Do you know teens or young adults who might be the next YouTube sensation? Have you spotted the next Steven Spielberg? Would you be able to encourage your favorite drama kings and queens to star in their own short film or music video? If you do, there is a fantastic new film and video contest for teens and young adults -- “Stories on Film,” the Teen and Young Adult Film Festival portion of the Southern Ohio Storytelling Arts and Music Festival.

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

On Monday we held a Girligami craft program, and had fun making folded shoes, dresses, cats and pandas and koalas! If you want to make your own, check out the book Girligami by Cindy Ng. (Click on cover to go to catalog)

Did you read a really good book last year? Are you reading a really good book right now? Nominate it for the Teen Buckeye Book Award!

Happy Groundhog Day! Although both Punxsutawney Phil and Buckeye Chuck saw their shadows today, supposedly signalling six more weeks of winter weather, we had a rather nice balmy day today in our neck of the woods. Hopefully you had a great day and enjoyed the weather! And you can always come in later and check out our copy of the movie Groundhog Day, a fun classic starring Bill Murray.

Just announced are the winners of the Michael L. Printz Award for outstanding young adult book of 2008. The winner is Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. There are four honor books: Octavian Nothing Part II: Kingdom on the Waves, Nation, Tender Morsels, and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks. Check 'em out sometime and see what you think! Do you agree with the librarians who picked them as good books?

Congratulations to Mike Sutton, winner of the Madden NFL09 Xbox tournament. He won a $20 giftcard to GameStop, courtesy of our local GameStop store. GameStop also provided 2 Xbox 360s for us to use in the tournament. DeVante Coats was the runner up, and he won a $10 giftcard to WalMart. Thanks to everyone who participated! Keep an eye out for our next videogame tournaments.

If you haven't already signed up to play in our Madden NFL09 tournament, you'll have to wait until the next one, because it is now FULL. Sorry about that, but we don't have enough time in the day to have more players compete. We have them every January, so keep your eyes peeled for the next one, and in the meantime, watch the website calendar for upcoming videogame and other tournaments!

Whew, was that a storm or was that a storm?! 8 inches or more of snow fell in our area on Friday and Saturday, and as you may know we had to close the library on Saturday Jan. 10 (never even opened). So we've rescheduled Anime Club from that day to this coming Saturday, January 17. Still at 1:30 p.m. We'll be watching "Chrono Crusade" episodes and snacking on pocky. :-) See you there!

Our annual Lifesize Monopoly games were a huge success; both games had over 20 players on teams of 2 or 3. The pace got hectic near the end of the game as teams traded properties, built monopolies and then added houses and hotels to the board in a last ditch effort to wring more money out of their competitors. Lots of fun in Lifesize! More photos will be posted in the Photos section soon, so check back. And if you didn't get to play this year, we'll be doing it again next year and we'll have even more games so that no one gets left out.