HPL
Teen Territory Blog

By now, we're pretty much all familiar with the works of Mo Willems: Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, and the Elephant and Piggie series. But did you know that before all this fame, Mo Willems published a zine? Parts of it, as well as other early-days doodles and comics by Mo are available now in a book called Don’t Pigeonhole Me: Two Decades of the Mo Willems Sketchbook. Be sure to put a copy on hold today!

Unlike the books that made him famous, Don’t Pigeonhole Me: Two Decades of the Mo Willems Sketchbook is not necessarily for small children. According to Disney, this book “reveals the author/illustrator at his most truthful, most experimental, most grown-up. Most Mo.” Sounds awesome! Plus, bonus: It features a foreword by Eric Carle!

For more on the book and Mo Willems' zine days (mostly an interview with Mo!), click here.

Or, click here for an exciting preview from Mo Willems' Doodle Blog.

Somewhere in the midst of Internet link-clicking, I stumbled upon this beautiful set of photos of children with their toys from around the world. Taken by photographer Gabriele Galimberti, these photos depict kids with the toys they treasure most from countries like the USA, Italy, Iceland, Botswana, Costa Rica, India, Australia, and many others. Ultimately, I think it reminds us that kids are kind of the same anywhere you go, but according to the photographer, the way each of the children played revealed a lot about their countries. “The richest children were more possessive,” he said, “At the beginning, they wouldn’t want me to touch their toys, and I would need more time before they would let me play with them. In poor countries, it was much easier. Even if they only had two or three toys, they didn’t really care. In Africa, the kids would mostly play with their friends outside.”

This got me thinking about my most prized toys as a kid. I grew up in Long Island, New York in the 80's and early 90's. There were a few clear standouts: Magic Nursery Babies, Care Bears, Puppy Surprise, Maple Town figurines, Littlest Pet Shop, and Yum Yums. Were these toys important to any other kids of my generation? What were your most favorite childhood possessions?

Happy November 30th and congratulations to everyone who passed the 50,000-word mark today (or earlier)! Have any of you finished your novels this year? If so, how did they come out? And how do you feel about finally being done?

If you're searching for something to do with your manuscript and your new-found free time, Writer's Relief has an article that goes over the next steps needed to publish your work. There are four steps:

1. Take a break.
2. Use your break to do some research and prepare for revisions!
3. Roll up your sleeves and revise, revise, revise.
4. Be patient but determined when trying to get your work published.

Writer's Relief reminds us that the process of getting published "takes longer than one month, or even one year. There is no shortcut if you want to get paid up front for your writing by a traditional publisher."

For more about writing, editing, and publishing try one or more of these books:

So, You Want to Be a Writer?: How to Write, Get Published, and Maybe Even Make it Big! by Vicki Hambleton & Cathleen Greenwood.

Writing and Publishing: The Ultimate Teen Guide by Tina P. Schwartz

A Teen's Guide to Getting Published: Publishing for Profit, Recognition, and Academic Success by Jessica Dunn & Danielle Dunn

To Be A Writer: A Guide For Young People Who Want to Write and Publish by Barbara Seuling

Congratulations, writers! Now it's time to relax!

Today is the halfway point for those of you currently participating in National Novel Writing Month!

Because life is a little too crazy already this year, I have taken 2012 off from NaNoWriMo for the first time since 2005. While I am certainly a little upset about it, as a long-time participant, I'm still happy to be celebrating the novel-frenzy fun with any of you who are writing a novel this month.

For those not in the know, National Novel Writing Month is a "fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing." The goal is to write a 50,000-word (or longer) novel by 11:59:59pm on November 30.

"Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved." In November, you have permission to do a bad job and write only for the sake of finishing.

A little of my personal NaNoWriMo history:

Year #1 (2006): I was awesome at developing characters but terrible at keeping any kind of plot going for 50,000 words. The end product was mediocre (all things considered) but I wasn't about to go showing it off. Either way, I was DONE. I had just written my first novel!

Year #2 (2007): This year was a flop. My plot literally didn't exist. My characters just went to work, had lunch, and hung out with their friends. I would never let anybody even come close to reading this novel, and I think I may have actually deleted it from my computer. However, on November 30th, I'd finished, and I was now a two-time novelist!

Year #3 (2008): I didn't fully outline a plot but I knew I had to plan out some kind of direction for my story because I did not want a repeat of 2007. I had good characters (based on people I knew in real life, which was probably the best thing I could have done) and a lot of funny scenes, but I had only planned out a basic, overall idea for the plot and I had trouble stretching it all the way to 50,000 words. Because of this, I wound up with a lot of silly and sort of random scenes for length. But again, I finished and was now a THREE-BOOK AUTHOR!

Year #4 (2009): This year I did so much prep work. I typed up a 10-page outline with every scene I planned to include and I also decided to change genres! I moved from realistic fiction all the way to children's fantasy (maybe because I'd just read The Golden Compass and felt inspired). This was kind of fun and allowed a lot of creativity but was weird and kind of unnatural for me.

Year #5 (2010): This was a good year for NaNoWriMo. Even though my life seemed hectic, I had lots of writing time and, while I didn't create a masterpiece, I did an ok job in the end. Five time novelist!

Year #6 (2011): I took the same story idea from 2010's novel and completely re-wrote it, changing characters, scenes, setting, and developing ideas better and more deeply. This was probably my best novel of all, but around November 28th, I lost enthusiasm and had trouble wrapping it up and tying together loose ends. I started to feel bitter toward the novel and thus, with only two days left of NaNoWriMo, I called it quits.

If you're writing a novel for 2012, I'd love to hear about it! We're having a NaNoWriMo discussion at the library tonight at 7pm! Come down and talk about your struggles and successes! I'd love to chat!

That's the Amsterdam Public Library pictured above.

I know I do these kinds of posts pretty frequently, but if you're any kind of library-lover at all, I hope you appreciate these beauties as much as I do. Flavorwire is the latest to post beautiful, international libraries. However, this batch is especially good (and nearer and dearer to my heart) because they're all public libraries! Have you been to any of the ones that they've listed? I've been to three of them.

Read their article here: The 25 Most Beautiful Public Libraries in the World

Has anyone seen The Hunger Games yet? How did it compare to the book? Was it too scary for little kids? I'm seeing it tonight at 9:00 pm and I can't wait!

While you wait for your chance to see the much-awaited movie, why not play Hunger Games games!?

Scholastic has created two of these: The first is called "Trial By Fire," where you can find out if you're ready for the Hunger Games and test your abilities to see if you'd be able to survive the real thing. The next is called "Tribute Trials," where you can see if you can survive being in an arena like the one in the Hunger Games, then try to discover how you might improve your chances.

Click here to play!

And let us know when you've seen the movie!

With the Hunger Games movie coming out in just THREE days, Figment.com has created a few funny charts to keep us entertained while we wait for the big night.
Click here for the rest of the Hunger Games related charts and graphs.

It's almost here! And if you haven't seen it yet, get yourself pumped up with this trailer:


May the odds be ever in your favor!

It's Leap Day!... or, February 29th. I don't know about you, but I find having a bonus day kind of exciting!

Here are some fun facts about Leap Years:

2012, as well as all leap years, consists of 366 days, as opposed to 365. Leap Years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun. It takes the Earth 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds (a tropical year) to circle once around the Sun. However, the Gregorian calendar (ours) has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn't add a day on February 29 about every 4 years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. That means that after only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days!

Leap years can't just be decided at random though! In the Gregorian calendar, there are 3 criteria that must be met to be a leap year:

1. The year must be evenly divisible by 4.
2. If the year can be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless...
3. The year is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.

Don't worry if this doesn't make sense. Someone's already done all the work for us, but did you have any idea there was so much behind it? I sure didn't!

Julius Caesar introduced Leap Years in the Roman empire over 2000 years ago, but the Julian calendar had only one rule: any year evenly divisible by 4 would be a leap year. This lead to way too many leap years, however this issue didn't get corrected until the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar more than 1500 years later.

So, that leaves one more question...where does the word "leap" come in to play? This is another complicated explanation but in a normal sequence of years, a calendar date (say February 28th) falls on Monday one year, Tuesday the next year, then Wednesday the year after that and so on. But every fourth year, thanks to the extra day in February, we "leap" over the expected day of the week. So February 28th was a Monday last year, a Tuesday this year, and will be a Thursday in 2013. We "leaped over" Wednesday! Get it?

Happy Leap Day! Enjoy the extra 24-hours!

How about some dancing books? Watch this video and see it happen!



The video (on Yahoo) was made by Sean Ohlenkamp and his wife, who spent many sleepless nights moving, stacking, and animating. I love it!

You may or may not be a seasoned traveller, but world-wide, "libraries are often distinguished architectural landmarks and can provide deeper insights not only into a country's literature, but also its culture and history as a whole," (according to Bootsnall.com). Plus, libraries are almost always free and open to the public. So why not take a visit in your travels?

BootsNAll has compiled "10 of the Most Beautiful Libraries and Bookshops to Visit on Your Travels" to keep an eye out for as you go.

Have you been to any of these? You can start by taking a look at them online.

Vancouver Public Library (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)

Royal Danish Library (Copenhagen, Denmark)

Austrian National Library (Vienna, Austria)

National Library Singapore (Singapore, Singapore)

Law Library of the University of Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland)

Great Court and Reading Room, British Museum (London, United Kingdom)

Philological Library of the Free University (Berlin, Germany)

Lello Bookshop (Porto, Portugal)

Bibliothèque Nacionale de France (Paris, France)

Biblioteca Nacional de España (Madrid, Spain)

I've been to so many of the cities listed above, but only one of the libraries! I wish I could go back in time; these look so beautiful.

Happy travels!

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooo, it's Halloween! The one day a year where anything goes, crazy outfits, candy for dinner, and ringing the doorbells of strangers.

But what about tomorrow? And what about all that leftover candy? Here are 10 fun ideas you might want to consider when the novelty of just eating it has worn off (or made you a little nauseated):

1. Make one of the awesome ornaments seen here. All you need is some colorful hard candy, some cookie cutters, an oven, and a little creativity.

2. Make a mosaic with it! Use sturdy cardboard as your base, cover it with colorful construction paper, then glue on candies (go for the colorful ones!). When you're done, cover it with spray shellac to prevent the candy from getting buggy or rotting.

3. CandyExperiments.com is awesome! Check out some of their fun experiment ideas and donate your candy to an afternoon of science fun.

4. Make Apple Candy Bar Salad or one of the other delicious-sounding recipes on this Squidoo page.

5. Save it to make miniature (and edible) cornucopia for Thanksgiving this year by filling sugar cones with a mix of candy corn, M&Ms, Runts, etc.

6. Chop up the chocolate bars and freeze the shavings so you have a year-round ice cream topping on hand.

7. Operation Gratitude (which sends care packages to US troops overseas) is looking for candy to send to Iraq! This is a copy of their current wishlist, and as you can see, Halloween candy is on it! Scroll down their list for information on donations and shipping. Or see if a dentist near you is participating in Operation Buyback.

8. Try making this candy corn fudge. It's easy and looks delicious.

9. Save some pristine candy to attach to wrapped gifts. All presents are more exciting to open when there are a couple of fun-size candy bars taped to the ribbon.

10. Make your own blizzard in the blender! Try crumbling your Snickers, 3 Musketeers, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, or all three and placing them in a blender with vanilla ice cream to create a homemade blizzard or flurry.

And of course, there's always the chance that you might just wind up eating it.

Happy Halloween! Be safe trick-or-treating!

If you're a Hunger Games fan, you have to read this funny (yet, thought-provoking) post on the Figment Blog... presenting:

Peeta Versus Gale!

The two are pitted up head-to-head in the categories: Chemistry, Grand Gestures, Better Meal-Maker, Battle Royal, and Better Babysitter. Click here to read the post and find out who is the overall winner, the overall better choice for Katniss!

"They’ve vied for Katniss’s heart and divided loyal fans into brutal, warring factions. We’re here to settle the score between these two Hunger Games hunks. And our choice is definitive."

And if you haven't read any of the Hunger Games series yet, click here to put book 1 (The Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins on hold!

Arrrr you ready for Talk Like a Pirate Day this year? It's September 19.

This year Talk Like a Pirate Day falls on a Monday, which is GREAT news because you have the whole weekend to brush up on your pirate speak! Luckily, Mango Languages has you covered. Just type in your library barcode and password, and you'll be able to start learning Pirate immediately and for free (or almost any other language, for that matter: Dari? French? German? Hebrew? Thai?).

Talk Like a Pirate Day began on June 6, 1995 by two guys named John Baur and Mark Summers (Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket). They were playing racquetball and, for some reason, started talking to each other in pirate slang. By the time they had finished their game, they were in full-out pirate lingo and it was then that they decided that "what the world really needed was a new national holiday, Talk Like A Pirate Day." Once it was deemed September 19th, it was celebrated privately for several years by its inventors. That is, until 2002, when John Baur just so happened to come across columnist Dave Barry's e-mail address. Surprisingly, Dave Barry thought it was a great idea and became convinced of the holiday's potential. And that's when he wrote his Miami Herald article.

Looking for some good books on pirates? Try these:

Piratepedia by Alisha Niehaus
Throughout this book, we make 27 stops around the world, learning all kinds of interesting facts about pirates, complete with pictures of artifacts, maps, and even movie photos. This book covers everything. There’s even an interactive pirate map game tucked into a secret back pocket!

Real Pirates by Clare Hibbert
In this collection of over 20 true pirate stories, we look at tales and facts from the Caribbean, Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, as well as a quick look at some other useful pirate facts.

Everything I Know About Pirates by Tom Lichtenheld
Want a humorous take on everything from tying pirate knots, to creating your own pirate name? This book covers educated guesses about pirate facts!

The Golden Age of Pirates by Bob Temple
“You live in a time of discovery, adventure, and travel.” You are living life at sea, and it’s dangerous, yet rewarding. There are lots of important decisions and, in this book, you get to make them. Choose your own adventure in this action-packed pirate story!

And for more official information on the fun holiday, check out the official Talk Like a Pirate Day Website.

Arr me hearty, a fine gentleman o' fortune be ye!
(Translation: Great my friend! You're a fine pirate!)

I learned that one on Mango Languages!

What kind of man owns his own computer? The ad above is from 1980 and describes the idea of owning a computer as being "rather revolutionary."

Click here to read article in The Huffington Post called "13 Vintage Computer Ads Show How Far We've Come."

You've got to see this! Artist Joshua Allen Harris has created amazing street art right in New York City, using only plastic garbage bags and a lot of creativity.

Happy November 30th! For all those wondering, I have completed my novel for National Novel Writing Month and with 50, 165 words and I'm feeling a newfound sense of freedom!

The writing flowed more naturally for me this year than in previous years, and I think this was also the most fun I had with my story. I am proud to announce that I am now a five time (pretty bad) novelist! Did anybody else participate? How did you do?

It's that time of year again! Time to temporarily abandon your social life, skip sleeping late on a weekend, and trade your usual hobbies for the adventure of composing a 50,000 word novel in one month.

For those of you who don't remember last year's NaNoWriMo blog post, National Novel Writing Month runs from November 1st-30th, and is a self-proclaimed "fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing" and "thirty days and thirty nights of literary abandon!" Unlike any other writing you (or anyone) has probably ever done, NaNoWriMo encourages quantity...just quantity, and that's it. It's not about producing a work of quality (and really, how could it be with just a month to complete so much?), so you can use the opportunity to just be free, write whatever you feel like writing, and know that we're all producing ridiculously bad works of literature together - that's part of the fun!

Sound like something you'd like to try? This will be my fifth year embarking on the challenging and really kind of silly journey and I'm getting myself ready by trying to plot out different kinds of turns for my story to take. To be honest, it's looking like it might be a pretty mundane story - but hey, it doesn't matter! Knowing that you just wrote a whole novel, no matter how terrible, is an AWESOME feeling!

So do you want to sign up? Check out the Official National Novel Writing Website for more information.

Good luck writers!

Do you recognize what games are pictured on the cupcakes above? I somehow stumbled across THIS AWESOME WEBSITE filled with game-themed cupcakes. And they're not just cute pictures- they're a GAME!

Browse through the 100 cupcake pictures and see what you know. Then roll your mouse over the question marks to see if you're right. I had a good time admiring the frosting-masterpieces as well as testing my game-recognition in the 100 Games Cupcake Game.