Coming Soon: Wreck It Ralph

Why I'm excited at the moment:

Wreck-It-Ralph, coming this November, is a brand new cartoon from Disney that features John C. Reilly as a video game villain who is tired of being the bad guy.  In an attempt to feel better about himself, Ralph hightails it out of his arcade game and begins experimenting in other games.  The below clip shows some pretty hilarious meetings with Jane Lynch in a war game, and Sara Silverman in a super-sweet and girly game called Sugar Rush.  But aside from the cool actors behind the scenes, I and I think most other video game lovers will be most frantic at seeing some of our favorite bad guys from real-life video games appearing in Ralph's support group.  I got a glimpse of King Koopa from Super Mario Brothers, Dr. Robotnik from Sonic the Hedgehog, and even a ghost from our beloved Pac Man.

I cannot contain myself.  Can you?

Pieces of Programming: Drama Club Spring Session Wrap-Up

Aside from my duties as a teen librarian, I keep my connection with the tweens by running our Youth Services Drama Club.  I think I inherited the club just by it being an open opportunity but now that I've had it for a while, and can see some of my tweens reaching the age that gets them into teen activities and the teen room, I can appreciate the bond it has helped me form with them so that it will continue once they are full-fledged teens.

The Spring Session was my best to date, I believe, and in it, I introduced three great things that helped me maintain my sanity:

Summer Reading Has Begun! (And I Think They Actually Like it)

What a couple of weeks it has been!
Summer Reading has officially begun here in my library, and with it came our first teen-focused program.  Heroes & Villains is off to a booming start, with over 25 teens signed up (HUGE for teenagers), and some even having reached a checkpoint already.
There are a lot of little components, which confused me for a while, but I think I've finally gotten it to the point where it is easy to digest.
So, here's the final rundown of our Heroes & Villains SRP Kickoff!

Marketing & Materials

Each teen that signs up receives a contact card (punch card):

Teens can "check-in" with us once a week to receive a punch on their card for any ONE spaces.  They turn in a Debriefing form{below} with a short review and we check to make sure the space they're getting a punch for is the same as the one on their form.  A completed card is their entry into our grand prize raffle!  Thanks to a generous donation from our library Friends group, we are able to offer a Kindle Fire AND a Wireless Gaming chair as our 2 grand prizes.

Now, my other concern was how to keep them interested throughout the summer.  One huge draw for them is that they can turn in as many forms as they wish per week, so even though they only get one punch on their card, and can only win a grand prize from those, they can enter as many forms as they want for chances to win weekly raffles as well.