Teens

The first annual Elmore Leonard Literary Arts and Film Festival, sponsored by the Community House of Birmingham and the Baldwin Public Library, is holding a crime and mystery short story contest for teens age 13 to 18. The first place winner will receive $250 and will be invited to attend a gala celebrating the life and achievements of Michigan writer Elmore Leonard. The second and third place prizes are $100 and $50 respectively.

Click here for more details about this exciting opportunity for aspiring young writers. The submission deadline is October 1.

(Photo by: mafleen)

This year's Summer Reading Program at the Troy Public Library was a blast!

Over 1,300 children from the ages of 3 to 12 dove into 14,000 books. Nearly 150 young adults over 13 years old caught the reading wave and logged over 4,000 hours of reading. Program participants collected water themed prizes each week including stickers, coupons, and water toys for youth; and coupons, books and t-shirts for teens. The Program wrapped up with two magnificent magic shows by Baffling Bill the Magician. (Even though the Program is over, there is still time to log more books or hours, by going to our Reading Program website.)

Thank you to all who participated, making this summer's Reading Program a big success. Keep reading!

The 8th grade Health Education students at Warren's Flynn Middle School have become advocates for their peers by speaking through their writing. The students spent many hours researching, collaborating and learning the publishing and writing process as they put together a series of 11 encyclopedias. These volumes include health information articles ranging from alcohol to weight training with many health topics that affect the young community in between. The students wrote all the articles. In some cases, they wrote from their own experiences with the goal of helping others to make sound decisions.

The students' teacher, Wilda Nance, says the main goal of the project is to promote reading and writing. She is thrilled with the outcome. Nance is incredibly proud of her students. "This project has given a sense of achievement and accomplishment to the students and makes them feel like they can make a difference," she explains. 

These encyclopedias will be on display in the Troy Library's Teen Resource Center until July 30. Come take a look!

Are you interested in downloading free eAudibooks this summer? Now you can, thanks to Audiobook Community's SYNC campaign.

The SYNC campaign is designed to get more young adults listening to audiobooks. From July 1 through September 1, two audiobooks will be available each week for download: one best sellter and one classic. Each week, both books will share a common theme. All audiobooks used in the SYNC campaign are in the MP3 format and will work with both PCs and Macs. They can be transferred to a wide array of mobile devices.

Additionally, OverDrive is distributing all of the SYNC titles. To download titles, you will need to install the OverDrive Media Console. After you have downloaded your titles from SYNC, be sure to check out other free OverDrive downloadable ebooks and eaudiobooks that are available from the Troy Public Library here.

For more on SYNC, including the release schedule for free eAudiobooks, go here. To download this week's selections, go here.