September Book Discussion: Paper Towns

Join us for our book discussion on Wednesday, September 23rd at 2pm!

Paper Towns by John Green

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back in the middle of the night – dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge – he follows.

After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discver that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues – and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew. – from publisher

For Teens in grades 7-12.
Pick up a copy at the Circulation desk one month prior! Also available as a book on CD, eBook, Playaway, and sound recording download.

May Book Discussion: Fallen by Lauren Kate

Come to our book discussion on Thursday, May 21st at 7pm!

Fallen by Lauren Kate

There’s something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.

Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce Price’s attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at the Sword & Cross boarding school in sultry Savannah, Georgia. He’s the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are all screw-ups, and security cameras watch every move.

Even though Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce – and goes out of his way to make that very clear – she can’t let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, she has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret … even if it kills her. – from the publisher

For Teens in grades 7-12.
Pick up a copy at the Circulation desk one month prior! Also available as a book on CD, sound recording download, and eBook.

April Book Discussion: Delirium

Come to our book discussion on Friday, April 17th at 3pm!

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

In an alternate United States, love has been declared a dangerous disease, and the government forces everyone who reaches eighteen to have a procedure called the Cure. Living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in Portland, Maine, Lena Haloway is very much looking forward to being cured and living a safe, predictable life. She watched love destroy her mother and isn’t about to make the same mistakes.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena meets enigmatic Alex, a boy from the Wilds who lives under the government’s radar. What will happen if they do the unthinkable and fall in love? – from the publisher

For Teens in grades 7-12.
Pick up a copy at the Circulation desk one month prior. Also available as a book on CD and as an ebook.

March Book Discussion: How I Live Now

Come to our book discussion on Friday, March 13th at 3pm!

Fifteen-year-old Daisy is sent from Manhattan to England to visit her aunt and cousins she’s never met: three boys near her age, and their little sister. Her aunt goes away on business soon after Daisy arrives. The next day bombs go off as London is attacked and occupied by an unnamed enemy.

As power fails, and systems fail, the farm becomes more isolated. Despite the war, it’s a kind of Eden, with no adults in charge and no rules, a place where Daisy’s uncanny bond with her cousins grows into something rare and extraordinary. But the war is everywhere, and Daisy and her cousins must lead each other into a world that is unknown in the scariest, most elemental way. – from the publisher

For Teens in grades 7-12.
Pick up a copy at the Circulation desk one month prior! Also available as a book on CD and as an ebook.

February Book Discussion: Blood & Chocolate

Come to our book discussion on Wednesday, February 18th at 3pm!

Sixteen-year-old Vivian Gandillon is trying to fit in to her new home in the suburbs. But trying to act ‘normal’ isn’t always easy, since Vivian and her family are werewolves. It’s glorious to have the power to change, and Vivian is a beautiful loup-garou with all the young wolves howling for her. But she wants no part of her squabbling pack, left leaderless by her father’s recent death.

Then Vivian falls in love with a human, a meat-boy. If she reveals herself, will he relish the magic of her dual nature? When a brutal murder threatens the pack’s survival, Vivian’s divided loyalties are further divided. What is she really? Human or beast?

For Teens in grades 7-12.
Pick up a copy of the book one month prior at the Circulation desk! Also available as a book on CD.

January Book Discussion: The Maze Runner

Come to our book discussion on Thursday, January 22nd at 7pm!

Sixteen year old Thomas wakes up with no memory in the middle of a maze and realizes he must work with the community in which he finds himself if he is to escape.

For Teens in grades 7-12. Open to all teens who have *read* the book.
Pick up a copy at the Circulation desk one month prior! Also available as an e-book, and sound recording download.

Substance Abuse Bibliography: Young Adult Literature About Addiction

Anderson, Laurie Halse. The impossible knife of memory. 2014.
Enduring a transient existence before starting school in her Iraq War veteran father’s hometown, a troubled Hayley Kincaid longs for a normal life and pursues a relationship with a secretive boy before her father’s PTSD leads to a disturbing drug problem.

Anonymous. Go Ask Alice. 1971.
Based on the dairy of a fifteen-year-old drug user chronicling her daily struggle to escape the pull of the drug world.

Anonymous. Lucy in the sky. 2012.
A diary by an unnamed drug addict from an upper middle-class neighborhood in Santa Monica documents the ruination of her life after experimenting with drugs and alcohol at a party, after which she rejects everything she once cared about.

Barnes, John. Tales of the Madman Underground: (an historical romance 1973). 2009.
In September 1973, as the school year begins in his depressed Ohio town, high-school senior Kurt Shoemaker determines to be “normal,” despite his chaotic home life with his volatile, alcoholic mother and the deep loyalty and affection he has for his friends in the therapy group dubbed the Madman Underground.

Bloor, Edward. A Plague Year. 2011.
When a crystal meth epidemic tears through his Pennsylvania coal-mining town in 2001, Tom, a supermarket employee who dreams of escaping to college, finds inspiration in the heroism of the passengers of United Flight 93.

Burgess, Melvin. The Hit. 2014.
There is a new drug on the mean streets of Manchester which promises the most intense week of your life, and then you are dead – and after he watches a pop star die on stage, Adam thinks that his own life is so miserable that he might just as well try it.

Chbosky, Stephen. The perks of being a wallflower. 1999.
This is the story of what it’s like to grow up in high school.

Hinton, S.E. That was then, this is now. 1998, 1971.
Sixteen-year-old Mark and Bryon have been like brothers since childhood, but now, as their involvement with girls, gangs, and drugs increases, their relationship seems to gradually disintegrate.

Hopkins, Ellen. Crank. 2004.
Kristina Snow is the perfect daughter, but she meets a boy who introduces her to drugs and she becomes a very different person, struggling to control her life and her mind. The other two books in the trilogy are Glass and Fallout.

Leavitt, Martine. My book of life by Angel. 2012.
Sixteen-year-old Angel struggles to free herself from the trap of prostitution and drug abuse in which she is caught.

Lipsyte, Robert. Raiders Night. 2006.
Matt Rydeck, co-captain of his high school football team, endures a traumatic season as he witnesses a vicious assault of a rookie player by teammates and grapples with his own use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Maia, Love. DJ Rising. 2012.
Sixteen-year-old Marley Diego-Dylan’s career as “DJ Ice” is skyrocketing, but his mom’s heroin addiction keeps dragging him back to earth.

Marchetta, Melina. Jellicoe Road. 2008, 2006.
Abandoned by her drug-addicted mother at the age of eleven, high school student Taylor Markham struggles with her identity and family history at a boarding school in Australia.

Martinez, Jessica. Virtuosity. 2011.
Just before the most important violin competition of her career, seventeen-year-old prodigy Carmen faces critical decisions about her anti-anxiety drug addiction, her controlling mother, and potential romance with her most talented rival.

McCormick, Patricia. My brother’s keeper. 2005.
Thirteen-year-old Toby, a prematurely gray-haired Pittsburgh Pirates fan and baseball card collector, tries to cope with his brother’s drug use, his father’s absence, and his mother dating Stanley the Food King.

Myers, Walter Dean. The Beast. 2003.
A visit to his Harlem neighborhood and the discovery that the girl he loves is using drugs give sixteen-year-old Anthony Witherspoon a new perspective both on his home and on his life at a Connecticut prep school.

Myers, Walter Dean. Dope Sick. 1999.
Seeing no way out of his difficult life in Harlem, seventeen-year-old Jeremy “Lil J” Dance flees into a house after a drug deal goes awry and meets a weird man who shows different turning points in Lil J’s life when he could have made better choices.

Nelson, Blake. Recovery Road. 2011.
While she is in a rehabilitation facility for drug and alcohol abuse, seventeen-year-old Maddie meets Stewart, who is also in treatment, and they begin a relationship, which they try to maintain after they both get out.

Rapp, Adam. Punkzilla. 2009.
A runaway boy nicknamed Punkzilla who sustains himself on the streets of Portland through petty crimes decides to try to kick his meth habit, turn his life around, and go on a journey to Tennessee to visit his dying older brother.

Reed, Amy. Clean. 2011.
A group of teens in a Seattle-area rehabilitation center form an unlikely friendship as they begin to focus less on their own problems by reaching out to help a new member, who seems to have even deeper issues to resolve.

Whaley, John Corey. Where Things Come Back. 2011.
Seventeen-year-old Cullen’s summer in Lily, Arkansas, is marked by his cousin’s death by overdose, an alleged spotting of a woodpecker thought to be extinct, failed romances, and his younger brother’s sudden disappearance.

Woodson, Jacqueline. Beneath a meth moon: an elegy. 2012.
After losing her mother and grandmother to Hurricane Katrina, Laurel Daneau begins a new life in a new town, but when her boyfriend T-Boom introduces her to meth, her future begins to look as bleak as her past.

Local and National Resources for Drug Abuse and Addiction

On March 27, 2014 the Cold Spring Harbor Library & Environmental Center will be hosting a panel discussion, “Start the Conversation … Save a Life,” about substance-abuse awareness. Here is a list of local and national resources about drug abuse and addiction. All information is current as of March 8, 2014.

CASAColumbia
1 (212) 841-5200 – phones answered during normal business hours, Monday-Friday
CASAColumbia informs Americans of the economic and social costs of addiction and risky substance abuse and its impact on their lives; assesses what works in prevention, treatment and disease management; and encourages every individual and institution to take responsibility to reduce these health problems. CASAColumbia strives to provide health care providers, policymakers and individuals with the tools they need to succeed and to remove the stigma of addiction, replacing shame and despair with hope.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
The CDC is the nation’s health protection agency, working 24/7 to protect America from health and safety threats, both foreign and domestic. The CDC conducts critical science and provides health information that protects our nation against expensive and dangerous health threats, and responds when these arise.

Life Center Counseling & Health Services
1 (631) 673-5433
When people’s lives are bombarded by a variety of external stressors, Life Center Counseling & Health Services is there to provide a safe and caring environment under one roof, where people can recognize their strengths and take an active role in creating positive changes for personal growth and overall wellness. The Life Center offers counseling, wellness services, workshops and classes in Huntington.

Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence
Nassau County: 1 (516) 747-2606
Suffolk County: 1 (631) 979-1700
LICADD is Long Island’s premier provider of substance abuse services and evidence-based prevention programs. It has served Long Island for more than five decades and remains focused on addressing our region’s opiate crisis by addressing regional gaps in access to behavioral health care, pushing for comprehensive school-based prevention programs and fighting for responsible public health policies that make our communities safer and healthier.

Narcotics Anonymous
NA World Services 1 (818) 773-9999
“Narcotics Anonymous offers recovery to addicts around the world. We focus on the disease of addiction rather than any particular drug. Our message is broad enough to attract addicts from any social class or nationality. When new members come to meetings, our sole interest is in their desire for freedom from active addiction and how we can be of help.” (It Works: How and Why, “Third Tradition”).

 Nar-Anon Family Groups World Services
The Nar-Anon Family Groups are a worldwide fellowship for hose affected by someone else’s addiction. Nar-Anon members are relatives and friends who are concerned about the addiction or drug problem of another.

National Institute on Drug Abuse: The Science of Drug Abuse & Addiction
The National Institute on Drug Abuse’s (NIDA) mission is to lead the Nation in bringing the power of science to bear on drug abuse and addiction.

National Suicide and Prevention Lifeline
Skilled, trained counselors available 24/7 at 1 (800) 273-TALK    / 1 (800) 273-8255
If you feel you are in a crisis, whether or not you are thinking of suicide, please call the Lifeline. People have called the Lifeline for help with substance abuse, economic worries, relationship and family problems, sexual orientation, illness, getting over abuse, depression, mental and physical illness, and even loneliness.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
1 (877) SAMHSA-7
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is the agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services that leads public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation. SAMHSA’s mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America’s communities.

Attention Aspiring Filmmakers!

Want to create a film that will

  • showcase your skills
  • possibly win you acclaim (well, at least with Teen Services…)
  • be useful for when you DO apply to film school
  • AND showcase your vision for the 2012 Teen Summer Reading program at the Cold Spring Harbor Library?

The video challenge is state-wide, and open to any New York State resident between the ages of 13 and 18. You can do this solo, or with friends.

More information on the Challenge (and guidelines) can be found here.

Resources to help you create an amazing video are here.

Everything is due on March 5, 2012.