Teens @ UAPL

Love Fairy Tales? Try these novel retellings

Fairy tales are timeless stories that are still told and retold every year.  These modern authors have played around with the traditional and given us readers something new and interesting from these beloved tales.  

If you like "Princess stories":

If you want more Beauty and the Beast:

Other inspiring tale retellings:

Road Trippin'

It's summer and the open road awaits with promises of new adventures. It is time to hit the road and discover new experiences with friends and family. Whether you are traveling or grounded at home, if you find that your "car" is stuck in neutral, try these road trip novels for inspiration.

Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid Five strangers. Countless adventures. One epic way to get lost. 

How My Summer Went Up in Flames by Jennifer Doktorski First she lost her heart. Then she lost her mind. And now she’s on a road trip to win back her ex.

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green Colin, former child prodigy, who was dumped 19 times by Katherines, is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship and avenge Dumpees everywhere, which may finally win him the girl.  

Northanger Alibi by Jenni James This modern retelling of a Jane Austen novel follows Claire's first traveling adventures from home.

Open Road Summer by Emery Lord Seventeen-year-old Reagan tries to escape heartbreak and a bad reputation by going on tour with her country superstar best friend.

Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Amy Matson Amy, dealing with the death of her father, ends up on an epic tour across the U.S.. with Roger who just needs a ride back home. Each chapter starts with a music playlist.  

Happy Travels!

 

 

Youth Poetry Contest Winners

Youth Poetry Contest Winners Announced!

The winner of the Youth Poetry Contest for the grade division 5-8 is Phoebe E.. and the winner of the grade division 9-12 is Magnus S. Our Teen Advisory Board would like to congratulate both winners and thank all our entrants this year. Both poems are reprinted here for your enjoyment.

 

Moonlight Sonnet by Phoebe E.

Light filters 'tween the sooty, blackened trees

The night is still but for a summer breeze

Which whistles throught the oak's hard, brittle bark

And frames the light that scares away the dark

A cresent glows upon the ashy sky

A lonely wind heaves an abandoned sigh

And through the dusk reveals a fearful night

It shys from this fluorescent, pallid light

The stars are fixed, hung from a black cloak

The darkness gives an awful strangling choke

To any wind that dares to pass him by

And threaten his harsh rule o'er the vast sky

But when this beacon's placed upon the dark

The blackness flees and moonlight makes its mark

 

A Letter of Gratitude by Magnus Saebo

The library

that good place

the product of dust

and sunshine

lovingly playing

with each other's coy eyes

 

Where I work

each Sunday

without fail

 

I am folded into the constancy

gently tucked into the jacket

of a coffee stained and jam flavored

book of myopic poets

 

And my task this morning

is to pull the inactive books

the ones that haven't been called for years

 

The task is blasphemous

that one could assert time

in a place like this

a place so relaxed on seconds

practically putting its feet up on Plato

his shoulders are strong enough anyway

 

And how can a book be inactive?

Tell me this!

but a list is always just a list

or rather a litany

of soft spoken saints

each having done their greatness

and now recalled by name

and just by the name

like how that can stand for everything

everything and a river too

 

Some poetry gets pulled

binned, scrapped, rejected,

called out and placed smack against time

yes, this hurts me most

 

I prefer it when the books are simply missing

lost to the somewhere else

everywhere but in their little parcel of space

I imagine the book is relaxed under a bed

or in a neglected pile of papers and magazines

one day turned over to reveal an old convict

escaped by the same hand

into the superposition of not being

 

gone from its articulated spot in the universe

unmoored

 

Another book of poetry

it's a shame, a heavy shame

the readership must be declining

or so they say

the same way it's said every century

by the people who see everything slip and run

 

Although I don't think so

I can feel this day like currents of plasma under my skin

I think this day is like the response

to a howl in a large, deafening forest named Moloch

we see Moloch too, don't worry

he appears in the declining readership

in the inactivity of a book

in my fingers who weasel into the creaks and pull out a head

to be placed on a cart

Moloch in the thought I could count to a million in this library

and never find Ulysses

as he's lost now

he was the one to slay Moloch

here

in this church

but somehow got displaced

in the somewhere else

relaxed like the convict books

or the eyes of the list

or the shoulders of time

 

Though the library will outlive Moloch

it's in its fabric

of sunshine

and dust