Tutor.com trial

The Newton Free Library has a free trial for May and June of the online tutoring service, Tutor.com.  This trial can only be accessed from the two computers in the Young Adult area on the second floor of the Newton Free Library.  Students who want live homework help and practice tests for college prep (ex. AP subjects, SAT subject tests) should ask the second floor librarian to log them into the service.  We would like student feedback as to whether Newton should purchase this product.  For further information please take a look at the website www.tutor.com.

Teen Open Mic- May 21 from 1-3 pm

   READ A POEM      PLAY ACOUSTICALLY   

   DO A MONOLOGUE       SING A SONG

 teen open mic

Saturday, May 21
1:00-3:00 p.m.
Druker Auditorium

*And join us afterward for refreshments and chat*

All participants — 6th graders & up — must preregister.  Registration: April 25 – May 13.

Register by emailing NewtonYA@minlib.net

or by calling (617) 796-1389

or in person at the YA desk on the 2nd floor

(You will provide your name, phone number, & details about your presentation)

All presentations must be suitable for a family audience.  

You may perform solo or in a group.  You MAY perform more than one piece.

All performances must be acoustic; the piano is not available for playing, but you may bring your own keyboard.

Suggested performance length (of each piece) is 5-10 minutes.

330 Homer Street, Newton, MA 02459

http://www.newtonfreelibrary.net/

New Online Trivia Game: A Google A Day

I just heard about this new search game, A Google A Day, that Google launched the other day.  This new page has been designed to give you a daily trivia question to complete using a customized Google search built specifically for the game.

The questions become harder as the week progresses, much like the crossword puzzles in many newspapers do, and just like those very crosswords, the results are posted the next day in the NY Times!  But you can also find the answer right under the daily question, by clicking on the “Show Answer” link.

This sounds fun, but one of the biggest spoilers in playing the trivia game would be to hear about the answer in tweets or blogposts that might come up as you were doing your searches; this has also been addressed with the new Deja Google search.

The search bar on the A Google A Day website seems the same as any normal Google search bar….. HOWEVER, it is indeed very different. With Deja Google search, they have created a search bar that will only show web history from before the game began, and block any social updates you might normally come across. This is all to ensure that you won’t run into any tweets or blog posts with the answers.  Very cool!

Here’s an example: the Question for April 16: In April 1896, I shot and killed a man. Eight months earlier, that man shot and killed a man who 17 years prior was famously reported to have killed 42 men. Who was the man I shot?

So all you trivia buffs and master searchers will no doubt want to give it a try….

Just arrived! Take a look at some new YA books

Fist, stick, knife,gun: a personal history of violence by Geoffrey Canada; adapted by Jamar Nicholas.

A powerful and important graphic novel based on Geoffrey Canada’s 1995 memoir of growing up among the violence in the South Bronx.  As 6-year-olds his older brothers learned to fight to reclaim a stolen jacket, Canada learned to fight himself by age 12 and by college he was packing a gun to make himself feel invinsible and safe.  Despite these struggles Canada earned degrees from Bowdoin and Harvard.  Today he is the president and ceo of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a nonprofit designed to help urban areas with high crime and low student academic achievement.  His organization was deemed “one of the most ambitious social experiments of our time” by the N.Y. Times Magazine.   Strong violence and language.  Good for tweens through adult.