We’ll be having a STABBBYA meeting, next week. The blessed event will take place Tuesday, November 14th from 4-6pm. What do you need to get ready for the meeting, you ask? Well, just read a book from our lovely collection from our private STASH at the library. Come in ask me what I’m talking about if this e-mail appears to be gibberish.

Also, I wanted to alert you to a change on the MySpace page. It has a fancy feature where I can post a calendar of events. You don’t need to be a member of MySpace to view the calendar, so check it out if you are ever confused about events happening in the library or those specifically related to STAB. Also, a special note for those who are on MySpace, I started a STAB/STABBBYA group. So far we have, only 3 members, so if you are on STAB, become one of the cool MySpace kids and join the group. If you aren’t on MySpace, no need to worry, you’ll still get all the cheesy e-mails chock full of the exact same information. Websites of note from this paragraph include:
www.myspace.com/rickobaggins
groups.myspace.com/ShorelineTAB
www.shorstab.blogspot.com

Plus, I've only received one entry for the STAB T-shirt contest. Though it is really great, I know others of you confessed you were interested in attempting your artistic hand at this endeavor. If you are, get them to me before the meeting next week so I can review them. Then we can vote on them at the next meeting, or soon thereafter.

Talkin’ Bout Best Books
Thoughts for discussing books at the BBYA Committee Meeting
This is not an attempt to:
-Crush your creativity
-Suck the joy out of your reading
-Tell you what to say or
-How to think.

Rather, this is an attempt to get you to focus your comments on the BBYA nominations so that:
Everyone gets a chance to contribute
The BBYA Committee can get only the most useful information they can out of you and
You get to say everything that you want and need to say.

I hope that these tips help you to think about what you have read and critically analyze the books. The most important thing to remember is that your opinion matters, your comments matter and you have the right to speak your mind:

1. Talk to the committee or the chair. There may be hundreds of people in the room, but don’t worry about them. The 15 people on the dais are the ones who are making the decisions about the books.

2. Keep it positive. There is really very little need to discuss a book you don’t like. Let me be the bad guy. The committee would rather hear about your favorites rather than the ones you hated. So come ready to talk about your top 5 -10 books rather than your least favorite 10-20. However, if you feel strongly about a book, we want to hear about it.

3. Focus on WHY you like/love/hate the book. What was the hook? What was the most appealing aspect of this book?

4. Keep your comments short and succinct. We have roughly 2 hours and possibly 60 teens that all have something they want to say. A little quick math tells us that everyone gets about 2 minutes to speak.

5. Don’t give a summary of the book. Everyone on the committee should have already read the book. We don’t need to know what it is about. Here are some suggestions for topics to talk about:
- Characters (Real, fake, interesting, annoying (but in a good way?))
- Plot
- Pacing
- Language (Was this well written?)
- Pictures/Artwork/Cover
- Believability
- Voice of the Character (Does this sound like a teen or like a real person)
- Compare to other books (Espcially this year selections)
- Format/Layout (Espcially poetry and titles that use some type of formatting other than the standard, for example footnotes, diary format, IM (leet speak), slang, etc.)
- Relevant/Age Appropriate (Does this appeal to teens, or is it too young or old?)
- Factual (Espciall for non-fiction)

6. Be honest. The Committee is interested in hearing about what teens think about the books. Don’t bother telling us what you think we want to hear. Tell us what you think about the book. And remeber, no matter what you believe about a book, it isn't wrong. It is your opinion and you have every right to it.

Specs for the STAB T-Shirt and the Ms. Spider costume.

A few of you were interested in helping out at the Childrens Program on November 4th by wearing the Miss Spider costume. You can see what the costume looks like right here. Here is a link the website with a bit more detailed information. Scroll down until you see "Miss Spider" and click on the more info button: http://www.costumespecialists.com/childrens_book_characters.html#

Many of you have expressed interest in designing the shirt. I’m getting excited to see what you guys come up with since you are all so creative and talented. And not in the disturbed, Van Gogh kind of way, which is refreshing. I’m still working on putting the particulars together, but here are some general guidelines to guide you in your design/field testing:
-Use this site to choose the material for your shirt: http://www.companycasuals.com/catalog-servlets/CustomBrowser?customer=suzy23 I’m not sure if we’ll be using them, but at least it will give you and idea of the colors of shirts available.
-No more than 2 ink colors per shirt
-When designing the shirt consider that a number of different people will be wearing it, such as you, other STABies, the chaperones, perhaps some of the BBYA members and, most importantly, me.
-I’m torn as to whether I’d like the shirts to be unique to the conference or more general STAB shirts. I’m open to either at this point, but it may be something you want to consider.
-Keep the shirts clean (ie. language and violence, not with scotch guarding). Sure, almost everyone knows and loves us as STAB, but there is at least one person out there that hasn’t heard of us. When that person sees a bunch of teens wearing shirts that say “STAB” in big, red letters, they may get on the hotline to security. You can mention STAB but creatively, subtly and a bit surreptitiously. For example, if I were designing the shirt and I wanted to mention STAB, I might print on the shirt, "My favorite character from Law & Order: SVU is Det. STABeler." (Hope I didn't steal anyone's idea.)
-I reserve the right to make any editorial changes in the final product.


Thanks for your help and for your interest in all of the wierd things that STAB does on a regular basis!

My 100th post!

Thanks to all of you who helped out at the booksale! The Friends of the Library were extremely happy with all of your help. So happy in fact, that they asked me how I should spend their gobs and gobs of money. I suggested that they buy me a Mini Cooper and we could give it a sweet paint job and we could call it the "STABmobile". For some reason they didn't like that idea.

The idea they did like is one that I think you can get behind. When we go to ALA I want to make sure that we are all easily recognizable and are snazzily dressed. My idea is that we all get custom made shirts. But, as many of you know, I am artistically challenged so I need your help. I want one or more of you to design the shirts. They can be short sleeved, long sleeved and I may even be able to squeeze out sweatshirt/hoodies. I'm not sure if we can get them so customized that we have our names (or code names) on them, but let's keep that as an option. So here is what I need you to do:
-Design a shirt
-Get it me the design by November 1st.
-We'll vote on them at our November STAB meeting.

The other stuff that you need to know about ALA is the geeky ticker above. That is how many days we have left before the conference starts. Eeek!

I'll send out some information shortly on what you need to do to be eligible to go to the convention in the next few days. It will contain info on the number of books you need to have read, the meetings you need to attend and the number of reviews I need from you.

Shoreline Parade!

I wanted to extend a belated and heartfelt thank you to everyone who helped make the parade a big success. You all did a wonderful job of holding signs and walking at the same time . . . something that I still have problems with. Great job. As you can see I'm posting some pictures from the parade. I hope you enjoy them! Thanks again!

STAB on Parade!
Alison is happy to be on STAB . . . as you can see by her sign.
Free Miriam!
The energy during the pre-parade preparations was palpable.

Kyle and Brendan are ready for storytime.

Claire promotes our library in espanol!

Come back! The parade is this way!

STABies,

We’ve got another opportunity to sit and chat with an author. Eoin McNamee is from Ireland and his book, The Navigator, will be released in January 2007. We’ll be meeting with Mr. NcNamee on October 16th from 3:30 until about 5pm. I only have one book to go around so I would like people to start reading it right away and then pass it around quickly. Hopefully you wouldn't need longer than just a few days to read it.

For more info on the book try out amazon.uk and Barnes and Noble online.

And here is a picture of him above.

Hope you can make it!

Here is your usual reminder for our STAB meeting on Tuesday, August 8th, from 4-6 pm. We'll making s'mores in the library, as it is our summer ritual. What could be better than melting chocolate, crumbly graham crackers, flaming marshmallows and books? Hope to see you Tuesday.

I was hoping that some of you, especially the more artistically inclined, could come in this Wednesday night, August 2nd, starting at 5pm to help make signs for the Shoreline Parade! You all did such a cracker jack job last year that I’ve had a request that you do it all again. The theme this year is “Paws, Claws, Scales and Tales” for the Library and the Shoreline Parade theme is “On the Road to New Horizons”. Plenty to work with there!

Also, I won’t be in tomorrow, August 1st. So please don’t come in and bother the librarians.

Our next STABBBYA meeting is August 8th from 4-6pm. To prepare, come to the library, grab a book from the STASH or from the nominations and read it. Then come ready to talk about it. Take a look at the link to the STAB Primer for more info or talk to me! Thanks!

Shoreline Parade on August 19th, 2006.

As many of you are well aware, STAB has a long history of joining in the City of Shoreline annual parade for the Friends of the Library. This year is no exception. This year’s parade will take place on Saturday, August 19th. We are encouraging people to bring their pets and walk them in the parade. I think we’ll also be giving out free T-shirt to participants and I will be doling out volunteer hours of course. Hopefully you can make it. I may be asking you to help make signs to carry during the parade as well! Thanks for your help!

Also, if you haven’t let me know about coming to the STAB meeting next Tuesday, July 25th, please let me know ASAP. Thanks!

STAB now has a presence on MySpace (thanks in part to Nina)! You can find us at http://www.myspace.com/rickobaggins I’ll be posting BLOG entries their as well as using the site to make updates and announcements about STAB and Library programs. (And don't worry, I'll still be using the STABlog to make updates as well http://www.shorstab.blogspot.com/ .) So if you are on MySpace feel free to add me as a "friend" since they don't have an "enemies" or "library board coordinator". I'm also contacting authors as I find them to add them as well. I may also add other teen advisory boards across the country if I feel like it.

Also, don't forget to join the STAB group on MySpace. I'm sure it will be a veritable hoot!

I also want to make clear that if you aren't on MySpace there is no need to join or to ever look at it. I know there has been a lot of news lately about the dangers of MySpace. If you have any concerns about MySpace and want to talk about it, I'll be happy to chat with you. Also, I suppose I should point out that MySpace is currently filtered to to those under the age of 17 in the library, so you will have to find other ways to access the site. Additionally, there are plenty of ads on MySpace, which is a necessary evil, and I doubt I support any of the products they are pitching. Just so you know.

As always, I'm happy to field any questions!

We’ll be having one of our old fashioned STAB meetings next week, Tuesday, July 25th, from 4-6pm. Let me know if you can make it ASAP so I can assign books for your perusal. If you are new to STAB, just let me know if you can come and I’ll explain this all later.

We'll be having a STABBBYA Meeting on Tuesday, June 13th. This will be your second to last chance to tell me about the books you've been reading. See you Tuesday!

Just a reminder that we will be having a STABBBYA Meeting, tomorrow, Tuesday, 4-6pm. Come ready to talk about all the books you love and you love to hate.

Also, a reminder that David Levithan (Boy meets Boy, Are we there yet?, Marley's Ghost, Realm of Possibility) and Rachel Cohn (Gingerbread, Shrimp) will be at 3rd Place Books tomorrow at 7pm to discuss their new book Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. This is not a STAB program but I thought some of you would enjoy seeing them.

Meetings, Letters and Authors:

Many of you have been screaming for a meeting and I aim to please. So, we will have a STABBBYA meeting from 4-6pm on Tuesday June 6th. For those of you new to STAB, all you need to do to prepare for this meeting is read one or more of the books from the "STASH" and talk about it. Let me know if you can make it.

An update on reference letters. Since I was out so long I was unable to write the recommendation letters. I am really sorry about this and hope that none of you were too inconvienced. If there was a problem, let me know and I will see what I can do to rectify the issue. It sounds like many of you found other people to write your letters. Some of you, however, still need a letter. If that is the case, let me know ASAP and I will try and write one up for you. Even if I didn't write you a letter and you need one for college/references let me know and I'll see what we can do about that.

Now for something fun/entertaining. David Levithan and Rachel Cohn, Authors of Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, will be in town. Though it looks unlikely they will visit us here, they will be visiting some local bookstores. I thought you might be interested in seeing them and hearing what they have to say. They will be at the University Bookstore on Monday June 5th at 7pm. They will be at 3rd Place Books on Tuesday Night, June 6th at 7pm. Though this is not an "official" STAB function, I am going to try to go to the 3rd Place Books gathering.

Hope to see you at either the STABBBYA meeting, the book signing or both.