Essay Winners

One of the best components of this year's One Book program is the writing portion. Barnes & Noble and ACLA challenged students throughout Allegheny County to write a letter to our County Executive, Dan Onorato, citing how they'd like to see the future look 10 - 15 years from now. This year we went to both Middle School and High School students, and the response was wonderful. Winners of this year's contest are:

High School
1st Place Daniel R. English
2nd Place Taylor Pagliuca
3rd Place Shannon Hussey

Middle School
1st Place Chris Besser
2nd Place Nicholas Suarez
3rd Place Margo Corsetti

Congratulations to our winners - thanks for all of your hard work.

Podcast-a-Rama

Well as we foray into new technologies we decided to hook up with one of our favorite radio people Jonny Hartwell of 100.7 to podcast our thoughts about the One Book choice for 2009. Give it a listen - lots of opinions about this great book and lots of points for discussion!

The Value of Memory

Whitehall Public Library has sent us some great pictures of their program ideas for 2009 One Book. They have focused on the value and use of memories. I'll let their pictures do the talking!

A Good Book Keeps Coming Back

Isn't it great to hear how a book resonates with people. This article
from the Post-Gazette is just one account of the impact The Giver on one family. I think one of the greatest things about working in a library was hearing stories of how books have changed people's lives. What's your story with The Giver? You can let us know by responding to this post.

Dystopia in Allegheny County

The kick off date for One Book is looming and CLP Teens are ready to roll. Their web site is already talking about one of the themes from The Giver, dystopia. One of my favorite kids movies has a character, the principal who is always making up words and telling the students "it's a word...look it up!" So there you go - look it up, read The Giver or watch the movie Metropolis. Any way you choose, you'll learn all about dystopia!