Zinio: Best Magazines, Digital Format

Typically speaking, I don't read a ton of magazines. Typically speaking again, the times that I do are when I'm waiting for an appointment to start, or when I have some time to kill at the library and my book is at home or something.

But, if those magazines that I browse through at the dentist's randomly showed up in my email's inbox, I might start to read them a little more lol. Basically, that is what Zinio has been doing for about 10 years apparently, and now the Community Library Network has got a subscription to their library service.

If you bounce over to our network's Zinio browsing page, you can see all the magazines that are free through our library's subscription. If you don't see one you're after, just let us know and we'll see if adding it might be an option.

When you find one you'd like, you can register with Zinio (with an email address, username, and password), and they'll notify you by email when a new issue comes out. Like the cool service that it is, your issues don't expire, and you can view them as often as you like. Another nice piece of this service is that you can either read it online or offline on your computer, iDevice, or Android. That means you can read it whenever you want to, wherever you want to, on whatever you want to.

So the next time you need Car and Driver, Billboard, or US Weekly, sign up with Zinio and get it for free!

Life-Sized Angry Birds: A Video Game Comes to Life!!

Has anyone ever played Angry Birds? Rhetorical question, right? lol. But, have you ever tried Life-Sized Angry Birds?? Its a ton of fun, just like the digital counterpart, and I'd like to thank Morgan and Lucy at the Community Library Network at Post Falls for suggesting it =D

What you'll need:

• Slinghot 
• Plush Angry Birds
• Cardboard Boxes, Oatmeal Containers, etc.
• Optional: Green balloons with painted pig faces

The slingshot that we used was a three-person water balloon launcher. The larger slingshot was perfect for the plush angry birds that we had found.

The library goes through a lot of cardboard boxes as we send and receive books and such, so we just grabbed a few that we had and set them back up. We also found random things like oatmeal containers, and my boss's husband used to work at a Styrofoam plant, and he gave us some of the leftover pieces.

I divided our participants into two teams. One team would build a structure, the other team would knock it down, and then we would switch. Words of the wise; give the team building the structure a set time limit, and possibly have a minute to two-minute game that the other team can play while they wait (or maybe have some questions like, "what have you been reading this summer?").

A big part of the Angry Birds game is obviously the points, but I couldn't figure out a legit way to make that happen in real life. But, if you do, let me know. While we didn't have points, the kids had a great time building things up and knocking them down.

The Testing: What If the Tests are Deadly?

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau 

Why did I read it?

Because Miss Karen compared it to a combination of The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and Divergent...nuf said. 

What happened?

Cia Vale has always wanted to attend The University. To be counted among the chosen few destined to rebuild the war-scarred world left after the Seven Stages War. She loves her family, and she has been successful helping her father and brothers revitalize the land surrounding her small colony. But, she has always hoped against hope that she would be chosen for The Testing upon graduation.

The Testing is the first step toward attending The University. Officials from Tosu City evaluate the merits of each school graduate, and invite the elite to participate in a series of tests. These tests determine who has true leadership potential and should therefore move onto The University. While no one has been chosen from her colony in many years, Cia is elated when she and three other graduates are chosen from her colony.

But, Cia's happiness quickly turns to concern when her father shares some of his worries. All Testing candidates do have their memories erased at the conclusion of the tests. But, Cia's father warns her that his fragmented memories and nightmares of The Testing contain unspeakable horror, death, and Testing candidates pitted against each other. With her expectations set on edge, Cia leaves all that she knows behind and heads toward whatever horror or honor The Testing contains...

What did I like or not like?

This book is really, really readable. You are immediately drawn into the characters and the world that Charbonneau has created. Just like Miss Karen promised, this book does contain similar elements to The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and Divergent. But, it is definitely its own story, complete with great characters, chilling action and consequences, and mystery.

Like most Young Adult novels published at this time, this one is the beginning of a series, and I'm definitely going to need to keep reading this story.