A note from Luke:

On Friday and Saturday Sturgis and Wheldon libraries will be hosting an auction at BWB. We need volunteers for setup at 4:30PM on Friday which will count as community service, and at 7:00AM the following Saturday for bringing in antiques. Also on Saturday (This is the good part) the dealers will tip you for bringing in antiques for them. Please respond if you can attend to lukestarr21@gmail.com.

Meeting Confusion! :)

Hi guys! OK, after a little confusion we have figured out when the next meeting is going to be :

TUESDAY APRIL 29th 4:29 - 5:29

See you then! :)

Next Meeting!

April vacation is just around the corner! YAHOO! Do you all want to meet before April vacation? I was thinking that we could have a meeting on Tuesday April 15Th? Send me a note and let me know how that date works for you......

DDR & Guitar Hero Fun!

Hi Guys!
SO the Marstons Mills Teen Group "The Bookies" have challenged TAG to a DDR and Guitar Hero competition! I will be working with Heidi (Marstons Mills Youth Service Librarian) to figure out a "Dance Off" Date! I will let you guys know when we come up with a date and we can plan from there!

Obama

Obama is very popular for the taTAG group of Barnstable. My whole family will be leavng on night of the 18th to go to PA!! We as a family support Barack Obama's Camain. If you could write it the coments wnho you are and why u give your support to him!!

{Posted By:Henry}

And the Winner is......

It looks like Barack Obama won the most votes in our last on-line poll! Thanks for voting! :)

Five Fav's!

Hi guys!

Just a reminder to send along your five favorite books so that I can showcase them in our YA area in the library! You will be famous! :)

I love the idea of a movie night! Let's check with your families about who will be here over April vacation and who will be traveling. If we can't make it happen during school break we will find a time for movie night when everyone returns back to the Cape...

See you all at the next meeting on Tuesday, April Fool's Day! at 4:30! Bring a game from home and I will bring the snacks! :)

See you soon!

TAG FUN! :)

Hey guys!
Thanks for the great TAG meeting yesterday! We now have lots of fun ideas and possible field trips to look into....Maybe even a fundraiser!? And a dance!? See you all on Tuesday, March 25th at 4:30. Hey, bring a friend along! See you soon! :)

Out of The Dust -Karen Hesse

(book report book, was told to post it)

Karen Hesses’s Out of the Dust was a brilliantly written historical fiction novel. Written in free verse poetry but not formed grammatically like poetry. Each poem acts as a chapter telling the story of a long legged girl by the name of Billy Jo.

Set in a small town in the pan handle of Oklahoma during the dust bowl of the 30s. Out of the dust was described vividly. Occasionally, she would have a poem dedicated to the scenery and the weather which were generally short but fascinating.

The characters in Out of the Dust even if they aren’t mentioned massively are still extraordinarily important. Billie Jo was the main protagonist and she told the story from a first person point of view. Her physical appearance and actions are largely influenced by her father, who seemed to love her but not know how he might show her this love. Her mother influenced her thoughts and academics. Before the mother’s death Billie Jo played piano, which her mother had taught her nearly every chance she got. Her flying fingers made Billie Jo feel more like her mother. Her mother also saved money and encouraged her daughter not to spend a cent if unnecessary. After her mother passed away during the birth of her only brother, who also died in delivery, Billie Jo thought of nothing but her mother.

Billy Jo was submitted to two major conflicts as a child, her mother died when she was 14 and her family has hardly any money because of the droughts and frequent dust storms. One morning a bucket of kerosene, a type of flammable gas, was left next to the stove, thinking it to be water Billie Jo’s mother tossed it onto the stove to put out the burner. Instantly the stove caught fire. Both Billie Jo and her mother received severe burns; the mother’s burns covered her whole body while Billie Jo’s only covered her hands. When her already pregnant mother finally went into labor the burns complicated matters and both the baby and the mother died. The dust bowl of the 1930s was an extremely hard era for families in the mid west. The families were mostly farmers so when they destroyed the soil from over use, the families had no source of income. Billie Jo was part of one of these families. Since her family was lacking in money she felt the hardship every where.

Hesse’s theme was most likely that life throws a lot of dirt at you but eventually you will wash the dirt off and become the happy clean person you were before. This was shown first in the poverty she put the family through so much that she mentions the dimes her mother was saving so she could send Billie Jo to college to study music. A few was not very likely to get a girl through college but her family was so poor it seemed like a lot. The next dirt clod that hit Billie Jo was the Dust Bowl in general, the dust storms could be so strong that they would cover your plate the moment you turned it over and make straight milk look like chocolate milk the instant it hit the glass. Finally, her mother died from burns that covered her pregnant body, “Daddy/has made a tent out of a sheet over Ma/so that nothing will touch her skin/what skin she has left.”

The plot design was extraordinarily simple. Everything happened when it should. There was no foreshadowing or sudden relevance of past events. The climax was in the middle of the book and the resolution the end. Hesse didn’t do anything to throw you off,

Though it doesn’t seem entrancing, Hesse’s poetic writing kept me reading for hours until I finally reached the end of the book. The poems were short so they kept my interest and would probably keep the interest of many others. Each poem had a different topic going in chronological order of what happened to Billie Jo. The book was a bit fast at times, some stories in the book I wished were longer. The book wasn’t suspenseful but it wasn’t predictable either. You knew Billie Jo wanted to run away the whole book but you weren’t positive if she actually would or not, not until right when it happened. Writing in first person seems like her only good option in this book and thankfully she did write in first person. You really needed to know all of Billie Jo’s thoughts for it to be any more than a whiney poor girl living in a poor family during the dust bowl.

Even with all of these faults the book was still fantastic and read nearly straight through. The book generally should have been longer and a bit more in depth on what life was like. Though it was categorized as historical-fiction it read and felt more like a classic young adult fiction tale. Like a simple love ballad Karen Hesse kept it simple but if she had done more you would have been disappointed and over whelmed. Just like sometimes you’re in the mood for a simple love ballad, sometime you’re in the mood for a simple short story.

Hello! :)

My name is Karen Murdoch and I am so excited to be the new Youth Service Librarian at Sturgis Library! I live in Chatham, Mass with my husband Dave and our Bernese Mountain dog, Bruce. Sturgis is a familiar place with many familiar faces for me, since I use to run the F.U.N. Programs here, many years ago. I can’t wait to see everyone again and to meet new faces! Please stop by the Children’s area and say hello!