The latest images uploaded to our photostream are pictures from our last Teen program, GRPL’s Got Talent, where talented teens competed in an evening of performances ranging from poetry readings to original songwriting.   Check out the winner and our GRPL staffers who did a fantastic job impersonating Simon, Paula, Kara, and Ryan Seacrest.

So you’ve decided to participate in  Curiouser & Curiouser: An Alice Inspired Art Contest for Teens but you want to guarantee that you win that Wacom Tablet.  Don’t forget to sign up for our Artist Workshop, hosted by Kendall College of Art & Design’s Drawing Club, Vitamin D. Bring your in-progress submissions for the competition and Vitamin D members will be there to help you develop your ideas and artwork.  There will be giveaways at the Artist workshop but you will have to attend to find out what they are!

The workshop will be held at the Main Library in the Storytime Room on Level 2 on Saturday, September 4, 2:00 – 4:00 pm. Registration is limited to 15. Sign up today.

Visit the Mayor’s Book Club webpage for more information about the club, to print out your own booklet, and to find out how to have the mayor come read at your school!

Want to read more?  Check out our Read-Alikes page for some fun suggestions!

Body Work by Sara Paretsky

Dark Peril by Christine Feehan

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Lost Empire by Clive Cussler

Torn Between Two Lovers by Carl Weber

Your kids or grand kids brought home a Summer Reading Program flyer from school.  You saw the blue SRP t-shirts and the lawn signs.  You attended one or more of the 88 programs offered for youth this summer.  It was fun, but do you realize that according to the results of The Dominican Study: Public Library Summer Reading Programs Close the Reading Gap , released in June, 2010 and made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, the following occurred:

Students who participated in the public library summer reading program scored higher on reading achievement tests at the beginning of the next school year than those students who did not participate and they gained in other ways as well.

Students who participated in the public library summer reading program had better reading skills at the end of third
grade and scored higher on the standards test than the students who did not participate.

A total of 2, 319 youth will begin school at or above their reading level.  1,845 children read at least 20 books and a total of 474 teens read at least 10 books.  Our kids read a total of 41, 221 books this summer!

There’s a lot of hard work that goes into a project of this size.  All the initial performer and programming planning, database set-up, and even cutting out 4,979 splash and wave name tags to put on the library windows.

T-shirts were $3.00 a piece and performers charge about $350 for 1 performance.  There is a lot of money that is needed for SRP.  We are very grateful to the Grand Rapids Library Foundation for providing these funds.

Lucky Jim

I’m just going to throw this right out there: I love this book! It is one of my all-time favorites and one of the few books that I’ve ever read more than once. (I’m not a rereader. I’m also not one to profess my love of things on blogs… so this is sort of a big step.) Lucky Jim is the book that I grab when I’m feeling most awful. It is my sure bet backup that I take on vacations in case the other books I’ve toted along turn out to be disappointments. And it is a book that I will unabashedly foist onto others, …. “Read it! You’ll love it!”

It’s the story of Jim Dixon, fledgling lecturer of medieval history at a small provincial university in Northern England. Bright, young, and oh, so lacking in social skills. Jim says the wrong things, befriends the wrong people, doesn’t know when to say no, and generally has no problem making a mess of things. His boss is a boob, his students are enthusiastic know-it-alls, his girlfriend is clingy, and the girl he really loves is in love with the self-absorbed artsy son of his boss. How lucky is that? 

Lucky Jim is a skewering satire of fusty academics and a triumph for the socially awkward. So, before you head back to the world of teaching or being taught, before you immerse yourself in the serious work of studying serious things, give yourself one last treat…. Read it! You’ll love it!

Gorky Park introduced readers to Arkady Renko, a Moscow cop, in 1981. Since then he’s also shown up in Polar Star, Red Square, Havana Bay, Wolves Eat Dogs, Stalin’s Ghost, and now Three Stations. He’s an honorable, flawed man who’s been battered but not beaten by the corrupt and depraved characters that lurk around a grimy Moscow, many of them “officials.” Smith, an American, offers a seemingly spot-on Russian authenticity, and his prose is spare and often breathtaking in its pacing.

I’m waiting for your return, Gospodin Renko.

Our 8 weeks of Summer Reading Program this summer was truly, truly amazing. So many happy kids, happy teens, and happy parents. All 8 locations of the Grand Rapids Public Library declared 2010 Make A Splash reading program a huge success!

Great programs + lots of kids = fun and learning!  And yes, summer is fading away, but the great memories will remain.

Owen is a home for the snake.

Fern and Nadia enjoying tie-dye program