Teens at the Westside Library recently had a program called Top Chef Teens - The Peanut Butter Challenge. It was a culinary competition where the teens had to prepare a dish that included peanut butter, but could also include anything else on the ingredients table, which had everything from candy and chocolate sauce to celery and apples. Contestants really got into this program and competition was fierce. Once all the contestants had completed their dish they had to name it, and then it was taste-tested by the judges (Westside staff). A winner was determined for each category: Best Overall (meaning it looked great and was edible), Most Creative, and Nastiest. Winners received a teen cookbook!

Dangerous Pie won Nastiest

Frosty=cute

Peanut Butter Fountain won Best Overall

Tiger's Trap won Most Creative

the Top Chef Teens

Today we had our 3rd anniversary Read & Feed! The book was My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. I just finished it today but not because it was a difficult read, just a long one (423 pages). I loved the different perspectives of all the characters telling one story but the ending took me by surprise. I haven't made up my mind about it yet...

Next month we're discussing Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock and I think I'm going to propose a cookie exchange because the only thing better than cookies, is lots of cookies!

Friday we had our monthly J.A.M.S. meeting where we finally finished Tsubasa (and gave it away!) and started Blue Gender. Here are a few pictures of everyone "looking natural" and one of a part of Blue Gender.

Next month we'll meet on Friday, December 21st @ 4:30pm in the Barrett Room. Hopefully we'll have something new to watch!

Friday we celebrated the 3rd anniversary of our Teen Advisory Group. We had fancy chocolate cake, fake candles, sparkling grape juice, flowers and ring pops! We even had 3 boys attend, which is a record for us.

We voted for the December teen movie (it's a tie between Stardust and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), discussed the Teen Winter Reading program (coming to a library near you very soon!) and talked about what to do at jamboread! 2008 where the teen author will be....

JOHN GREEN!

For those of you not familiar with John, he's written Looking for Alaska (which won the Printz Award) and An Abundance of Katherines (which won a Printz honor).

For those of you who know and follow his blog, I hope to see all of you nerdfighters there!