Liven Up Your ­Library: Design Engaging and Inclusive Programs for Tweens and Teens

Authors and school librarians Tagoe and Torres outline a variety of ways to start, maintain, and expand library events for young adults, bringing the wealth of their education and experience to this title, which offers practical information on everything from creating a welcoming library environment to starting an teen book club from scratch. A section at the beginning outlines AASL Reading Standards and ISTE Standards for Educators. While this will be more relevant to fellow school librarians, the title quickly segues into applicable information that will be useful for public librarians as well. In particular, the “Librarian Spotlight” sections interspersed throughout are valuable inclusions of experience and programs from other industry professionals. The book also emphasizes taking advantage of the library’s youth population as a resource for providing dynamic, flexible events for education and recreation. The book is written in an accessible format that will give youth services staff excellent talking points when speaking with stakeholders, such as library directors or Friends of the Library groups, to make a case for funding youth programming. It will be most helpful for school librarians who are first starting out with tween and teen programming, but can be useful for novice young adult librarians in public libraries as well. However, it might not be as practical for established teen librarians who have previous youth program experience in libraries.