Published between 2013 - 2021.
 

 

 

 

So here's the thing...

I started reading the Wings of Fire series and because school is starting up, this line stuck out to me despite it being an insult. However, I went on to make a bookmark for it and printed them out and got them ready, all that jazz.

Fast forward to when it comes time to pass them out and I can't for the life of me decide whether this is an insulting bookmark or not! 

What do you think? Let me know because I honestly have no idea! Part of me says I'm overthinking this and the kids will love the Wings of Fire reference and bookmark. 

Anyway...

Click here for the PDF 

 

This is a foldable coloring page I designed. It's my 2nd coloring page to create and was made using Microsoft Publisher. 

It's not perfect but I'm proud of it! 

On the PDF, it's two pages. If you can print front and back, flip sheet on the short edge - that works best. 

The backside has dotted lines which tell you where to fold.

Click here for the PDF

Front

Back

 For a while, we've been using the LEGO spinning wheel to decide what our challenges will be. 

... And it was time for a change. 

This change included coming up with all new building challenges. Here are printable cards of the Lego challenges I came up with. However these cards were made just for you!

 For our library program, I used these challenges and made a Lego challenge scratch off poster. More on that below.

Instead of the wheel, I wanted an equally exciting reveal at the beginning of LEGO Hour and this is the scratch off poster I came up with.

The concept? At each LEGO Hour, one person would be chosen to pick a square to scratch off. Whatever the revealed challenge is, we would do.

This is what it looks like completed...

It is a full poster board, with Lego's drawn all over it. My intention is to let non-builders or itty(ish) bitty's color the blocks while the others are building. 

Instructions for how to DIY the scratch off came from The Wonder Forest Blog.

After the first coat of my paint + soap mixture. 

And that's all I have to share with you! Happy Building 😁

 

Keeping with my personal tradition, the YALSA TTT logo was recolored and attached to the top of each book spine.

 

For the display, I printed off several speech bubbles in varying sizes. Each books got the sticker on the spine and a larger speech bubble as a book mark sticking out from the top.

 The concept for this bulletin board was instead of "HUG TIME!" it's "BOOK TIME!" at the library. 

However, I completely forgot to make watches for these guys. Oh well. 

The letters were generated from Fontmeme.com and printed onto colored cardstock.

 Click here for the link to the font I used.

Poppy and Branch were both free-handed and either colored with crayons or made of colored poster board paper.

For the flowers and leaves, I made templates to use on them all. When they're scanned and blog worthy, I'll share them here.

 

Kiki Kallira Breaks A Kingdom by Sangu Mandanna

Published: July 2021

Kiki Kallira has always been a worrier. Did she lock the front door? Is there a terrible reason her mom is late? Recently her anxiety has been getting out of control, but one thing that has always soothed her is drawing. Kiki's sketchbook is full of fanciful doodles of the rich Indian myths and legends her mother has told her over the years.

One day, her sketchbook's calming effect is broken when her mythological characters begin springing to life right out of its pages. Kiki ends up falling into the mystical world she drew, which includes a lot of wonderful discoveries like the band of rebel kids who protect the kingdom, as well as not-so-great ones like the ancient deity bent on total destruction. As the one responsible for creating the evil god, Kiki must overcome her fear and anxiety to save both worlds--the real and the imagined--from his wrath. But how can a girl armed with only a pencil defeat something so powerful?

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Loki's Wolves (The Blackwell Pages series) by K.L. Armstrong and Melissa Marr

 Published: May 2013

In Viking times, Norse myths predicted the end of the world, an event called Ragnarok, that only the gods can stop. When this apocalypse happens, the gods must battle the monsters--wolves the size of the sun, serpents that span the seabeds, all bent on destroying the world.

The gods died a long time ago.

Matt Thorsen knows every Norse myth, saga, and god as if it was family history--because it is family history. Most people in the modern-day town of Blackwell, South Dakota, in fact, are direct descendants of either Thor or Loki, including Matt's classmates Fen and Laurie Brekke.

However, knowing the legends and completely believing them are two different things. When the rune readers reveal that Ragnarok is coming and kids--led by Matt--will stand in for the gods in the final battle, he can hardly believe it. Matt, Laurie, and Fen's lives will never be the same as they race to put together an unstoppable team to prevent the end of the world

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The Relic of Perilous Falls (Will Wilder series) by Raymond Arroyo

Published: March 2016

Will Wilder is a mischievous, headstrong twelve-year-old with an otherworldly gift—he alone can see the nefarious creatures encroaching on Perilous Falls. For nearly a century, a sacred relic has protected his hometown from the raging waters surrounding it. But when Will “borrows” the relic for his own purposes, he accidentally unleashes an ancient evil.
 
As boats sink and hideous creatures crawl from the rising waters, Will must set things right before it is too late. With the help of his sweet (if lethal) Great Aunt Lucille, the curator of a museum of powerful artifacts, Will proves that the actions of one twelve-year-old boy can change the world.

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Aru Shah and the End of Time (Pandava series) by Roshani Chokshi

Published: March 2018

Twelve-year-old Aru Shah has a tendency to stretch the truth in order to fit in at school. While her classmates are jetting off to family vacations in exotic locales, she'll be spending her autumn break at home, in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture, waiting for her mom to return from her latest archeological trip. Is it any wonder that Aru makes up stories about being royalty, traveling to Paris, and having a chauffeur?

One day, three schoolmates show up at Aru's doorstep to catch her in a lie. They don't believe her claim that the museum's Lamp of Bharata is cursed, and they dare Aru to prove it. Just a quick light, Aru thinks. Then she can get herself out of this mess and never ever fib again.

But lighting the lamp has dire consequences. She unwittingly frees the Sleeper, an ancient demon whose duty it is to awaken the God of Destruction. Her classmates and beloved mother are frozen in time, and it's up to Aru to save them.

The only way to stop the demon is to find the reincarnations of the five legendary Pandava brothers, protagonists of the Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata, and journey through the Kingdom of Death. But how is one girl in Spider-Man pajamas supposed to do all that?

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The Accidental Invasion by Gregory Mone

Published: April 2021

Kaya, raised in the undersea, high-tech world of Atlantis, has always been fascinated by the legends about life above the water. Despite the government’s insistence that they’re only stories, she can’t help but dream about the Sun People—and when a group of officials known as Erasers move to bury those legends for good, Kaya sets out to the surface to uncover the truth once and for all.

In the world above, where climate change has led to giant tsunamis that threaten Earth’s coasts, all Lewis wants is to spend more time with his scientist father. When he stows away on his dad’s top-secret research trip, he finds himself thrown headfirst into an adventure much bigger than he bargained for.

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Titans by Kate O' Hearn

Published: July 2019

Fifteen years ago, Olympus was destroyed and the Olympians were resettled on Titus. Since then Earth has been declared a quarantined world. Neither Titans nor Olympians are allowed to visit and under no circumstances are humans allowed on Titus. The Titans and Olympians are keeping the peace. But the deep-seated mistrust still lingers, so when a human ends up on Titus, he could be the spark that reignites the war…

Astraea is a Titan, granddaughter of Hyperion, and now a reluctant student at the brand-new school, Arcadia. She just knows that it’s going to be awful, and that there is no way that Titans and Olympians will ever get along! At least she’s got her best friend, a winged-horse named Zephyr, to keep her company. Then the night before the first day of school, Astraea hears her parents discussing something terrifying: a human has been spotted on Titus. But that’s not possible. All routes to Earth via the Solar Stream have been closed—no one can travel between the two worlds…or can they?

When Astraea and Zephyr get detention on their first day—for fighting with a centaur—they’re sent to the orchards to harvest nectar. There they discover a human boy named Jake. How he got to Titus is a mystery to him and to them. They have to get him home before anyone else discovers him.

But what the trio uncovers is something much bigger than one human boy. It’s a scheme to take down the rulers of this world, conquer it, and then do the same across the galaxy. Can a group of kids stop the invaders? Or is Titus, like Olympus before it, doomed?

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Curse of the Night Witch by Alex Aster

Published: June 2020

On Emblem Island all are born knowing their fate. Their lifelines show the course of their life and an emblem dictates how they will spend it.

Twelve-year-old Tor Luna was born with a leadership emblem, just like his mother. But he hates his mark and is determined to choose a different path for himself. So, on the annual New Year's Eve celebration, where Emblemites throw their wishes into a bonfire in the hopes of having them granted, Tor wishes for a different power.

The next morning Tor wakes up to discover a new marking on his skin...the symbol of a curse that has shortened his lifeline, giving him only a week before an untimely death. There is only one way to break the curse, and it requires a trip to the notorious Night Witch.

With only his village's terrifying, ancient stories as a guide, and his two friends Engle and Melda by his side, Tor must travel across unpredictable Emblem Island, filled with wicked creatures he only knows through myths, in a race against his dwindling lifeline.

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Coming of the Dragon by Rebecca Barnhouse

Published: October 2010

Rebecca Barnhouse weaves Norse gods, blood feuds, and a terrifying dragon into this spectacular retelling of the end of the Old English poem Beowulf.

When he was a baby, Rune washed up onshore in a boat, along with a sword and a pendant bearing the runes that gave him his nickname. Some people thought he was a sacrifice to the gods and wanted to send him right back to the sea. Luckily for Rune, King Beowulf disagreed. He lifted the boy from the boat and gave him to Amma, a wisewoman living on a farm far removed from the king’s hall, to raise as she saw fit.

Sixteen years later, Rune spends his summers laboring on the farm. And at King Beowulf’s request, he comes to the hall each winter for weapons training. But somehow he never quite fits in. Many people still fear he will bring a curse on the kingdom. Then a terrible thing happens. On a lonely crag on a mountain that belongs to the giants, someone awakens a dragon. It is time for Rune to find the warrior inside himself and prove to the doubters once and for all that he is a true hero.

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The Serpent's Secret (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond series) by Sayantani Dasgupta

Published: February 2017

MEET KIRANMALA: INTERDIMENSIONAL DEMON SLAYER
(Only she doesn't know it yet.)

On the morning of her twelfth birthday, Kiranmala is just a regular sixth grader living in Parsippany, New Jersey... until her parents mysteriously vanish and a drooling rakkhosh demon slams through her kitchen, determined to eat her alive. Turns out there might be some truth to her parents' fantastical stories-like how Kiranmala is a real Indian princess and how she comes from a secret place not of this world.

To complicate matters, two crush-worthy princes ring her doorbell, insisting they've come to rescue her. Suddenly, Kiran is swept into another dimension full of magic, winged horses, moving maps, and annoying, talking birds. There she must solve riddles and battle demons all while avoiding the Serpent King of the underworld and the Rakkhoshi Queen in order to find her parents and basically save New Jersey, her entire world, and everything beyond it...

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Book of the Dead by Michael Northrop

Published: January 2015

Nothing can save eleven-year-old Alex Sennefer’s life. That’s what all the doctors say, but his mother knows it’s not true. She knows that the Lost Spells — the most powerful piece of the Egyptian Book of the Dead — can crack open a door to the afterlife and pull her son back from the brink. But when she uses the spells, five evil ancients known as the Death Walkers are also brought back to life.

Now terrible things are starting to happen. Mummies are awakening. New York is overrun with scorpion messengers. And worst of all, Alex’s mom and the Lost Spells have both disappeared. Alex and his best friend, Ren, will do anything to save his mom and save the world . . . even if that means going head-to-head with a Death Walker who has been plotting his revenge for 3,000 years.

Read the book, then continue the adventure online! Build your own Egyptian maze, hide treasure and protect it with traps, then challenge your friends to play through!

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Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

Published: March 2008

The winter isn't ending. Nobody knows why. And Odd has run away from home, even though he can barely walk and has to use a crutch.

Out in the forest he encounters a bear, a fox, and an eagle - three creatures with a strange story to tell. Now Odd is faced with a stranger journey than he had ever imagined. A journey to save Asgard, City of the Norse Gods, from the Frost Giants who have invaded it. It's going to take a very special kind of boy to defeat the most dangerous of all the Frost Giants and rescue the mighty Gods. Someone cheerful and infuriating and clever. Someone just like Odd...

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Paola Santiago and the River of Tears by Tehlor Kay Mejia

Published: August 2020

Space-obsessed 12-year-old Paola Santiago and her two best friends, Emma and Dante, know the rule: Stay away from the river. It's all they've heard since a schoolmate of theirs drowned a year ago. Pao is embarrassed to admit that she has been told to stay away for even longer than that, because her mother is constantly warning her about La Llorona, the wailing ghost woman who wanders the banks of the Gila at night, looking for young people to drag into its murky depths.

Hating her mother's humiliating superstitions and knowing that she and her friends would never venture into the water, Pao organizes a meet-up to test out her new telescope near the Gila, since it's the best stargazing spot. But when Emma never arrives and Pao sees a shadowy figure in the reeds, it seems like maybe her mom was right. . . .

Pao has always relied on hard science to make sense of the world, but to find her friend she will have to enter the world of her nightmares, which includes unnatural mist, mind-bending monsters, and relentless spirits controlled by a terrifying force that defies both logic and legend.

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The Cassandra Curse (Muse Squad series) by Chantel Acevedo

Published: July 2020

Callie Martinez-Silva didn’t mean to turn her best friend into a pop star. But when a simple pep talk leads to miraculous results, Callie learns she’s the newest muse of epic poetry, one of the nine Muses of Greek mythology tasked with protecting humanity’s fate in secret.

Whisked away to Muse Headquarters, she joins three recruits her age, who call themselves the Muse Squad. Together, the junior muses are tasked with using their magic to inspire and empower—not an easy feat when you’re eleven and still figuring out the goddess within.

When their first assignment turns out to be Callie’s exceptionally nerdy classmate, Maya Rivero, the squad comes to Miami to stay with Callie and her Cuban family. There, they discover that Maya doesn’t just need inspiration, she needs saving from vicious Sirens out to unleash a curse that will corrupt her destiny.

As chaos erupts, will the Muse Squad be able to master their newfound powers in time to thwart the Cassandra Curse . . . or will it undo them all?

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Freya and the Magic Jewel by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams

Published: May 2018

“Gold and Gullveig I cannot see. But here is a vision that comes to me; Adventure for you is about to start. Near Asgard you must find the heart. A Secret world there hides away, which holds the power to stop doomsday!”

When eleven-year-old Freya hears that prophecy from her magical jewel, she isn’t sure what to make of it. Doomsday? She will find the key? Mere seconds after that prediction, she receives a mysterious invitation to Asgaard Academy from the powerful Odin, who commands her to “bring her magic” to Asgard.

With encouragement from her twin, Frey, Freya reluctantly heads out on their new adventure. And Freya’s first challenge begins before she even steps foot in Asgard. While trying to navigate the treacherous BiFrost Bridge, she drops her magical jewel off the bridge, and a sneaky pair of dwarves take her jewel down to the world of Midgard!

Without that jewel, Freya thinks she is powerless. But with the help of her pod-mates at Asgaard, Freya discovers a world that is bigger and more mysterious that she ever imagined! There, she learns the true terror that Ragnarok—the doomsday her jewel warned her about—could mean for Asgard Academy if she and her new friends, the Thunder Girls, don’t stop it!

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The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste

Published: March 2016

A spine-tingling tale rooted in Caribbean folklore that will have readers holding their breath as they fly through its pages.

Corinne La Mer isn't afraid of anything. Not scorpions, not the boys who tease her, and certainly not jumbies. They're just tricksters parents make up to frighten their children. Then one night Corinne chases an agouti all the way into the forbidden forest. Those shining yellow eyes that followed her to the edge of the trees, they couldn't belong to a jumbie. Or could they?

When Corinne spots a beautiful stranger speaking to the town witch at the market the next day, she knows something unexpected is about to happen. And when this same beauty, called Severine, turns up at Corinne's house, cooking dinner for Corinne's father, Corinne is sure that danger is in the air. She soon finds out that bewitching her father, Pierre, is only the first step in Severine's plan to claim the entire island for the jumbies. Corinne must call on her courage and her friends and learn to use ancient magic she didn't know she possessed to stop Severine and save her island home.

With its able and gutsy heroine, lyrical narration, and inventive twist on the classic Haitian folktale "The Magic Orange Tree," The Jumbies will be a favorite of fans of Breadcrumbs, A Tale Dark and Grimm, and Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.

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