Scary films ahead!

A Halloween Movie Marathon 

When: October 27th, 2012 from 4:00PM- 10:00PM.

What: We will be viewing: Casper the Friendly Ghost, The Sixth Sense, & The Haunting!

Where: In the Community Room of the Library.

*This program is open to all teens 13-18 years old.  Come hang with your friends, eat tons of free food, watch scary movies, and get into the Halloween spirit.*

Come dressed in your Halloween costume!

Photo Courtesy of Flickr user crystalbat.

Calling all teen artists! We have BIG news: this summer, Darien Library is teaming up with Portland Public Library for a Tumblr Virtual Art Show!  Break out your sketchbooks, paints, and pastels and get working on your next masterpiece!

All summer long, you can submit your artwork to share with teens from around New England.  What makes this opportunity so unique is that you'll be able to check out what teens your age are inspired by and vice versa.  So whatever medium you prefer--painting, sculpture, photography, charcoal, comic strips--start thinking about what you'd like to display on our virtual art gallery!

When you're ready to submit your artwork, we'll photograph it into a curate-tion sensation!  Contact Erica Gauquier, Teen Services Librarian, at: egauquier@darienlibrary.org or at: (203) 669-5225, for all the details and/or any additional questions.

Make sure to follow either DLTeen Tumblr or PPLTeens Tumblr to see the latest artwork posted, and remember: be creative and have fun!

We can’t wait to see what you’ll make!

Need an Avengers fix?

With The Avengers raking in over $200.3 million dollars this weekend (yes, you read that right!) and $600 million worldwide, it's safe to say that the summer movie season has officially started--and packed quite a punch!  Crushing the competition and breaking opening weekend records, it seems like everyone was at the movies seeing Thor & co. give villainous Loki a well deserved smackdown.  

So if you've seen it--and are hankering for more awesome superhero action--then browse a few of these titles featuring not only the Avengers gang, but other webbed-and-caped crusaders!  And if you haven't seen the flick, check out this review from Entertainment Weekly to see what all the fuss is about.

Also, don't forget to stop by the Teen Lounge for our Graphic Novel Giveaway this Tuesday, May 8th!

Want to know me?

Want to see me?

Want to call me?

Want to trust me?

Want to love me?

Want to go private?

It's the summer after 8th grade and Abby Johnson is about to enter high school. That should be exciting enough, but Abby is bored with her life. She is pretty much good at everything she does and nothing is really a challenge. She is beautiful, athletic, smart, and gets prefect grades in school.

Faith is Abby's bestfriend and has been since childhood. They spend all day together in classes and the minute they get home from school they meet up in online chatrooms at Chezteen.com, a new virtual second-life-type website for teens.

Today is like any other day chatting online to Faith except today she starts chatting with someone else in the chatroom, someone she doesn't know. It's not long before "Kyle" wants "to go private" with Abby claiming they have some much in common to talk about. This would be cool except that Kyle is 27 and Abby is only 14.  

Dixon crossing Niagara below the Great Cantilever Bridge, U.S.A. 1895-1903 -photo courtesy of NYPL

NYPL gives viewers the opportunity to take 19th century images and turn them into 21st century GIF files.

Stereograms, invented in 1838 by Charles Wheatstone, are pairs of two dimensional images shot from different angles in such a way that they mimic the vantage points of our left and right eyes. When viewed through a stereoscope, the combined images pop out in 3D.

Stereograms were hugely popular in the 19th century and often used to give audiences glimpses of parts of the world they may never have been able to see before. Even more recently, NASA has used the stereogram technology to take 3D pictures on Mars to better see what the landscape of the planet looks like.

Last month, the New York Public Library's experimental Labs department (http://www.nypl.org/collections/labs) unveiled its latest digitization project, the Stereogranimator. This cool new tool enables users to take old stereograms from the 19th century and turn them into 21st century animated images. Using the Stereogranimator (http://stereo.nypl.org), you can choose an image and then the speed and composition of your animation and start creating a flickering image that looks 3D! The Stereogranimator also gives you the option to create an old school red and blue 3D image that can be viewed through 3D glasses (not the ones you kept from that movie you saw last week!).

Check out NYPL's website for other low tech to high tech projects and start making your own animated images today! Add them to your website or next school project!

Josh and Emma are neighbors and best friends, they have been since they were little, but ever since they shared a kiss a few years back they never managed to get over the thought of "what if".  Now it's 1996 and AOL is just coming on the scene. No one in Josh and Emma's high school have the internet yet, not until a friend gives Emma the free trial 100 hours of AOL l start-up disc she recieved in the mail.  Emma is bored one day and decides to give it a shot, but when she first logs on to AOL a website called Facebook pops up onto the screen and a page opens.  A profile page of herself...15 years later.  Josh and Emma have no idea what this "Facebook" thing is, but they do know it's a look into the future and if the future doesn't look good...why not change it now.

photo courtesy of Flickr user Ben Atkin

Did you know that the Teen Lounge now has it's very own iPad for you to use!? It's already packed with tons of cool games, books, and other fun apps.

If you don't see a game on there that you would like to play, let us know!  To use the iPad while your hanging out in the Teen Lounge just stop by and ask the teen librarian if you can borrow it for a bit.

More YA books on OverDrive are here! 

We've ordered a selection of different titles, so either check out all the YA books we have in the link above, or scope out a few of the latest offerings from the list below!

But wait! What is OverDrive you ask? OverDrive is a great (FREE!) software program that allows you to download your favorite books onto your e-reader. So no matter where you are--traveling in the car with your parents and siblings for the holidays--you can download a book to your e-reader, blackberry, laptop, etc. and get reading! Don't have an e-reader? You can check-out a nook color from the library and read to your heart's content!

There are some really great books out there, and this is just another way for you guys to find, access, and read books that you'll love.

Looking for a good YA book that's sports-themed?  Look no further. 

This comprehensive list was compiled from books found in our collection.  All center on sports-related issues, anywhere from baseball, to basketball, to chess (yes! that is a sport in my book), to snowboarding, to football--with a healthy dose of angst served on the side.

Enjoy!

Photo Courtesy of Flickr user davidsteltz

Hey Everyone!  New update for the Teen Lounge: Skull Candy headphones! 

We have two on hand, so drop by and try them out!  Just ask any of the librarians and we'll get them for you!