YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association)  Top Ten Teen Books List.

Teens chose the following 10 books as this year's Top Ten.  What do YOU think?

The 2009 Teens’ Top Ten book picks were announced on October 16, and John Green’s Paper Towns (Dutton) hit the number one spot.

1. Paper Towns by John Green (Penguin/Dutton)
2. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
3. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
4. City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare (Simon & Schuster/Margaret K. McElderry)
5. Identical by Ellen Hopkins (Simon & Schuster/Margaret K. McElderry)
6. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)
7. Wake by Lisa McMann (Simon & Schuster/Simon Pulse)
8. Untamed by P.C. and Kristin Cast (St. Martin's Griffin)
9. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart (Disney-Hyperion)
10. Graceling by Kristin Cashore (Harcourt/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Teen Read Week Survey Results:   Since the survey did not ask for names, the winners were notified by email today.  And the library is using email addresses to identify those winners.  So check your email. You might be a winner!

Here are some results from the survey:

Of the survey takers, close to 65% prefer fiction as leisure reading.  14% will read "anything I can get my hands on".  Almost 10% preferred non-fiction.

Most survey takers get their reading material from chain bookstores - 62%.  This question allowed more than one answer.  Even still, 45% responded that they got leisure reading from the public library.  Hmmm, is this because teens want to OWN books rather than merely borrow them?  OR is there another reason?  Comments welcome.

An overwhelming majority of respondents (87.8%) preferred traditional print, books and magazines, to other media.

Fantasy is the favorite genre - no surprise there - with Humor and Suspense coming in second as "Absolute favorite".

Most respondents agreed that books and stories about other places and times and about things that could never happen in this world drew them in.  Books that caused the reader to feel deep emotions and books that solve puzzle that reader had to solve were also popular.

So what did the library learn from this survey?  Teens in the Parkland area like to Read Beyond Reality - fantasy, suspense and adventure.  They also want books that make them think. 

Thanks for taking the survey!  Keep reading.

Vampires!  More and More and (gasp) MORE Vampires!   Look for the new P.C. Cast novel and Melissa De La Cruz's Blue Bloods series to appear - as if by magic - on the YA shelves.  What is this obsession with blood sucking undead? 

 Teens Telling Tales meets on the first Tuesday of every month from 7:30 to 8:30 pm.  Help with Youth Services programs; compete in storytelling competitions; learn how to present stories to audiences, solo or in a group.  For more info, call Karen Maurer at 610-398-1361 ext. 19.

Here is a link to some new reviews written by teens.  The link comes from a librarian's e-newsletter. 

YA magazines have been relocated to the center shelves under the YA Fiction sign.  The library currently receives:

• GameInformer - magazine for gamers and gaming aficianados 
• Teen Vogue - for young fashionistas
• Shonen Jump - "The world's most popular manga" Comic selections from the most popular weekly manga magazine in Japan.

Do you want to know what our YS staff is reading, thinking about reading or doing?  Check out the YS blog.  Warning:  The YS staff reads books for younger readers, too!