The Lorax

Events at Springfield City Library

Two great teen programs are coming up on Tuesday, November 7, at the Springfield City Library. 

One is a series of Comics Drawing classes that meets Tuesdays and Thursdays through November 14, at the Central Library, starting at 3:00.  

The other is an Open Mic/Arts Night at the Mason Square Branch Library with sign-ups starting at 5:30. Youth 15-25 are encouraged to share poems, spoken word, music, digital work and other creations that imagine how our city can be more peaceful, or reflect how violence has affected someone.

Library Word of the Week

Halloween is next week, so this week's word is a little scary. 

Phantasm

1:  a product of fantasy: asa :  delusive appearance :  illusionb :  ghost, specterc :  a figment of the imagination

2 :  a mental representation of a real object


Examples of PHANTASM

1. <frightened by the phantasms of his own making>

1. <believed that she'd seen the phantasm of her father on the anniversary of his death>

Origin of PHANTASM

Middle English fantasme, from Anglo-French fantosme, fantasme, from Latin phantasma, from Greek, from phantazein to present to the mind — more at fancy
First Known Use: 13th century

I should have known...

(excerpt from Campus Daze: Easing the Transition from High School to College)

• To read more in high school and how to read faster. 
• To write more in high school, and learn how to write better. 
• That if you wait until vacation to catch up on your school work and sleep, you'll get neither and will ruin your vacation to boot. 
• What it's like to be completely on my own, making all my own decisions. 
• To take things as they come; not to get uptight before I know what's going on. 
• That there is more the learning than what happens in the classroom or while reading. Learning also comes from what happens outside the classroom. 
• The difference between genius and stupudity is that genius has its limits. 

Author: George Gibbs. 

This is a book we now have in the library. There is some great advice about how to survive (and thrive!) your first year of college. 

Springfield College Open House

Please see their website at: http://www.spfldcol.edu/SCOpenHouse#.Uma7oHBJOSo for futher information and to sign up!

Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming

• Neil Gaiman
• theguardian.com, Tuesday 15 October 2013 09.51 EDT

t's important for people to tell you what side they are on and why, and whether they might be biased. A declaration of members' interests, of a sort. So, I am going to be talking to you about reading. I'm going to tell you that libraries are important. I'm going to suggest that reading fiction, that reading for pleasure, is one of the most important things one can do. I'm going to make an impassioned plea for people to understand what libraries and librarians are, and to preserve both of these things.

And I am biased, obviously and enormously: I'm an author, often an author of fiction. I write for children and for adults. For about 30 years I have been earning my living though my words, mostly by making things up and writing them down. It is obviously in my interest for people to read, for them to read fiction, for libraries and librarians to exist and help foster a love of reading and places in which reading can occur.

So I'm biased as a writer. But I am much, much more biased as a reader. And I am even more biased as a British citizen.

And I'm here giving this talk tonight, under the auspices of the Reading Agency: a charity whose mission is to give everyone an equal chance in life by helping people become confident and enthusiastic readers. Which supports literacy programs, and libraries and individuals and nakedly and wantonly encourages the act of reading. Because, they tell us, everything changes when we read.

And it's that change, and that act of reading that I'm here to talk about tonight. I want to talk about what reading does. What it's good for.

I was once in New York, and I listened to a talk about the building of private prisons – a huge growth industry in America. The prison industry needs to plan its future growth – how many cells are they going to need? How many prisoners are there going to be, 15 years from now? And they found they could predict it very easily, using a pretty simple algorithm, based on asking what percentage of 10 and 11-year-olds couldn't read. And certainly couldn't read for pleasure.

It's not one to one: you can't say that a literate society has no criminality. But there are very real correlations.

And I think some of those correlations, the simplest, come from something very simple. Literate people read fiction.

Fiction has two uses. Firstly, it's a gateway drug to reading. The drive to know what happens next, to want to turn the page, the need to keep going, even if it's hard, because someone's in trouble and you have to know how it's all going to end … that's a very real drive. And it forces you to learn new words, to think new thoughts, to keep going. To discover that reading per se is pleasurable. Once you learn that, you're on the road to reading everything. And reading is key. There were noises made briefly, a few years ago, about the idea that we were living in a post-literate world, in which the ability to make sense out of written words was somehow redundant, but those days are gone: words are more important than they ever were: we navigate the world with words, and as the world slips onto the web, we need to follow, to communicate and to comprehend what we are reading. People who cannot understand each other cannot exchange ideas, cannot communicate, and translation programs only go so far.

The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them.

I don't think there is such a thing as a bad book for children. Every now and again it becomes fashionable among some adults to point at a subset of children's books, a genre, perhaps, or an author, and to declare them bad books, books that children should be stopped from reading. I've seen it happen over and over; Enid Blyton was declared a bad author, so was RL Stine, so were dozens of others. Comics have been decried as fostering illiteracy.

No such thing as a bad writer... Enid Blyton's Famous Five. Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

It's tosh. It's snobbery and it's foolishness. There are no bad authors for children, that children like and want to read and seek out, because every child is different. They can find the stories they need to, and they bring themselves to stories. A hackneyed, worn-out idea isn't hackneyed and worn out to them. This is the first time the child has encountered it. Do not discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do not like is a route to other books you may prefer. And not everyone has the same taste as you.

Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian "improving" literature. You'll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and worse, unpleasant.

We need our children to get onto the reading ladder: anything that they enjoy reading will move them up, rung by rung, into literacy. (Also, do not do what this author did when his 11-year-old daughter was into RL Stine, which is to go and get a copy of Stephen King's Carrie, saying if you liked those you'll love this! Holly read nothing but safe stories of settlers on prairies for the rest of her teenage years, and still glares at me when Stephen King's name is mentioned.)

And the second thing fiction does is to build empathy. When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from 26 letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going to be slightly changed.

Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.

You're also finding out something as you read vitally important for making your way in the world. And it's this:

The world doesn't have to be like this. Things can be different.

I was in China in 2007, at the first party-approved science fiction andfantasy convention in Chinese history. And at one point I took a top official aside and asked him Why? SF had been disapproved of for a long time. What had changed?

It's simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls.

Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different.

And while we're on the subject, I'd like to say a few words about escapism. I hear the term bandied about as if it's a bad thing. As if "escapist" fiction is a cheap opiate used by the muddled and the foolish and the deluded, and the only fiction that is worthy, for adults or for children, is mimetic fiction, mirroring the worst of the world the reader finds herself in.

If you were trapped in an impossible situation, in an unpleasant place, with people who meant you ill, and someone offered you a temporary escape, why wouldn't you take it? And escapist fiction is just that: fiction that opens a door, shows the sunlight outside, gives you a place to go where you are in control, are with people you want to be with(and books are real places, make no mistake about that); and more importantly, during your escape, books can also give you knowledge about the world and your predicament, give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real.

As JRR Tolkien reminded us, the only people who inveigh against escape are jailers.

Tolkien's illustration of Bilbo's home, Bag End. Photograph: HarperCollins

Another way to destroy a child's love of reading, of course, is to make sure there are no books of any kind around. And to give them nowhere to read those books. I was lucky. I had an excellent local library growing up. I had the kind of parents who could be persuaded to drop me off in the library on their way to work in summer holidays, and the kind of librarians who did not mind a small, unaccompanied boy heading back into the children's library every morning and working his way through the card catalogue, looking for books with ghosts or magic or rockets in them, looking for vampires or detectives or witches or wonders. And when I had finished reading the children's' library I began on the adult books.

They were good librarians. They liked books and they liked the books being read. They taught me how to order books from other libraries on inter-library loans. They had no snobbery about anything I read. They just seemed to like that there was this wide-eyed little boy who loved to read, and would talk to me about the books I was reading, they would find me other books in a series, they would help. They treated me as another reader – nothing less or more – which meant they treated me with respect. I was not used to being treated with respect as an eight-year-old.

But libraries are about freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education (which is not a process that finishes the day we leave school or university), about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information.

I worry that here in the 21st century people misunderstand what libraries are and the purpose of them. If you perceive a library as a shelf of books, it may seem antiquated or outdated in a world in which most, but not all, books in print exist digitally. But that is to miss the point fundamentally.

I think it has to do with nature of information. Information has value, and the right information has enormous value. For all of human history, we have lived in a time of information scarcity, and having the needed information was always important, and always worth something: when to plant crops, where to find things, maps and histories and stories – they were always good for a meal and company. Information was a valuable thing, and those who had it or could obtain it could charge for that service.

In the last few years, we've moved from an information-scarce economy to one driven by an information glut. According to Eric Schmidt of Google, every two days now the human race creates as much information as we did from the dawn of civilisation until 2003. That's about five exobytes of data a day, for those of you keeping score. The challenge becomes, not finding that scarce plant growing in the desert, but finding a specific plant growing in a jungle. We are going to need help navigating that information to find the thing we actually need.

Photograph: Alamy

Libraries are places that people go to for information. Books are only the tip of the information iceberg: they are there, and libraries can provide you freely and legally with books. More children are borrowing books from libraries than ever before – books of all kinds: paper and digital and audio. But libraries are also, for example, places that people, who may not have computers, who may not have internetconnections, can go online without paying anything: hugely important when the way you find out about jobs, apply for jobs or apply for benefits is increasingly migrating exclusively online. Librarians can help these people navigate that world.

I do not believe that all books will or should migrate onto screens: as Douglas Adams once pointed out to me, more than 20 years before the Kindle turned up, a physical book is like a shark. Sharks are old: there were sharks in the ocean before the dinosaurs. And the reason there are still sharks around is that sharks are better at being sharks than anything else is. Physical books are tough, hard to destroy, bath-resistant, solar-operated, feel good in your hand: they are good at being books, and there will always be a place for them. They belong in libraries, just as libraries have already become places you can go to get access toebooks, and audiobooks and DVDs and web content.

A library is a place that is a repository of information and gives every citizen equal access to it. That includes health information. And mental health information. It's a community space. It's a place of safety, a haven from the world. It's a place with librarians in it. What the libraries of the future will be like is something we should be imagining now.

Literacy is more important than ever it was, in this world of text and email, a world of written information. We need to read and write, we need global citizens who can read comfortably, comprehend what they are reading, understand nuance, and make themselves understood.

Libraries really are the gates to the future. So it is unfortunate that, round the world, we observe local authorities seizing the opportunity to close libraries as an easy way to save money, without realising that they are stealing from the future to pay for today. They are closing the gates that should be open.

According to a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, England is the "only country where the oldest age group has higher proficiency in both literacy and numeracy than the youngest group, after other factors, such as gender, socio-economic backgrounds and type of occupations are taken into account".

Or to put it another way, our children and our grandchildren are less literate and less numerate than we are. They are less able to navigate the world, to understand it to solve problems. They can be more easily lied to and misled, will be less able to change the world in which they find themselves, be less employable. All of these things. And as a country, England will fall behind other developed nations because it will lack a skilled workforce.

Books are the way that we communicate with the dead. The way that we learn lessons from those who are no longer with us, that humanity has built on itself, progressed, made knowledge incremental rather than something that has to be relearned, over and over. There are tales that are older than most countries, tales that have long outlasted the cultures and the buildings in which they were first told.

I think we have responsibilities to the future. Responsibilities and obligations to children, to the adults those children will become, to the world they will find themselves inhabiting. All of us – as readers, as writers, as citizens – have obligations. I thought I'd try and spell out some of these obligations here.

I believe we have an obligation to read for pleasure, in private and in public places. If we read for pleasure, if others see us reading, then we learn, we exercise our imaginations. We show others that reading is a good thing.

We have an obligation to support libraries. To use libraries, to encourage others to use libraries, to protest the closure of libraries. If you do not value libraries then you do not value information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future.

We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. Use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside.

We have an obligation to use the language. To push ourselves: to find out what words mean and how to deploy them, to communicate clearly, to say what we mean. We must not to attempt to freeze language, or to pretend it is a dead thing that must be revered, but we should use it as a living thing, that flows, that borrows words, that allows meanings and pronunciations to change with time.

We writers – and especially writers for children, but all writers – have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were – to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all. We have an obligation not to bore our readers, but to make them need to turn the pages. One of the best cures for a reluctant reader, after all, is a tale they cannot stop themselves from reading. And while we must tell our readers true things and give them weapons and give them armour and pass on whatever wisdom we have gleaned from our short stay on this green world, we have an obligation not to preach, not to lecture, not to force predigested morals and messages down our readers' throats like adult birds feeding their babies pre-masticated maggots; and we have an obligation never, ever, under any circumstances, to write anything for children that we would not want to read ourselves.

We have an obligation to understand and to acknowledge that as writers for children we are doing important work, because if we mess it up and write dull books that turn children away from reading and from books, we 've lessened our own future and diminished theirs.

We all – adults and children, writers and readers – have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine. It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that we are in a world in which society is huge and the individual is less than nothing: an atom in a wall, a grain of rice in a rice field. But the truth is, individuals change their world over and over, individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.

Look around you: I mean it. Pause, for a moment and look around the room that you are in. I'm going to point out something so obvious that it tends to be forgotten. It's this: that everything you can see, including the walls, was, at some point, imagined. Someone decided it was easier to sit on a chair than on the ground and imagined the chair. Someone had to imagine a way that I could talk to you in London right now without us all getting rained on.This room and the things in it, and all the other things in this building, this city, exist because, over and over and over, people imagined things.

We have an obligation to make things beautiful. Not to leave the world uglier than we found it, not to empty the oceans, not to leave our problems for the next generation. We have an obligation to clean up after ourselves, and not leave our children with a world we've shortsightedly messed up, shortchanged, and crippled.

We have an obligation to tell our politicians what we want, to vote against politicians of whatever party who do not understand the value of reading in creating worthwhile citizens, who do not want to act to preserve and protect knowledge and encourage literacy. This is not a matter of party politics. This is a matter of common humanity.

Albert Einstein was asked once how we could make our children intelligent. His reply was both simple and wise. "If you want your children to be intelligent," he said, "read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." He understood the value of reading, and of imagining. I hope we can give our children a world in which they will read, and be read to, and imagine, and understand.

• This is an edited version of Neil Gaiman's lecture for the Reading Agency, delivered on Monday October 14 at the Barbican in London. The Reading Agency's annual lecture series was initiated in 2012 as a platform for leading writers and thinkers to share original, challenging ideas about reading and libraries.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming

Library Word of the Week

I missed last week! I apologize. Therefore, this week is one serious word:

Schadenfreude

Definition: Malicious joy in the misfortunes of others

Pronunciation: SHAHD-n-froid

Origin

This lovely noun, dated back to the late 1800’s, stems from the German schaden meaning damage, harm or injury and freude meaning joy.

Why this word?

Once again going back to Corey O, this word too was suggested by him and man- what a word!

The earliest account for schadenfreude in the English language was published by Richard C. Trench in 1952 in his book named “On the Study of Words”; I usually don’t quote those first appearances, but in this case I will. Trench says really all there is to say about the mere existence of this word: “What a fearful thing is it that any language should have a word expressive of the pleasure which men feel at the calamities of others; for the existence of the word bears testimony to the existence of the thing. And yet in more than one such a word is found. … In the Greek epikhairekakia, in the German, ‘Schadenfreude.”

I disagree with Trench thinking the notion itself is fearful. It is an natural as any other feeling human being may have and as such should be acknowledged.

I already posted on the same notion in epicaricasy over a year ago, but it is always interesting to learn more!

How to use the word schadenfreude in a sentence?

Using this noun is as easy as imagining one unhappy with the joy of the other.

“Did you see John when they announced about David getting the part? I could literally smell the schadenfreude dropping down from him!”

- See more at: http://unusedwords.com/2013/09/29/schadenfreude/#sthash.ownNXgHi.dpuf

Thanks again to the folks at Unused Words for this one, although I think this word is used pretty often.

College Information

At the High School of Commerce, we aim to prepare all scholars for high student achievement, college readiness, and global citizenship through an International Baccalaureate Programme of study. 

When you come to our library, you will now see "REACH FOR YOUR DREAMS" on the drop ceiling edge. Also, take a good look around, we have pictures from local colleges all around. 

This isn't one of our local schools! This is where Ms. D went to college: Drexel University in Philadelphia. 

 

 
(look for these and more in your library!)

We also have a College Information link on this site! Look at the top bar (or click HERE). That page has a few links to help you apply for loans and find the right college. 

We also have two displays of college information! 

And don't forget one of the best resources for you: your guidance counselor! All of your teachers went to college (many have also gone to grad school; that's even more time in school), so don't forget to talk to them. They can give you the insider information of what college is really like! 

Spooky Stories!

It may still be early October, but the autumn chill is in the air and the leaves are starting to fall. Come down to the library and see what spooky stories, both fiction and true tales, we have to curl up with on these cold, creepy, autumn nights.

And don't forget our library GHOST: 

Art!

I have no idea who did this artwork (the flyer, of course, is mine), but I love the coloring job that someone on the 1st floor did!

If anyone else sees flyers in the Commerce halls that have been colored in, let me know. I would love to feature them!

Great Coloring! 

Springfield City Library events!

Hi all,

We have quite a few programs happening in all our branch libraries now through the end of October (and more to come in November and December!). 
Here is a link to the colorful brochure listing ALL October programs at the Springfield City Library: 
http://www.springfieldlibrary.org/October%20SCL.pdf

Brightwood Branch: Tuesday Oct. 8 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Central Library: Wednesday Oct. 9  3:30-5:00
Make Cool Altered Notebooks & Picture Frames!
Teens and tweens -- drop in and make a one of a kind picture frame to decorate your locker,
or create a cool altered notebook! We’ll supply the frame and embellishments, you supply the
creativity and the picture! Do get here early as quantities will be limited.

Forest Park Branch: Thursday Oct. 10  4:30 PM - 7:30 PM (and ongoing)
Yu-gi-oh -- Meets the second and third Thursday of the month. 
Teens and young adults are invited to come learn about Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic. Meets the second and third Thursday of the month. Special Programming Note: The Group will meet on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays in October.

East Springfield and Sixteen Acres Branches: Tuesday Oct. 15 - Thurs. Oct. 31
Fall Harvest Time Peeps for All Ages!
Create a harvest or Halloween themed diorama using marshmallow Peeps, a shoe box and any art supplies, recycled 
or repurposed materials you have on hand. Let your imagination lead you! Sign up starting
October 15. Submit your creation by October 30. Judging on October 31, with a variety of prizes awarded.

Forest Park, Central, Brightwood Branches: Tuesday Oct. 15, 3:30 - 5:00
Sixteen Acres Branch: Tuesday Oct. 14, 4:00 - 5:30 
Mason Square Branch: Thursday Oct. 17, 3:30-5:00
East Springfield and East Forest Park Branches: Friday Oct. 18, 3:30-5:00
Teen Read Week: Unknown Treats!
Make yummy (but HEALTHY) treats for your after school munchies! Discover snacks from other cultures as well as fruits and veggies that are new to you.

Indian Orchard Branch: Wednesday Oct. 15, 4:00-5:00
Teen Read Week: Seek the Unknown with Psychic Kathi Munson
Meet a local psychic and medium and hear about her experiences. Explore the world of spirits, spirit animals, the
Tarot, and angels and find out if you might have a gift of psychic insight yourself.

East Springfield Branch: Wednesday Oct. 15, 4:00-5:30
Central Library: Monday Oct. 21 4:00-5:30
Teen Read Week: Character Cosplay
Teens, help us celebrate Teen Read Week by dressing as your favorite character from a book!
All genres welcome: manga, sci-fi, fantasy, historical, or any other. This event is for teens ages 12-18 so costumes must be appropriate for all ages. 
Come see all the other characters represented and discuss your favorite books! Prizes for best costumes, other activities, and snacks.

East Forest Park Branch: Wednesday Oct. 16, 4:30-5:30
Brightwood Branch: Thursday Oct. 17, 4:00-5:00
Teen Read Week: Upcycled Journal Making Workshop
Create a one of a kind journal using upcycled materials such as discarded book sleeves and cardboard cereal boxes. 
Discover different types of journals as well as different ways you can use a journal. Led by local art teacher, Christie Hester-Moore.
Recommended for 5th-8th graders. Please preregister by calling (413) 263-6836 or signing up online. Space is limited.


Happy fall, and see you at the library!

Tardy Policy

Just a reminder:

Starting Monday 10/7/2013 once the bell rings at the end of transition all teacher doors will be locked and closed. Scholars who are still in the hallway will not be allowed into class. A dean, counselor or administrator will take your name and assign you an office detention. Once the name has been taken you will receive a yellow office detention slip that will serve as your pass to class. The detention must be served on the same day or the following day. If the detention (3:10-4:00) is not served the following consequences will be assigned:

•  i.3 more office detentions assigned 
• ii.If those are not served an internal suspension  or Saturday School will be assigned 
• iii.If student still fails to serve, progressive discipline according to the code of conduct will be assigned, including community service, or external suspension. 

This does not include when you are walking to the library (or from the library) WITH a teacher, since teachers will escort their classes. 

This DOES include being late from the library after lunch. If students are late to their class after spending lunchtime in the library, the tardy policy will be in force. 

Library Word of the Week

It is October, which means we are nearing Halloween. As a fan of things that are spooky, I have already started with Halloween appropriate book displays (come and see before all the scary & paranormal books are gone!). 

Therefore, this installment of Library Word of the Week is a word that is leaning towards spooky. 

Horripilation

Definition: Goosebumps (caused by cold, by fear, etc)

Pronunciation: Hor-ip-eh-lay-shun

Origin: From late latin – horripilationem. A blend of horrere, meaning ‘to bristle’ and pilus, meaning ‘hair’.

Why This Word?

Who knew that there was a proper word for Goosebumps? I certainly didn’t until I heard a speech given by Irish Trade Unionist Billy Hannigan, in which he referred to something that was so fearful that it causes horripilation. Indeed, although the word can be used to describe any appearance of goose-bumps, it is particularly apt when referring to those caused by ‘fear’. After all, the word horripilation shares the same genesis as horror and horrible.

How to use this word: The speech in which I first heard the word is perhaps the best way to introduce a word such as horripilation – or, indeed, any unused word. Quite simply, it caused the people listening to the speech to pause on hearing this new word and then to re-engage with the speech. There is a lesson in this for all public speakers.

- See more at: http://unusedwords.com/2013/05/12/horripilation/#sthash.oxW19ckJ.dpuf

Maybe R.L. Stine should have called his book series Horripilation instead of Goosebumps.

What word do you think would be a good word to feature on the next Library Word of the Week?

Game ON! Video Gaming for Teens and Tweens @ Forest Park Library

On Thursday October 3rd from 4-6PM! Play your favorite video games for teens and tweens! Drop in! Snacks provided. Contact: Meg Aust-anastasi   263-6843   maust-anastasi@springfieldlibrary.org   Forest Park         Location: Forest Park Community Room Don't forget, you can always check out what is happening at the City Library branches by checking their calendar at http://www.eventkeeper.com/code/events.cfm?curOrg=SPRNGFLD