Thursday Coffee House
The Teen Coffee House at the Library has enjoyed increasing numbers and a variety of students stopping by after school on Thursdays. So far we’ve made scarecrows for the town contest, decorated Halloween cookies, made Boo Bags for the First Selectman’s office and the police, and played a few games of Apples to Apples. Kids in grades 6-12 can stop in from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. to hang out, do homework, use the computers and grab a hot chocolate. Thanks to the Friends of the Kent Memorial Library for sponsoring this program.
Upcoming Events
Please check the teen page on the library website and follow us on Instagram @suffieldlibraryteens to keep up with teen programming. Just like teenagers, you never know what we’re gonna do next!
Flash Fiction Contest
Congratulations to Lucie Casinghino and Jacob Quinn for their entries in the library’s Teen Flash Fiction Contest as part of National Teen Read Week. They each receive a $25 prize. Working with language arts department at the middle and high schools, students were asked to work off this prompt: “You are an ordinary kid on any ordinary day. The sky is shining, the birds are singing. You are walking to the bus stop when……”
Here is an excerpt from Casinghino’s story:
“The bus lurched forward as Nadia took her seat, the students around her subdued with drowsiness on a Tuesday. Some were laughing and talking but most were quiet. She looked through her playlist, clicking on a mellow song and pressing play, looking out the window as a mix of oranges, greys, yellows, reds, and browns passed by outside. Nadia mouthed the words and looked absentmindedly down at her phone as a notification popped up. It was just her mom, telling her that she wasn’t going to be there after school because of a doctor’s appointment. She sighed, content to look out the window in her morning fatigue.”
Here is part of Quinn’s submission:
“My grandfather, who owns the company, had bought this for me as a gift for my 16th birthday. I stopped admiring my watch and realized the time read 6:49, and in two minutes I was going to be late! I started running, then my run turned to a sprint, then to a dash. Suddenly I was tearing through the streets, don’t ask how, it just kinda happened, and abruptly my morning jog came to a standstill. When I looked up after catching my breath, I realized I didn’t just run to the bus, I ran past it, faster than the speed of light!. I was standing at my school with hundreds of eyes burning through me. I hastily turned around, just wanting to get out of that situation and to my locker, and then it happened again! A second long blur and I was at my locker, and this time it was the eyes of the principal studying me down to the bone.”
This contest was sponsored by the Friends of the Kent Memorial Library. Thank you to local children’s author Jamie Deenihan for her assistance with the judging.