Category Archives for Teens

Thanks to the Suffolk Cooperative Lending Library program, the Islip Public Library will have access to the HTC Vive Virtual Reality system from February 9 - February 12. Schedule a 30-minute appointment and transport yourself into another world -- the world of Virtual Reality!

Swim underwater, travel to a foreign country, jump off a skyscraper -- these are just some of the virtual reality experiences that will be available. While wearing the virtual reality headset, you will be able to "look around" the artificial world, move about in it, and interact with features or items that are depicted inside the headset.

So what exactly is Virtual Reality? Virtual reality is the term used to describe a three-dimensional, computer-generated environment that can be explored and interacted with. You become a part of this virtual world and are immersed within this environment. While you’re there you can manipulate objects or perform a series of actions.

Please note - due to the intensity of virtual reality you must be 13 years or older in order to try it out.

Please stop by or call us at 631-581-5933 to find out more or to schedule an appointment.

On this page, I’ll give you a bunch of extremely actionable tips for becoming a better student. Enjoy!

Use These Great Resources if You Want to Become a Better Student!

Listed below are some subscription Databases available to you (free) through the Islip Library. 

Access these through our homepage www.isliplibrary.org / click on Research

You can use these resources at the Library or at home (you’ll need your library card to access from home)

The Islip Library Teen Room provides a great place to study and do homework with your friends. There are 3 computers in the Teen Room for your use. If you prefer to use a laptop we have those too - for use in the Library. Our Mac laptops are available to run on a Windows operating system or the Mac operating system.

What to learn more?!

Attend this teen program: “Online Homework Help: Welcome Back to School” on Monday, September 12th, 7-8 pm at the Islip Library!

Do you have trouble “reading” the emotions, thoughts, or body language of other people? Is it difficult for you to imagine lives different from your own? Do you wish you could be less quick to judge and have more empathy for others?

Two recent studies show that reading literary fiction helps to increase your capacity for empathy. Wow! Besides expanding your mind, reading can also help you to become more compassionate!

One of the studies, published in the journal, Science (10/18/13) found that “after reading literary fiction people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence.” The researchers who conducted one study are social psychologists at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan; the other study was conducted by researchers in the Netherlands and produced almost identical results. They discovered that when you are engaged in reading literary fiction your brain is literally living vicariously through the characters. This is because literary fiction (as opposed to popular fiction or nonfiction) requires you to put yourself into someone else’s position. By contrast, in popular fiction, the author is in control; the story tends to center around plot, and the characters tend to be more stereotypical. Characters in literary fiction tend to be quirky and idiosyncratic, just like real people; they do not fit into a certain ‘type’. Because of that, according to one of the researchers, “each character presents a different version of reality, and they aren’t necessarily reliable. You have to participate as a reader in this dialectic, which is something that you also have to do in real life.”

If you already love to read literary fiction this is hardly news to you. One of the likely reasons that you enjoy doing so is because of the humanity and uniqueness of the characters. You can puzzle out psychological traits and motives and feel as if you are getting to know these characters as real people. You care about them and can imagine how you might feel or react if you were in their shoes.

How often, as we go about our day, do we encounter people who seem to care only about things that directly affect only their own lives - who see things only through their own limited viewpoint? We encounter people who seem to have almost no capacity to imagine themselves living another kind of life - be it as a person who speaks a different language, is a different race or sex, practices a different religion, is living with a disability, has a different sexual orientation, is homeless or fighting addiction or mental illness, or countless other variations. Unfortunately, a deficit of empathy seems to be increasingly common in our world.

The studies that link reading literary fiction to an increased empathy quotient provide especially useful information for parents and teachers. By encouraging young people to read literary fiction, and speaking with them about it, we can help them grow into adults who have the ability to imagine how it might feel to be a person living a life different from their own. They could grow up to be kind, understanding, and compassionate instead of judgmental, critical, and hurtful. Now wouldn’t that be refreshing?!! It’s never too late. We can all become more empathetic. Read some literary fiction today!

Here are some suggestions of literary fiction for adults and teens:                                                                                        (For suggestions of Children’s Literature, please see one of the librarians in our Children’s Room!)

There are so many Teen books to choose from, books are sometimes overlooked for various reasons because they are labeled as being the same old teen literature. Teen Angst, Quick, Dystopian, Fantasy series etc…

They sometimes stay on the shelves, just ready to be discovered. Some books that are really good that you may never have heard of are titles that you will make you laugh, cry, become open minded, imagine, learn something new, be empathetic, or just go on a journey to another place and time.

Some titles I recommend that are different than the typical genre are titles that have a lot of flare and touch on so many subjects.

We should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly a True Story, by Josh Sunquist. Twenty-five years old and still single why? Never having had a girlfriend, Josh was actually under his impression that he had been in relationships. Why was [Paralympic ski racer and cancer survivor] Josh still single? To find out, he tracked down the girls he had tried to date since middle school and asked them straight up: what went wrong?

The results of Josh's semi scientific, wholly hilarious investigation are captured from a disastrous Putt-Putt date involving a backward prosthetic foot, to his introduction to CFD (Close Fast Dancing), to a misguided 'grand gesture' at a Miss America pageant, this story is about looking for love--or at least a girlfriend--in all the wrong places.

Another often overlooked book is The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone by Adele Griffin.

It’s written like a piece of journalism. After Addison Stone, a talented street artist, mysteriously drowns, her former teacher investigates her death. The book itself is a compilation of the teacher’s findings, relaying what happened to Addison through interviews with Addison’s friends, which are interwoven with pictures of both Addison and her art.

It gives the impression that something bad is going to happen because all of the characters are fictional, it is a rare glimpse into New York art scene, fame and mental illness. This book is just not about what happened to Addison Stone it is also about who Addison Stone really was.

It's not just a Historical Novel , but Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee, is about Missouri in 1849 and life on the Oregon Trail. This is Part Adventure, about friendship and overcoming odds and forging friendships in the least expected places. Samantha dreams of moving back to New York to be a professional musician -- not an easy thing if you're a girl, and harder still if you're Chinese. But a tragic accident dashes any hope of fulfilling her dream and, instead, leaves her fearing for her life.

With the help of a runaway slave named Annamae, Samantha flees town for the unknown frontier. Life is unsafe for two girls, so they disguise themselves as Sammy and Andy, two boys headed for the California gold rush. Sammy and Andy forge a powerful bond as they each search for a link to their past and struggle to avoid any unwanted attention. But when they cross paths with a band of cowboys, the lighthearted crew turns out to be unexpected allies.

Some other titles you may never heard of that are great reads:

• ​How It Went Down - Kekla Magoon
• Gabi: A Girl in Pieces - Isabel Quintero
• Teeth - Hannah Moskowitz
• Dangerous Girls - Abigail Hass
• Bone Gap - Laura Ruby
• The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender - Leslye Walton
• Poisoned Apples - Christine Heppermann