Camden County Library Teen Zone

Library Ninjas

Happy New Year! What better way to celebrate than with Library Ninjas? Still thinking about it? That's because there is no better way to celebrate than by combining the greatness of libraries with the awesomeness of ninjas.  Thank me later.

Persepolis to Close NYC Film Festival

Persepolis and Persepolis 2 are graphic novel memoirs by the Iranian artist Marjane Satrapi.  Fast-paced and eye-opening, the books chronicle Satrapi's childhood under the Islamic Revolution in Iran, her teen years exiled to France, her eventual return to Iran, and her final departure for a life in France as an adult.  The books are also a crash-course in Iranian history and culture: by reading these books, I learned more about Iranian history, Iran's stormy, bloody relationship with Iraq, and the ethnic differences among Iranians and other peoples of the Middle East than I ever did in school. 

Now, these amazing books have been transformed into a great-looking film, which has been selected to close the New York Film Festival in October.  This is a huge honor, particularly for a film based on graphic novels, and bodes well for the film's future release prospects in this area.

• Read Persepolis and Persepolis 2
• Watch the trailer for Persepolis:

Superbad = Super Buzzy

When Superbad hits theatres this weekend, it'll be poised to make gajillions of end-of-summer dollars. I find Judd Apatow's career fascinating, and am pretty psyched to see this film, myself.

Here's the third installment in a funny round-table discussion among the three lead actors in the movie, from Entertainment Weekly, and The Onion's AV club has also interviewed them (just so's you know, the EW interview bleeps out the profanity; the AV club doesn't).

Here at the library, you can enjoy other offerings from Apatow & company, including:

• The 40 Year-Old Virgin
• Talladega Nights
• Sadly, no Arrested Development -- I'll see what I can do about that one.
• Freaks & Geeks -- Dang!  We used to have this on DVD, but it looks like it was stolen or damaged.  I'll see about a replacement copy.

Gearing Up for Eragon: The Movie

So, the film version of the first book in teen author Christopher Paolini's wildly popular dragon-steeped trilogy is nearly upon us.  I readily confess to not having read either Eragon or Eldest -- 500-page tomes about dragons just don't do it for me, though I am a big fan of fantasy authors like Tamora Pierce and Terry Pratchett -- but even I am getting psyched for the movie.

I mean, just look at this trailer!  And I enjoyed this interview with Paolini, too.  I think it's cool that he cops to being not that into reading until he discovered fantasy, and for a guy who went from just being a regular kid in Montana to being absurdly famous and wealthy, he seems very normal. 

If you want to read either Eragon or its sequel, Eldest, we have both of them here at our many branches.  You can check on the availability of all of our books and audiobooks, and place holds on what you want, right here.