Teen Open Game Night is back.  Friday January 30 is the first game night of the year from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the Hewlett Room at GPL. Teens ages 13-18 are welcome. Play Nintendo Wii and PS2.   We have 2 projectors for bigger than life action and two tv’s.  Show off your moves with DDR and Guitar Hero. Challenge someone to a board game or card game. Bring your own games and your friends. We’ll have drinks and munchies on hand.  Teen Open Game Night is sponsored by the TAB (Teen Advisory Board) at GPL.

The Graveyard Book

by Neil Gaiman

Read this book.

The first reason to read this book is because it begins with this sentence: “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.” The second reason to read this book is because of, well, all the sentences that follow. Though it’s not as simple as that. It never is with Neil Gaiman.

“The Graveyard Book” is the story of a child who unknowingly escapes a sharp death-a death intended by the hand and the knife alluded to above. While his family is being slashed in their sleep, the boy climbs free of his crib and stumbles out of his home and into a nearby graveyard, where a pair of ghosts decide to take the child in and raise him as their son. Since the boy has no name, since he is basically nobody, his name becomes Nobody Owens, which eventually is shortened to Bod. Not Bob. The Owens ghosts raise the boy with the help of a mysterious person who is almost certainly-though Gaiman never actually uses the word-a vampire. A good vampire.

Bod is given the Freedom of the Graveyard, which bestows upon him a number of special abilities, like slipping through walls and down through tombstones into dark recesses where ghosts abide. He can see spirits and commune with them; he can Fade into nothing so that people’s glances slide off him and he is forgotten just as swiftly, like he never existed. Mostly his presence is like a thin wisp no one ever notices. Like a ghost.

As each chapter progresses, Bod gets a little older. We get to know the strange and compelling denizens of the graveyard. Some are ghastly and gruesome, like the ghouls who come from the ancient and forsaken city of Ghulheim. Some characters are uproariously funny, like the dead poet Nehemiah Trot, who serves as a brilliant comic release to the story. All the characters, though, are unique and vivid, and linger long in the mind.

Like all fiction by Gaiman, the real charm in “The Graveyard Book” is in the story telling. The way the author masterfully weaves all the strands together like the most skilled prestigitator-a magician of the highest rank. I get the sense that Gaiman is always there in the background smiling at me, mischievously, a hand outstretched to offer something of tremendous value, though each time he pulls back right before I can clamp my finger around the treasure. And I know that by the end of the story I’ll get that treasure.

I have never encountered a book by Gaiman that did not thrill me. Whether you are a teenager or a retiree, this book will delight you. The catharsis at the end will make you want to live a richer life, a fuller life, for that is ultimately what the book is about. The celebration of life.

If you like this book try these books by Neil Gaiman: Stardust, Coraline,  The Wolves in the Walls,  M is for Magic,  Interworld,  Beowulf, or the biography on Neil Gaiman.

Review by Billy Cryer
Library Assistant
Georgetown Public Library

Here is your chance to say what the library should be doing and how GPL can best communicate with you.  There are two short surveys.  The first survey has questions on what kinds of materials (ex. books, movies, magazines) the library should buy and what types of programs (ex. video games, crafts, author visits) aimed at teens you would like to attend.  The second survey has questions on how you would like to receive information from the library (ex. Facebook, MySpace, texts).  We are looking for the opinions of teens ages 12-18.

Take both surveys for a chance to win one of either a $50 gift card to Target or a Simon gift card good at Wolf Ranch Shopping Center.

Click on the following links to take the surveys.

Teen Services Survey

Teen Communication Survey

Thanks for your help in making the library a better place for you.