It should come as no surprise that this month's Teen Book Club selection is Beckie Weinheimer's 'Converting Kate.' Pick up or reserve a copy at the library's main desk, then join us for a group discussion on Tuesday, June 30th at 5:00 p.m. As an added bonus, you can also stop by on Tuesday, July 7th at 1:00 p.m. to meet the author and let her know what you think! Questions? E-mail me at diannaleighton@presqueisle.lib.me.us or give me a call at (207) 764-2571. Hope to see you there!

Teen author Beckie Weinheimer will be visiting Turner Memorial Library on Tuesday July 7th at 1:00 p.m. to discuss her book Converting Kate.

From Beckie's website:

"Kate was raised in the Church of the Holy Divine - it's influenced everything in her life from her homeschooling to her ugly handmade clothes. But ever since the death of her nonreligious father, Kate has suspected there's more to life than memorizing Bible passages.

Taking advantage of their move to a new town, Kate - to her devout mother's horror - quits the Holy Divine. She replaces it with the cross-country team at her public school, her father's beloved book collection, and services at a more mainstream Christian church. But these new diversions don't bring all the answers she's looking for. And as Kate struggles to come to terms with her father's death and her mother's blind allegiance to the Holy Divine, she discovers there's a big difference between religion and spirituality - and the two don't always go hand in hand."

Come prepared and check out this fascinating title: YA FIC WEI Material #72090

Need a sneak peek? Get an excerpt here.

This summer, make new friends and find great reads in our NEW Summer Teen Book Club! The first meeting will be Tuesday, June 2 at 5:00 p.m.

YOU pick the book, YOU make the rules, and YOU bring the discussion.



Open to everyone ages 13-18. Interested? Sign-up today at the circulation desk or send me an e-mail. Can't wait to see you there!

Three out of ten teenage girls in the United States get pregnant at least once before the age of 20, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. This amounts to 745,000 unplanned pregnancies each year!

Although Maine has a relatively low teen pregnancy rate compared to the rest of the United States, it's still important to get the facts and know your options when it comes to teen pregnancy. This is why Turner Memorial has teamed up with ACAP Health Services to give you the information you need to stay healthy and safe.

All month, you can visit Stay Teen and take part in the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy Quiz to see where you stand when it comes to making important decisions regarding sex and pregnancy prevention.

Once you get your result, be sure to check out teen-created videos looking at what it means to "stay teen" and get the facts about abstinence and contraceptives.

You can also take their Relationship Reality Quiz right here:



The library will be hosting a Q&A Session with ACAP to handle all of your questions regarding sexual health, relationships, and pregnancy prevention on Tuesday May 19th from 4:00 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. Parents, caregivers, and educators can also attend a second session following the event from 5:30 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. to get the facts about teen pregnancy in the community. We'll be sure to have plenty of refreshments and other goodies on hand, so we look forward to seeing you there! Questions? E-mail me at diannaleighton@presqueisle.lib.me.us, call at (207) 764-2571, or IM me through the Digsby application to the right.

In 2005, I attended the Living with Technology Symposium at the Athens Institute for Contemporary Art. It was there that I discovered E.L.I. Nomad, or "roaming Electro-Linguisitic Imaginator." Basically, participants feed E.L.I. words and, in return, he gives them poetry. Sort of like Madlibs meets 'OK Computer'.

E.L.I.'s purpose is to help us examine the relationship between the artist and technology. Can a robot effectively produce poetry, considering that poetry hinges upon human experience? If a robot simulates human creativity, does it undermine the role of the artist? Etc.

My poem from E.L.I.:

The google stretches by gradual cursors
singing optical
Chicago my kind of town
hurriedly tracing meticulous

Some video...

I've been staying up past my usual Sunday night bedtime to watch 'Brave New Voices' on HBO. The series follows teens from across the country as they compete in the annual Youth Speaks' Brave New Voices Festival, a celebration of teen slam poets.

Now, look, I approached the show with a sizable pre-set image of slam poets. Radical East-coast urbanites from gritty backgrounds with better post-secondary school prospects than me. And Demetri Martin on that show that one time.

And I thought this was okay. I thought I was in a good place with this.

But what I found was that slam poetry is coming from every corner of our society. The stories told are wildly varied, frequently challenging, and startlingly honest. In fact, it's that honesty that catches me off guard every time, leaving me in a puddle of my own tears while rubbing away the goosebumps. While these teens ARE exceptional in the way that they engineer their poems, it's the performances that highlight the commonalities [even the ugly bits] of the human experience.

You can watch the entire first episode here.

Full performances of poems, along with other extras here.

More on Youth Speaks and the Brave New Voices Festival here.

Editor's note: Video content does contain the occasional expletive. But...in context, it's pretty validated. Just a heads up.

I've been a big fan of kinetic typography projects for quite some time now. Here's a few poetry-related ones that I like: