Local authors visit schools!

Some lucky students and teachers have welcomed local authors into their classrooms, thanks to a grant from Vermont Community Foundation's Successful Communities Grant Round. Students first read and discussed a book by the author, and got to keep their copies of the book.

Erik Esckilsen talked about his book Offsides and its parallels to his experience playing soccer in South Burlington. The students also discussed the controversy over Native American mascots present in the book, and Erik brought along the beaver mascot costume from Champlain College!

Over at BHS, Tanya Lee Stone visited an English class to talk about writing in verse and her book A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl. Click here to read her article "Now and Forever: The Power of Sex in Young Adult Literature"

Win Points for a $100 Gift Card!

Game Tournaments continue, with a $100 prize for the first gamer to score 50 points! The prize will be a gift card to either Game Stop, Best Buy, Toys R Us or Circuit City, depending on the vote. Points are awarded to all participants in the tournaments: 10 to the winner, 8 for 2nd place, 6 for 3rd place, and 4 to all other entrants.

This month's tournament game was Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Here Sabin and Kevin battle it out in the semifinals.

Guitar Hero Tournament

The opening round of the tournament!















Some RockBand on the side...

The women show their skills at Cliffs of Dover

And the epic battle determines the winner of $25 at Best Buy (Thank you, Best Buy!)

Then, time for Leonardo's pizza (Thank you, Leonardo's!)

Drawing Videogame Characters Class

Mario, Sega, Pokemon, and Star Wars characters sprang to life last Saturday in the library.

Volunteer Emilie Rodgers, an art and animation student at Champlain College, taught some drawing basics, and students swapped videogame knowledge.

Twilight Saga Madness!

Have you finished Breaking Dawn? Need to share? Come to Vampire Book Club every other Monday from 4-5pm. Get free copies of the books!

The big story recently in the Twilight world was that Stephenie Meyer stopped writing a 5th book, Midnight Sun, after a very rough draft was illegally posted on the internet and many fans had read it. See Meyer's reaction here. The book was from Edward's perspective.

The other buzz is the movie, coming out in November. See the preview here. There's also some behind-the-scenes footage of how they did the ending fight scene, and the flight through the woods.

Did you know Stephenie Meyer comes up with playlists to accompany her books? Check out the Breaking Dawn songs here.

A Long Way Gone

The High School Book club read A Long Way Gone over the past month. It's an epic story of survival in war and the loss of childhood. Participants said the story was intense and depressing, but that they were glad they read it anyway.
The book left me wondering what Ishmael Beah did once he got to the U.S. He is still involved in international panels regarding armed children in conflict, including the UN, Religions for Peace Youth Assembly, Human Rights Watch, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities.

He started writing in a class at Oberlin college and his teachers encouraged him to continue.
To see Ishmael Beah explain his own work, watch the videos at http://www.alongwaygone.com/media.html

If the story deepened your interest in the conflict in Sierra Leone and child soldiers around the world, there is lots more to explore.
UNICEF has a great resource about child soliders:
http://www.unicef.org/protection/files/Armed_Groups.pdf

The movie Blood Diamond takes place partly in Sierra Leone and explores the parts of the war that A Long Way Gone does not. It is about conflict diamonds and also about child soldiers in the rebel forces, contrasting the importance of a child with the importance of a jewel.
http://www.blooddiamondaction.org/

There was also some debate about the extent to which the account could have been fictionalized, and those views are best summarized in the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Long_Way_Gone#Credibility_dispute

The Library Becomes a Galaxy Far Far Away

On Thursday afternoon the Community Room became a haven for Star Wars and Soul Caliber enthusiasts.





Imperial stormtroopers of the 501st Legion's New England Garrison paid a visit to the Fletcher Free's monthly video game tournament.











This trooper plays his own game, with others of his kind running around on the screen of Battlefront II.













Non-troopers got in on the action, too.

The tournament was in Soul Caliber IV, just released on Tuesday. Characters included Yoda and Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice.
Duncan was the winner after several rounds of battle. He won a fancy Star Wars illustrated guide.



One trooper strums his stuff on Guitar Hero Aerosmith.





Thank you to the members of the New England Garrison for coming, and to Leonardo's for donating pizza!