readers wanting for little. This book will have you on the edge of your seat, begging for more. The Pianist is a must read for people of all ages. It’s lack of gore and strong language makes it suitable for younger readers, though the writing may be difficult for children.
The Pianist s a masterpiece of literature, a work of art. Remarkable and valuable to anyone whose knowledge of the Holocaust consists of textbooks and lectures from history. teachers.
Teen Top Ten
The Future of Us by Jay Asher & Carolyn Macker
It's 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They've been best friends almost as long - at least, up until last November, when Josh did something that changed everything. Things have been weird between them ever since, but when Josh's family gets a free AOL CD in the mail, his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they're automatically logged onto their Facebook pages. But Facebook hasn't been invented yet. And they're looking at themselves fifteen years in the future. By refreshing their pages, they learn that making different decisions now will affect the outcome of their lives later. And as they grapple with the ups and downs of what their futures hold, they're forced to confront what they're doing right - and wrong - in the present.
Everfound by Neil Shusterman
While Mary lies in a glass coffin aboard a ghost train heading west, her minions are awaiting her re-awakening by bringing lots of new souls into Everlost to serve her. Meanwhile Jackin’ Jill has met Jix, a fur-jacker—a skin jacker who can take over the bodies of animals, most notably jaguars. Jix serves a Mayan god who collects Everlost coins, and has his own agenda. In the concluding volume of The Skinjacker Trilogy, Neal Shusterman reveals new sides of the characters of Everlost, who are pitted against each other in a battle that may destroy all life on Earth.
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
When her parents move to England her senior year, Rory Devereaux agrees to go with them, as long as she can attend boarding school in London. The school and the people in it are a far cry from her tiny southern hometown, not far from New Orleans, but Rory likes her new roommate and is enjoying her school (well, except for maybe the field hockey part). Then, a murder is committed near the school, an exact replica of the first of the Jack the Ripper murders. And none of the security cameras in the area ever caught a glimpse of the killer. It doesn't take long for everyone in London to realize that there is a Ripper copycat on the loose, throwing the entire city into mayhem. Rory thinks that she's safe from it all, despite her proximity to the murder scenes, but when she is questioned by a secret branch of the London police, Rory finds that she is a lot closer to the real killer than she thought.
Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard
At the beginning of his junior year at a boys' boarding school, 16-year-old Alex is devastated when he fails to save a drowning friend. When questioned, Alex and his friend Glenn, who was also at the river, begin weaving their web of lies. Plagued by guilt, Alex takes refuge in the library, telling his tale in a journal he hides behind Moby-Dick. Caught in the web with Alex and Glenn is their English teacher, Miss Dovecott, fresh out of Princeton, who suspects there's more to what happened at the river when she perceives guilt in Alex's writing for class. She also sees poetic talent in Alex, which she encourages. As Alex responds to her attention, he discovers his true voice, one that goes against the boarding school bravado that Glenn embraces. When Glenn becomes convinced that Miss Dovecott is out to get them, Alex must choose between them.
Crossed by Ally Condie
In search of a future that may not exist and faced with the decision of who to share it with, Cassia journeys to the Outer Provinces in pursuit of Ky - taken by the Society to his certain death - only to find that he has escaped, leaving a series of clues in his wake.
Cassia's quest leads her to question much of what she holds dear, even as she finds glimmers of a different life across the border. But as Cassia nears resolve and certainty about her future with Ky, an invitation for rebellion, an unexpected betrayal, and a surprise visit from Xander - who may hold the key to the uprising and, still, to Cassia's heart - change the game once again. Nothing is as expected on the edge of Society, where crosses and double crosses make the path more twisted than ever.
Ruthless by Sara Shepard
For years scandal has rocked Rosewood, Pennsylvania—and high school seniors Aria, Emily, Hanna, and Spencer have always been at the center of the drama. They’ve lost friends, been targeted by a ruthless stalker named A, and narrowly escaped death. And it’s not over yet. Aria’s love life is on the fritz. Emily’s exploring her wild side. Hanna’s kissing the enemy. And someone from Spencer’s past—someone she never thought she’d see again—is back to haunt her. But none of that compares to what happened last spring break. It’s their darkest secret yet and guess who found out? Now A is determined to make them pay for their crime, and the only thing scarier than A is the fear that maybe, just maybe, they deserve what’s coming to them.
Now Is The Time for Running by Michael Williams
Just down the road from their families, Deo and his friends play soccer in the dusty fields of Zimbabwe, cheered on by Deo's older brother, Innocent. It is a day like any other . . . until the soldiers arrive and Deo and Innocent are forced to run for their lives, fleeing the wreckage of their village for the distant promise of safe haven. Along the way, they face the prejudice and poverty that await refugees everywhere, and must rely on the kindness of people they meet to make it through. But when tragedy strikes, Deo's love of soccer is all he has left. Can he use that gift to find hope once more?
Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor
Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?
Witch & Wizard: The Fire by James Patterson
Whit and Wisty Allgood have sacrificed everything to lead the resistance against the merciless totalitarian regime that governs their world. Its supreme leader, The One Who Is The One, has banned everything they hold dear: books, music, art, and imagination. But the growing strength of the siblings' magic hasn't been enough to stop the One's evil rampage, and now he's executed the only family they had left. Wisty knows that the time has finally come for her to face The One. But her fight and her fire only channel more power to this already invincible being. How can she and Whit possibly prepare for their imminent showdown with the ruthless villain that devastated their world-before he can truly become all-powerful?
The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.
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