Make Your Own Doughnuts

For a while now, I've been trying to get some Middle School programs off the ground at my library. Over the summer, we had some really fun times with Creepy Scavenger Hunt and Tell Your Own Ghost Stories, but once Fall and Winter shows up, attendance disappears. Well, until we made our own doughnuts =D

When I first started thinking about the program, I thought it might be complicated to make your own doughnuts, but it turned out I was wrong. Crispy and Creamy Doughnuts was a recipe I found on allrecipes.com that had a lot of positive reviews (reviews are awesome!), and the doughnuts themselves turned out to be awesome!

Unless you have a two hour time slot for your program, I would suggest making the actual dough beforehand. (FYI for those who don't know about about cooking, if the yeast won't foam, add a little sugar for the yeast to start eating. Worked like a charm for me, and thank you awesome coworkers for giving me this tip!)

One thing I wasn't planning on, but the students really enjoyed, was making their doughnuts into different shapes. Some looked like stars, pretzels, and twists, while others stuck to a more traditional shape.

The Crispy and Creamy Doughnuts recipe is based on cooking them in oil, and I let each student dunk their own. Please explain that they should place them in the oil instead of dropping them in the oil =D Once the doughnuts were cooked, the recipe called for a glaze. But we decided to melt some chocolate chips with a little butter and made a chocolate sauce instead.

When all was said and done, we had some delicious doughnuts and some happy Middle Schoolers.

Forever: Realistic or Substantial?

Forever... by Judy Blume

Why did I read it?

Originally written in 1975, this book has become a classic in Young Adult literature. I figured a young adult librarian should probably read the classics of his own genre =D This book was quite controversial when it was first published, and remains that way to this day. I wanted to see where I fell on that controversy.

What happened?

Katherine and Michael are both seniors in high school, and after meeting at a friend's party, they have an immediate connection. Pretty soon, they are doing everything together.

Once things get a little bit more serious, both Katherine and Michael have to decide how far they are going to take this relationship physically. Katherine is a virgin, and wants her first time to be absolutely perfect. She is pretty sure it will be with Michael because he is worth the commitment of taking it all the way.

But, things don't always go as we'd like them to. While the school year was practically perfect, they are separated for the summer, and they really have to consider whether this is a love that will last a lifetime.

What did I like or not like?

It is always interesting to read novels that were written a few years ago. Most of the time, they kind of feel dated. While that was kind of the case with this title, the situations and issues that Katherine and Michael deal with are very much still alive to this day.

Now let's get to the interesting part. What did I think about the controversy? Forever... is largely an exploration of two teens' sexuality and how that fits into love, and consequently, this book has quite a bit of sexual content and discussions in it. I think some readers will appreciate these discussions, while others probably won't, but I think it should be left on shelves so readers have a choice to decide for themselves.

One thing that did surprise me was the parallels I drew between Forever... and David Levithan's Every Day. (SPOILER ALERT) Both relationships didn't make it, and both relationships involved some sex. But I couldn't help but think that A and Rhiannon's relationship in Every Day was based on something more substantial than Katherine and Michel's relationship in Forever...


I understand that Katherine and Michael's kind of relationship is common in real life and the literary world, and as a book about a sexually active boyfriend and girlfriend, the book rings true and honest and important. This frankness and honesty is probably the main reason that it has become a classic YA work, and why it is still read to this day.

But I prefer relationships in real life and books that are a little more...substantial, worthwhile, deeper, in for the long term, able to handle some struggles?? Agree, disagree, think I'm crazy??
Let me know :)

Klout: Measuring Your Influence

How do you measure influence on social media? How much content you post? How many retweets you have? How many people friend you?

Well, this is a question that Klout seeks to answer by gathering data from all of your social media outlets, and giving you a score from 1 to 100. Instead of just counting data, Klout strives to measure the actual influence you possess by comparing different data on social media as well.

Klout started in 2008 with the basic idea that everyone has influence, and with the rise of social media, this influence has become even more democratized.

Over the past few weeks, I've been taking a look at what I actually do at my job. What programs I do, what outreach I do, and what I do on social media. While I think I definitely do some things well, I'm always wondering how I can do things better. Although I just started using Klout, it seemed to be a qualitative way to see how effective I am really being at social media.

Currently, I have a Klout score of 42, and I'm hoping that this number will go up as I keep get better at social media, and my job in general =D

Show The Hunger Games Movie!

Through the month of October, the Hayden Library was involved with our area-wide program called North Idaho Reads, and one of the programs we got to do was show The Hunger Games movie.

North Idaho Reads was a collaboration between Community Library Network, Coeur d' Alene Public Library, East Bonner County Library District and West Bonner Library District to promote one book (Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury), and then offer programs to support people talking about it.

Fahrenheit 451 is a classic dystopian novel, so when our committee considered what kind of programs we could offer, we thought a Dystopian Movie Festival would be really cool. So, we made sure all the libraries had a projector and a DVD player or compatible computer, and showed some movies =D

The Hayden Library chose to show Fahrenheit 451, Children of Men, Serenity, and then finally The Hunger Games. While I don't have any pictures (I'll make sure I do that next time), we decorated the Bookmobile garage with rugs, tables, and Christmas lights, and made it feel like a movie theater.

In addition to watching the movie, we ordered some pizza afterwards and chatted about what we thought about the movie, how it compared to the book, and what other dystopian stories we had heard.

Obviously, The Hunger Games is under copyright protection, so to legally showed it, we purchased a license from Movie Licensing USA, which is also going to let us show The Amazing Spider-Man in December. I'm stoked already!

Every Day: Torn from the Girl You Love

Every Day by David Levithan 

Why did I read it?

Because I'm a fan of Quantum Leap and other similar sci-fi shows, and the synopsis made it sound super interesting!

What happened?

For as long as he can remember, A has borrowed someone else's body for the day, and then bounced to someone else the next day. He can remember what happened the day before, but he can also remember past experiences from the person he is currently borrowing from.

When he was younger, this quick attraction and then swift separation was devastating. His 'parents-for-the-day' couldn't figure out why their 'child' didn't want to go to bed at night. But, A has since accepted his fate, and actually finds some amazement in the everyday occurrences that are so similar and yet so different. Every day he does his best to leave his host's life in as close to the same shape as he can, and he has gotten pretty good at it. 

That is, until he borrows Justin's life for a day and meets his girlfriend, Rhiannon. There is something about her perseverance, love of life, and inherent sweetness that A can't ignore. So instead of acting like Justin for the day, A hopes that she can somehow see past the outside and see the real him on the inside. Just like every other day, A jumps to someone else the following morning. But, he refuses to lose the connection, the enormity, of what happened with Rhiannon.

What did I like or not like?

This book was just ridiculously readable. All of the every day events could happen in someone's life, but through it all you know it isn't normal because A is experiencing these things for people, and this gives the book a unique voice and perspective. While the world events seem commonplace, the way they combine to complicate A's life is really fascinating.

I started this book really excited, couldn't put it down because it kept me gripped the whole time, and thought it followed through on its promising story line all the way to the ending. Read it!

P.S. There is very slight cussing, and one scene with some sexual content.

POPVOX: Ensuring Congress Hears

A couple weeks ago, I received an email from Netted by the Webbys that had election related apps and websites. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to highlight some of their finds before the election was upon us. But, one of the sites will be very useful to us even when the election is totally over.

The site is called POPVOX, and it gives constituents a chance to more effectively communicate with Congress. Basically, POPVOX asks you to create an account so they can verify whether or not you are a legitimate constituent. Once that's accomplished, they have bills pending before Congress on their website, and you choose to support or oppose them. After you've done this, you have the option of commenting on the legislation and sharing what you find via social media.

One of the major stands of POPVOX is not editorializing, so instead of commenting on the bills themselves, they let advocacy organizations log onto POPVOX and give their two cents.They also tabulate the number of people who are supporting or opposing each bill, and tracking what they are saying about them.

In addition to bill information, POPVOX contains info on Members of Congress, states, and districts. This gives you an idea of what is going on, and also makes it easy for Congress to see what people are concerned about. Ultimately, POPVOX gives you an easy way to look up what bills are coming down the pike, and then gives you an easy way to say something about them.

The result; congress hears what you say. The POPVOX site comments, "When the information coming into your Members of Congress is public, counted, sorted and searchable, your voice is amplified — and Congress can’t ignore it."

If you are interested, you can visit the Why POPVOX Works page for more information. 

Glow in the Dark Experiments

Who doesn't like stuff that glows, and I figured it was appropriate for Halloween :)

Glow Sticks

An easy way to get glowing is glow sticks. Basically it is a chemical reaction between two compounds that, when mixed, release excess energy as light. If you are interested, it is a process called chemiluminescence.I found that the kids understood the idea of a chemical reaction if you talk about mixing baking soda and vinegar, as most have done that.

Once we understood a little more about chemical reactions, I actually cut open one of the glow sticks. Each glow stick is actually made of two sticks; one plastic one that you feel, and one glass one that is lodged inside. When you crack a glow stick you are actually breaking the inner glass tube that releases one chemical into the other and presto, instant light!

Glow Paint

Let your participants paint a design on a black piece of paper without telling them that it is glow in the dark paint. Once they are finished, turn off the lights and watch their surprise. Once they've seen the affect, you can talk about the science behind it called photoluminescence (the paint absorbs photons and then releases them in the dark is the short answer hehe. Another way of thinking about it is the paint getting excited and then releasing this excitement as light, just like we might release our excitement by dancing).

Finally, we mixed some GAK with glow paint (but glow powder would work just as well). This experiment is fun to do no matter what, and seeing it glow in the dark after you mix it just makes it that much cooler =D