SGPL Teens

Hello Again!
Here is what I am excited about this week!

• William Shatner (Aparently he has a new book coming out about his favorite subject! William Shatner!)



• The Vancouver Canucks (They are off to a great start in the first round of the playoffs! Leading their series 3-1!)



• The Impending Canadian Federal Election! (Even if you can't vote! Watching the political fabric of Canada change is fun! It's like watching history happen live!)

Here are a few things that I think are kind of lame:

• Tokyopop, one of North America's biggest Manga publishers is closing up shop in North America, this makes me sad. I didn't read that much that was published by them, but what I did (Cowboy Bebop, PLANETES, Snow Goddess Tales, Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad... ) I really enjoyed. I think comic book shelves in libraries will look strange without them.



• The Toronto Blue Jays! After having an amazing start to the season, they are now losing to the worst team in the American League! THE BOSTON RED SOX!

Library Time!

I am going into my third week at the Spruce Grove Library and I have to say that I am getting very excited. This summer we have some exciting programs coming up like the Summer Reading Club for kids of all ages. As we get closer to the launch, we'll be revealing more information like prizes and fun programs that we will be offering this summer!

I'm also having a lot of fun at the programs we are currenlty offering! Like Teen Media Night and Ready Set Action! I could try and describe what we do at these programs, but it would probably be better just to check out our youtube channel. Let's just say that if you have energy and imagination, then these are the programs for you!

Comic Book Movies!

There are several comic book movies coming out this summer: X-Men First Class, Green Lantern, Thor, Captain America just to name a few. Which is very exciting if you are super hero fan like me!

But!
I have found that I am increasinlgy less interested in movies based on Superheroes! They are all special effects extragavaganzas that involve lots of punching! Which is fun! But after ten years of this stuff (Going back to when the first Spider-Man movie came out) I am ready for comic book movies based on non-superhero comics!

Here are some great comics that I would love to see as movies:

Jeff Smith's Bone! - A wonderful fantasy story involving dragons, rat creatures and cow races!

Aaron Renier's Spiral Bound - A group of young animals struggle to find their artistic voices during summer break AND figure out the secret of the Monster in the Pond!

Faith Erin Hick's War at Ellsmere - A new student a prestigious boarding school quickly finds that fitting in is hard.

David Petersen's Mouse Guard - Warrior Mice! Riding Rabits! Fighting Crabs and Weasels!

Tim Eldred's Grease Monkey - The future is awesome! Humans and Super Evolved Gorillas have teamed up to build an intergalactic space force to protect earth!
Anyway, that's just my two cents. As always, you can find great graphic novels at the Spruce Grove Library!

Come by to the library and read some comics! Also, don't forget to come by for Free Comic Book Day on May 7th!

HELLO!

Hi there! My name is Brian and I'm going to be the new Children and Youth Services Librarian at the Spruce Grove library. I'm very excited to be here and can't wait to get to know the Spruce Grove Community.

Here are a few things that I like:

• I like Comic Books and Manga.


• I like playing soccer, but I can't stand watching it on TV.


• My favorite movie is Varsity Blues, but I don't really understand football. In fact, I played a season of Football when I was 12 and didn't catch a single ball.


• I really like board games like "Settlers of Catan"


• I like Comic Books and Manga.

COMIC BOOKS!

I really like Comic Books. I can't really remember a time when I wasn't reading them. Back when I was younger, I would look at all the pictures and make up stories in my head because I couldn't actually read the words. If I was lucky, my grand father would read some of the words to me, which was pretty amazing because suddenly all the pictures had an entirely different story. To this day, I have fun reading comics in other languages, because it means I get to make up my own stories just like when I was little.

Anyway, this is all a roundabout way of saying that one of my goals here at the Spruce Grove Library is to build up our comic book and graphic novel collection. It is already fairly awesome, but I plan on bringing in even more awesomeness!

(We are also going to be bringing back the comic book/manga club for Teens soon. But I'll write more about that in a later post.)

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN

Anyway! One of the comics I plan on bringing is ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN! We actually have a good chunk of the Ultimate Spider-Man collection already, but we were missing a few of the last volumes so we are soon going to have a near-complete collection.

So why do I like Ultimate Spider-Man? Well for starters it is a modern retelling of one of the greatest stories of all time! Which means that you don't actually have to read any other Spider-Man comics! If you go into a comic book store today you'll find that if you want to catch up with the original Spider-Man comic you will have to read over 600 comics! But with Ultimate Spider-Man all you have to start with is the first book!

Another thing a like about Ultimate Spider-Man is that it is all about Spider-Man when he was in high school! In it you get to see Spider-Man:

• Get his first job!


• Play on the Basketball Team!


• Meet his first girlfriend!


• Move in with Iceman and the Human Torch!


• Meet his second girlfriend!


• Work at a fast food restraunt!


• Meet his third girlfriend!


• Team up with the X-Men!


• Break up with all of his girlfriends!

For some reason, I think the best parts of Spider-Man aren't when he is beating up bad guys, but when he is dealing with real life stuff, like being late for class or trying to explain to his Aunt May why his hair is on fire (or something like that) and Ultimate Spider-Man is Full of Stuff like that! Anyway, if any of this sounds interesting to you! Check out the Spruce Grove Library catalog and place a hold on Ultimate Spider-Man RIGHT NOW!

GOODBYE!

Wow. I ended up writing way more than I intended. But I am really excited to be here! If there are any Comics or Manga that we don't have and you think we should! Be sure to let me know, I'm always looking for new good stuff. Even movies and books too!

You can check out our comic collection here: http://www.sprucegrovelibrary.org/ and e-mail me here: brian@sprucegrovelibrary.org .

Anyway! Next time you are in the library come by, say hi! and come tell me what you like!

Brian!

UPDATE!!!

I just found out there is going to be an Ultimate Spider-Man Cartoon debuting this FALL! You can read more about it HERE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Spider-Man_(TV_series)

So if you want to read the entire series before the cartoon comes out! Best to Start RIGHT AWAY: http://www.sprucegrovelibrary.org/