Get Ready For Summer

 Looking forward to summer? Get geared up for the Teen Summer Reader's Club at The Orillia Public Library by checking out one great books below.

 

Our hot summer reads will help you get ready for beach days, love, sun and all the drama you can handle!

 

More information about our fantastic new Teen Summer Reader's Club coming soon!

The Moon and More

By: Sarah Dessen

Call Number: YA DES

 

Summary:

Luke is the perfect boyfriend: handsome, kind, fun. He and Emaline have been together all through high school in Colby, the beach town where they both grew up. But now, in the summer before college, Emaline wonders if perfect is good enough.

Enter Theo, a super-ambitious outsider, a New Yorker assisting on a documentary film about a reclusive local artist. Theo's sophisticated, exciting, and, best of all, he thinks Emaline is much too smart for Colby.

Emaline's mostly-absentee father, too, thinks Emaline should have a bigger life, and he's convinced that an Ivy League education is the only route to realizing her potential. Emaline is attracted to the bright future that Theo and her father promise. But she also clings to the deep roots of her loving mother, stepfather, and sisters. Can she ignore the pull of the happily familiar world of Colby?

Emaline wants the moon and more, but how can she balance where she comes from with where she's going?

Sarah Dessen's devoted fans will welcome this story of romance, yearning, and, finally, empowerment. It could only happen in the summer.

 

The Summer I Turned Pretty

By: Jenny Han

Call Number: YA HAN

 

Summary:

Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer -- they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.

We’ll always have summer

By: Jenny Han

Call Number: YA HAN

 

Summary:

The internationally bestselling Summer series ends. It's been two years since Conrad told Belly to go with Jeremiah. But now, after Jeremiah makes the worst mistake a boy can make, Belly wonders if she really has a future with Jeremiah. It's time for Belly to decide, once and for all, who has her heart forever.

 

Twenty Boy Summer

By: Sarah Ockler

Call Number: YA OCK

 

Summary:

"Don't worry, Anna. I'll tell her, okay? Just let me think about the best way to do it."
"Okay."
"Promise me? Promise you won't say anything?"
"Don't worry." I laughed. "It's our secret, right?"

According to her best friend Frankie, twenty days in Zanzibar Bayis the perfect opportunity to have a summer fling, and if they meet one boy every day, there's a pretty good chance Anna will find her first summer romance. Anna lightheartedly agrees to the game, but there's something she hasn't told Frankie---she's already had that kind of romance, and it was with Frankie's older brother, Matt, just before his tragic death one year ago.

Beautifully written and emotionally honest, this is a debut novel that explores what it truly means to love someone and what it means to grieve, and ultimately, how to make the most of every single moment this world has to offer.

 

Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour

By: Morgan Matson

Call Number: YA MAT

 

Summary:

Amy Curry thinks her life sucks. Her dad recently died in a car accident, and her mom decides to move from California to Connecticut—just in time for Amy’s senior year. To escape from it all, Amy embarks on a road trip, driving cross-country from the home she’s always known toward her new life. Joining her is Roger, the son of Amy’s mother’s old friend. Amy hasn’t seen him in years, but her feelings for Roger develop as the miles roll by….

Told in traditional narrative as well as through a unique visual format that incorporates scraps from the road, this is the story of one teen’s journey to find herself.

Sometimes it happens

By: Lauren Barnholdt

Call Number: YA BAR

 

Summary:

This novel opens on the first day of Hannah’s senior year, but the story really starts on the last day of her junior year. That’s when Hannah not only gets dumped by her boyfriend, Ryan, but she also finds out her best friend, Ava, is going to be gone for the entire summer. But Ava’s boyfriend, Noah, is definitely around—and such a good guy that he snags Hannah a job at the diner where he works. Hannah and Noah move from coworkers, to friends….and one night, to something more.

Now it’s back to school, where Hannah will see Ryan, Ava, and Noah all in one place. Over the course of the day secrets and betrayals are revealed, and alliances are broken and reformed. In the end, Hannah will learn a lot about love, friendship…and herself.

My Life Next Door

By: Huntley Fitzpatrick

Call Number: YA FIT

 

Summary:

A gorgeous debut about family, friendship, first romance, and how to be true to one person you love without betraying another

“One thing my mother never knew, and would disapprove of most of all, was that I watched the Garretts. All the time.”

The Garretts are everything the Reeds are not. Loud, numerous, messy, affectionate. And every day from her balcony perch, seventeen-year-old Samantha Reed wishes she was one of them . . . until one summer evening, Jase Garrett climbs her terrace and changes everything. As the two fall fiercely in love, Jase's family makes Samantha one of their own. Then in an instant, the bottom drops out of her world and she is suddenly faced with an impossible decision. Which perfect family will save her? Or is it time she saved herself?

A dreamy summer read, full of characters who stay with you long after the story is over.

Happy Reading

Books for Tough Times

Mental Health Week

 

Children's Mental Heal Week has just ended but you can find a great read to help get you through tough times at the Orillia Public Library.

Children's Mental Health Week is a national campaign that encourages people to learn, talk, and reflect on mental health topics. If you are going through a tough time you have choices when it comes to dealing with that problem. 

The Kids Help Phone is a great resources for youth under 20 years old.  They can't tell you what to do but they are there to help you explore your options!  Whether you want to talk on the phone or post a question to them online please consider reaching out for help if you need it!

Kids Help Phone
1-800-668-6868
http://www.kidshelpphone.ca/Teens/PhoneUs.aspx

Life is great but coping can be hard, no one is alone. Find your next read here because there is always an interesting story.

Great Fiction Reads


Have a Nice Day

By: Julie Halpern

Call Number: YA HAL

 

Summary:

When Anna comes home from a three-week stay in a mental hospital, it's time to get back to normal, whatever that means. She has to go back to school, where teachers and friends are too afraid to ask what happened. Anna is too afraid to ask what's going on back at the hospital with her crush, Justin, and her parents aren't getting along, making her wonder if she's the cause. It's a lot for a girl who's under pressure to be just fine. Anna feels better, but is she fine? Is anyone? 

 

Looking for Alaska

By: John Green

Call Number: YA GRE

 

Summary:

Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. He heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story

By: Ned Vizzini

Call Number: YA VIZ

Summary:

Like many ambitious New York City teenagers, Craig Gilner sees entry into Manhattan’s Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future. Determined to succeed at life - which means getting into the right high school to get into the right college to get the right job - Craig studies night and day to ace the entrance exam, and does.  That’s when things start to get crazy.

At his new school, Craig realizes that he isn't brilliant compared to the other kids; he’s just average, and maybe not even that. He soon sees his once-perfect future crumbling away. The stress becomes unbearable and Craig stops eating and sleeping—until, one night, he nearly kills himself.

Craig’s suicidal episode gets him checked into a mental hospital, where his new neighbors include a transsexual sex addict, a girl who has scarred her own face with scissors, and the self-elected President Armelio.  There, isolated from the crushing pressures of school and friends, Craig is finally able to confront the sources of his anxiety.

Ned Vizzini, who himself spent time in a psychiatric hospital, has created a remarkably moving tale about the sometimes unexpected road to happiness. For a novel about depression, it’s definitely a funny story.

 

Speak

By: Laurie Halse Anderson

Call Number: YA AND

 

Summary:

 

Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth. This extraordinary first novel has captured the imaginations of teenagers and adults across the country.

 

Staying fat for Sarah Byrnes

By: Chris Crutcher

Call Number: YA CRU

 

Summary:

The daily class discussions about the nature of man, the existence of God, abortion, organized religion, suicide and other contemporary issues serve as a backdrop for a high-school senior's attempt to answer a friend's dramatic cry for help.

 

Just Listen

By:Sarah Dessen

Call Number: YA DES

 

Summary:

Last year, Annabel was "the girl who has everything"—at least that’s the part she played in the television commercial for Kopf ’s Department Store.This year, she’s the girl who has nothing: no best friend because mean-but-exciting Sophie dropped her, no peace at home since her older sister became anorexic, and no one to sit with at lunch. Until she meets Owen Armstrong. Tall, dark, and music-obsessed, Owen is a reformed bad boy with a commitment to truth-telling.With Owen’s help,maybe Annabel can face what happened the night she and Sophie stopped being friends.

In this multi-layered, impossible-to-put-down book, Sarah Dessen tells the story of a year in the life of a family coming to terms with the imperfections beneath its perfect facade.

Cut

By: McCormick, Patricia

Call Number: YA MCCO

 

Summary:

Fifteen-year-old Callie isn't speaking to anybody, not even to her therapist at Sea Pines, the "residential treatment facility" where her parents and doctor sent her after discovering that she cuts herself. As her story unfolds, Callie reluctantly become involved with the other "guests" at Sea Pines -- finding her voice and confronting the trauma that triggered her behavior.

 

The Symptoms of my insanity

By: Mindy Raf

Call Number:

Summary:

When you're a hypochondriac, there are a million different things that could be wrong with you, but for Izzy, focusing on what could be wrong might be keeping her from dealing with what's really wrong--with her friendships, her romantic entanglements, and even her family.

 

Allegra

By: Shelley Hrdlitschka

Call Number: YA HRD

 

Summary:

 

Allegra thinks being at a performing-arts high school will change her life and make her a better dancer. But high school is still high school, complete with cliques, competition and cruelty. Allegra's refuge comes in the form of a class she doesn't want to take—music theory, taught by a very young, very attractive male teacher. Soon all Allegra can think about is music composition—and Mr. Rochelli. But has she misunderstood his attention, or is he really her soul mate?

 

 

 

Eight stories up: an adolescent choose hope over suicide

By: DeQuincy Lezine

Call Number: YA 618.92 LEZ

 

 

Summary:

 

As a teenager, DeQuincy Lezine nearly ended his own life, believing it was the only way to escape the emotional pain that was overwhelming him. Instead, Lezine found was able to find expert psychiatric care, and went on to found the first university campus-based chapter of the Suicide Prevention Action Network USA. Now a researcher at the University of Rochester's Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide, Lezine has devoted his life to preventing suicide in adolescents, and he brings the wealth of his personal and professional experience to bear in Eight Stories Up. He starts by describing his deteriorating state of mind in college, using his own email archive to reconstruct retell the episode that would nearly claim his life. He then offers hard-earned wisdom and practical advice to other young people who may be considering suicide. In straightforward, easy-to-understand language, and drawing on the psychiatric expertise of David Brent, MD, Lezine discusses the potential causes of suicide in adolescents, how to seek psychiatric treatment, and how to get the most out of professional help. He also surveys some of the therapies used to prevent suicide, how to talk to loved ones about suicidal thoughts, and how to stay healthy at home and at school. The result is both a remarkable memoir and a useful guide that will ease the isolation and hopelessness caused by thoughts of suicide, helping young people to overcome their troubles in a safe and healthy way. Part of the Adolescent Mental Health Initiative series of books written specifically for teens and young adults, Eight Stories Up offers hope to young people who are at risk of suicide, extending a lifeline of support and guidance that can save their lives.

 

 

What you must think of me: a firsthand account of one teenager’s experience with social anxiety disorder

By: Emily Ford

Call Number: YA 616.85 FOR

 

 

Summary:

 

We've all felt occasional pangs of shyness and self-consciousness, but for the 15 million Americans with social anxiety disorder, the fear of being scrutinized and criticized can reach disabling proportions. Such was the case for Emily Ford, who shares her firsthand experiences in these pages. Emily's true story of fear, struggle, and ultimate triumph is sure to resonate with other socially anxious teenagers and young adults.
Emily's frank, often witty, sometimes poignant account of how she negotiated all the obstacles of social anxiety--and eventually overcame them with the help of therapy and hard work--makes for compelling reading. Yet this book is more than just a memoir. Emily's story is coupled with the latest medical and scientific information about the causes, diagnosis, treatment, and self-management of social anxiety disorder (or SAD). Readers will find a wealth of solid advice and genuine inspiration here. In engaging, accessible language--and with the help of psychiatrist Michael Liebowitz--she discusses what is known and not known about social anxiety disorder in adolescents. She outlines the various psychotherapies available for those with SAD and explains how to seek professional help, how to talk to family and friends about the illness, and how to handle difficult social situations. The result is both an absorbing story and a useful guide that will help to ease the isolation caused by SAD, encouraging young people to believe that, with commitment and hard work, they can overcome this illness.
Part of the Adolescent Mental Health Initiative series of books written specifically for teens and young adults,What You Must Think of Mewill also be a valuable resource for friends and family of those with SAD. It offers much-needed hope to young people, helping them to overcome this illness and lead healthy, productive lives.

 

Chasing the high: a firsthand account of one young person’s experience with substance abuse.

By: Kyle Keegan

Call Number:

 

 

 

Summary:

 

In this book for young people struggling with substance abuse, Kyle Keegan recounts his own remarkable story of drug abuse and ruthless addiction. Keegan, now an adult recovering from his addiction, discusses his experience as a well adjusted adolescent who fell victim to heroin and whose life was almost destroyed by the devastating drug. He also provides useful information, such as how to recognise and accept that there is a problem, how to find professional help, and how to stay happy and healthy in recovery.

 

Happy Reading

A Healthier You

Improve you!

 

Warm weather is just around the corner! Whether your looking to fit more regular exercise into your weekly routine or are looking to add more fruits and veggies to your diet we've got your back! Find information and tips at the Orillia Public Library on how to exercise properly, build muscle, tone up, eat right and become the healthiest version of you possible! Even little steps can make a big difference.

500 Health & Fitness Tips

By: Seventeen

Call Number: YA 613.04243 FIV

 

Summary:

 

With Seventeen's great workouts and nutrition advice, any girl can get in super shape in time for spring break-without resorting to unsafe or fad diets.
The third in Seventeen's popular 500 Tips series, this chunky, colorful volume focuses on eating right rather than dieting, and takes real life into account by suggesting better choices at the fast-food joints where friends typically gather. Fitness guidance comes from Seventeen's celebrity trainers, who reveal how their clients got their tight bodies and offer 33 star-proven, butt-blasting, boredom-ending workouts. They're designed specifically to keep your energy high, and include:

 o Radu Teodorescu's Workout in the Park
 o Ramona Braganza's Event Ready in Two Weeks
 o Keli Roberts's 17-Minute Total Body Workout

 

Yoga Exercises for Teens: developing a calmer mind and a stronger body

By: Purperhart, Helen

Call Number: YA 613.70460835 PUR

 

 

 

Summary:

 

Yoga provides not only an excellent, low-impact workout, it also helps young people in key areas such as body awareness, flexibility, concentration, stress reduction, and self-expression. The exercises and games in this easy-to-follow guide are specifically designed to fit the needs of teenagers and to show teens how to work out and train their bodies in a relaxed way. It requires no advance knowledge or preparation and can be used by anyone working with teens between the ages of 10 and 20. The exercises are divided into static postures, dynamic postures, and exercises in pairs. There are also visualization and meditation exercises based on the four elements of nature as well as an introduction to the basics of yoga philosophy. The book can be used with large and small groups or as part of a parent-teen activity. Practicing yoga together is a perfect opportunity for parents and teens to exercise, talk, and spend time together in a healthy, positive manner.



Fitness Training for Girls

By: Katrina Gaede, Alan Lachica and Doug Wener

Call Number: 613.7043 GAE

Summary:

Sorting through the mental, physical, and emotional aspects of a girl's life during her teen years, this guide presents positive reasons and practical advice for making fitness a permanent part of her life. As society becomes more accepting of truly athletic women, teen girls are encouraged to overcome a “quitter's mentality” and develop physical confidence and mental toughness. A variety of nutrition tips and fitness facts allow girls to design individual workouts. Also included is information geared toward teens on weight lifting, cardiovascular conditioning, joining a gym, and working out at home.

Get Strong: Body by Jake’s Guide to Building Confidence, Muscles, and a Great Future for Teenage Guys

By: Jake Steinfeld

Call Number: YA 613.7043 STE

 

Summary:

 

"I want you to spill your guts -- dreams and fears, successes and failures -- before you spill them on the training floor. You probably have many questions about how to better your body, your mind, and your future; so if you're ready to listen, I have the answers!"-- From the introduction to Get Strong! Now is the time to become the guy that you have always wanted to be! Get Strong! is the first guide to not only getting in shape, but also getting your life in gear. Fitness motivator Jake Steinfeld, better known to the world as "Body by Jake," helps you learn the basic steps to a more confident, more powerful, and healthier life. From bicep curls to life evaluations, Jake takes a whole new look at how to make it through your teenage years, and not just as another peg on the totem pole, but as the Big Man on Campus. Chock-full of real-life tales from Jake's own youth and descriptions and illustrations of exercises to get yourself in shape, Get Strong is the plan you need to become strong and confident. So get off your buttissimo and get down to business, because as Jake says, "I want you to build the most impressive physique that you thought possible with this book, but I also want you to build an impressive future." By following the steps outlined in Get Strong you will achieve just that.

 

Teen Cuisine

By: Matthew Locricchio   

Call Number: YA 641.5083 LOC

 

 

 

Summary:

 

Calling All Teens ...Take over the vast empty space called the kitchen and learn gourmet cooking from a master chef! Over 50 mouth-watering step-by-step recipes, from "Brilliant Breakfasts" to "Star-Studded Salads" to "Shooting Star Entrees" and "Red Carpet Desserts".

Each recipe an American favorite!

* "Pizza Coast-to-Coast" section introduces pizza from three regions of the United States: New York, Chicago, and California

* More than 60 dazzling photographs by James Peterson

* "On Your Mark ... Get Set ... Cook!" format of recipes provides helpful organization

* Step-by-step drawings clarify steps whenever necessary

* Chef’s tips, safety section, cooking terms, and definitions

* Kitchen essentials and kitchen equipment

* An emphasis on fresh, nutritious ingredients for healthy eating

 

Eat fresh food : awesome recipes for teen chefs

By: Gold, Rozanne

Call Number:YA 641.5637 GOL

 

 

Summary:

 

Make It Fresh. Make It Fast. Make It Awesome.
Renowned chef Rozanne Gold has assembled an All-Star Team of teen chefs—kids who love to cook and love to eat good food—to create more than eighty mouth-watering recipes, attuned to the seasons, refined for the kinds of food teens want to eat. With plenty of snacks, smoothies, school lunches, burgers, fabulous pizza, desserts, and more, each delicious bite is made with the freshest, best-for-you ingredients you can find. Fully illustrated with photos of this cooking team in action, here is a cookbook no aspiring chef will want to miss.

 

For a quick effective 10 min work out visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6t0quh8Ick

Happy Reading