@ your library (R) ......by Paige Turner October 14, 2004

It's Alive @ your library(R)!!!!

What do Odysseus' escape from the Cyclops and Stephen King have in common? The horror of it all -- and the teen audience whose appetite for scary stories has made classic and modern tales very strange bedfellows. Teens can indulge their appetite for all things that go bump in the night during Teen Read Week, October 17-23.
This year's Teen Read Week theme is "It's Alive @ your library (R)," and library events nationwide will celebrate the intersection of horror, suspense, black-and-white movies from the 50's, and even genetic engineering. Teen Read Week is sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association.

Hennepin County Library Minneapolis is so excited about the theme that they've created a full month of teen programs that include "scary-oke", monster quizzes and teen art contests. Fresno County (Calif.) plans a Mad Scientist Lab, while Middle County Public Library (N.Y.) is decorating with a mummy motif and hosting an "Eerie Egyptian Game Night."

"The thing we should all be truly afraid of is that young adults will lose or never gain a love of reading," said YALSA President David Mowery. "Horror has been a part of storytelling from the very beginning, and it continues to "grab" teen readers. Reading for fun is key to developing and maintaining a lifelong reading habit."

Teen Read Week is the only national adolescent literacy initiative. Since its inception in 1998, the event has focused on the importance of teen recreational reading. Teen Read Week's objectives are to give teens an opportunity to read for the fun of it, allow teens to select their own reading materials, and to help teens get in the habit of reading regularly and often. This year young adults also are being invited to decide what are the 2004 "Teen's Top Ten" books by voting online at www.ala.org/teenread. Come on by and see for yourself that "It's Alive @ your library (R)" right here in Mammoth Lakes.
LIBRARY TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Mammoth Lakes and the entire Eastern Sierra are full of log cabins, but do you know where the log cabin originated?

ANSWER TO LAST WEEK'S QUESTION: During World War I, Irving Berlin wrote a musical stage show called "Yip, Yip, Yaphank" to entertain the soldiers. At the last minute he deleted one song from the script and tucked it away in a trunk. There it stayed for 22 years until he gave it to Kate Smith, thinking she might want to sing it on her Armistice Day broadcast in 1939. She did and the song, "God Bless America," became an instant hit. Some even call it America's "second national anthem." Berlin, surprised by the success of a tune he had discarded over two decades earlier, said that the song "belongs to the nation," and pledged all its royalties to the Boy and Girl Scouts of America.