Gross!

Yesterday at the North Branch, we had a truly disgusting program:  Halloween Grossology.  We played CSI: Grossology and used our sense of touch to guess what the different body parts in the bags were actually made of.  We also made fake blood and gave ourselves fake wounds.  I do believe we have some future Crime Scene Investigators and Hollywood makeup artists in our midsts!  Take a look at the pictures below at your own risk!  Some of the fake wounds are very realistic!

 

Making fake wounds is hard work!

Gee kid, maybe you should get that looked at.

ick

Sorry, not even your mom will kiss that mess to make it better!

You can always count on Mom!

Great job!!!!

Are there really brains in that bag? No, just spaghetti!

Smash Bros. Brawl Tourney Winners

Thanks to all who came and participated in the first ever Smash Bros. Brawl Tournament at the North Branch of the Denton Public Library on Saturday, Oct. 24th.  We had hundreds of people pop in to check out the BRAWL madness, and nearly 100 people enter the tournament.  It was a long tournament, but we finally made it through to the end with the top 3 winners as promised.

All three winners received a trophy plaque from DFWgames and various prizes from the Denton Public Library, to include meal and play certificates donated by Gameworks at the Grapevine Mills Mall, Anime dvds donated by Funimation and various manga titles donated by A-Kon and Madness Comic and Games.

We will have another tournament in the future with players separated by skill level to allow recreational players to battle each other in one bracket, while the more professional gamers battle it out in another.

And now for the winners ( identified by their tournament player names):

In the #1 spot – Chuky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the #2 spot – Red Neck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And in the #3 spot – Shamburger

 

Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

I’m sure that Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Dairy Queen is a great book to read, but the audiobook version has been so much fun to listen to so far, that I recommend giving it a listen before giving it a read.  Natalie Moore, a Minnesota native (with the accent to back it up), provides the voice for the story’s narrator and main character,  D.J. Schwenk, a teenage girl who must take care of her parent’s dairy farm while her father recovers from a leg injury.  After tending the farm for the summer and training her rival school’s quarterback, D.J. decides to try out for her high school’s football team without realizing how her family and closest friends will react. 

Tomboys and wallflowers alike will relate to D.J.’s insecurities when it comes to her family, friends and boys.  Murdock gives her teenage narrator an authentic voice and personality that should resonate with most teenage girls, even if they don’t understand what it’s like to wake up before dawn to milk the cows and clean the barn.

-Dana Zakrzewski

Author Gregory Maguire to Visit Denton

On Saturday, November 21, Denton Reads presents Gregory Maguire the notable author of Wicked. He will be visiting the City of Denton to talk about his work latest work Matchless, a haunting re-telling of the classic tale of the The Little Matchgirl. Maguire is a known advocate for literature, literacy and libraries.

This FREE event will be at 6:00PM the TWU MCL Auditorium. Seating is limited and tickets will be issued at the door. Advanced tickets can be reserved at the Denton Reads website .  After the talk Mr. Maguire will be available to sign copies of his books, which will be available for purchase at the event.

Prior to his visit, book discussions of  Wicked will be held at various locations throughout the city.  All are welcome.

Denton Public Library Book Clubs

• 11/03/09 ~ Emily Fowler Library ~ 7pm

• 11/07/09 ~ North Branch Library ~ 11am

TWU Book Club

• 11/11/09 ~ TWU Blagg-Huey Library, room 101 ~ 12pm

UNT Book Club

• 11/09/09 ~ UNT Willis Library, room 035 ~3pm

Banter Book Club

• 11/13/09 ~ Banter @ 219 Oak St., Denton ~ 6:30pm

Barnes & Noble Book Club

• 11/14/09 ~ Barnes & Noble , Golden Triangle Mall, Denton

To RSVP for book clubs (not required but preferred), e-mail Annie Downey at annie.downey@unt.edu.

Since Wicked was first published in 1995, millions of readers have discovered Gregory Maguire’s fantastically encyclopedic Oz, a world filled with characters both familiar and new, darkly conceived, and daringly re-imagined.

Denton Reads is an organization sponsored by the UNT and TWU libraries, the Denton Public Library and the Denton ISD. Denton Reads’ goal is to unite the City of Denton by hosting a lecture by a notable author and featuring discussions of a common text. More information about Denton Reads and its activities can be found at http://dentonreads.unt.edu.

This program was made possible in part with a grant from Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For more information, contact Stacey Irish-Keffer at 940-349-8718 or Stacey.Irish-Keffer@cityofdenton.com or Annita Owens at 940-898-3795 AOwens@mail.twu.edu.

Some Like it Wicked by Teresa Medeiros

The impoverished daughter of a famous London actress sets out collect a generous reward by tracking down the long lost heir to the Duke of Warrick.   But when the trail she follows ends abruptly, she desperately convinces a Scottish highwayman to impersonate the Duke so she  can still collect the money.  Strong characters and humorous situations make Some Like it Wicked a delicious take on the “lost heir” story.

~A Romance in the Stacks Review by Stacey

Want to know more about your favorite romance authors or just looking for something fun to read? Join Romance in the Stacks, the Denton Public Library’s Romance Book Club. For more information call 940-349-8796 or e-mail Kimberly.Wells@cityofdenton.com.

Smash Bros. Tourney Cosplay Winners

We had a HUGE crowd this past Saturday at the North Branch’s Super Smash Bros. tournament.  Soon we’ll post the tournament winners, but in the meantime, check the winners of the cosplay contest:

Devin as Big Boss from Metal Gear - Thining Outside the Box Award

Dylan as Link from Legend of Zelda - Mad Props Award

Robert as Super Mario - Most Manly Mustache Award

Sarah as Tinkerbell from Kingdom Hearts - The Fairest of Them All Award

New Movies

We just ordered these upcoming DVDs, which means you can put them on hold!  Just follow the link and click “Request it” on the left side of the screen.

1.  (500) Days of Summer

2.  All About Steve

3.  District 9

4.  The Hurt Locker

5.  In the Loop

6.  Moon

7.  My One and Only

8.  Shorts

EMILY FOWLER CENTRAL LIBRARY PUMPKIN CONTEST RESULTS

 The customers voted and the winner is ….. the skeleton looking up its family, designed and decorated by the Genealogy staff. 

The Winner!

 It’s a little early, but staff at the branches are already getting into the mood.  Why not drop in and see what you can scare up by Halloween?

Jack-o-Lanterns at Emily Fowler

The Emily Fowler Library needs your help!  

The Headless Horseman dropped by the library and left some of his spare noggins.  Instead of losing their own heads, the three library teams (Circulation, Geneology, and Reference) are having a horrifying Halloween competition to see which group has the best pumpkin carving skills!  The three entries are on display near the fireplace at Fowler, and we need you to pick the winner.

Come vote for your favorite spooky spectacle at the Emily Fowler Library!

 

Let the Wild Rumpus Start…

If you didn’t already know, Spike Jonze’s film rendition of Where the Wild Things Are comes out today, and at the North Branch we celebrated with an afternoon of Monstrous activities.  We started with Mo Willem’s story about a little monster that couldn’t frighten anybody–Leonardo, the Terrible Monster. 

Next, since everybody needs a snack, we decorated our own monster cookies!  It was messy but fun!!!

After that, we read a brand new monster book that is both funny and practical–How to Potty Train Your Monster. 

We took a break from the books with a little monster trivia and then read one of the greatest books of all time (in my humble opinion)–Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

Finally, we created our own tribute to Sendak’s work by making Wild Things puppets that are perfect for telling our own monster stories!