Check out the top 3 winning entries of the 2012 Book Trailer Contest below:

1st place (winner of a Kindle Fire): Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty by K. Rai

2nd place (winner of a $50 iTunes gift card): 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens  by L. Do

3rd place (winner of a $25 Jamba Juice card): Ender’s Game by L. Chinn

Thank you to everyone who submitted such creative and fun videos! It was a difficult decision to choose the top three.

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Teens: want to do something more imaginative than just writing a review for Summer Reading books that you have read? Create and submit a book trailer review for Summer Reading, and you could win a Kindle Fire! Upload a short clip, no longer than 4 minutes, to YouTube, providing your review of the book. Be creative!  The contest is open to all participants in the Teen Summer Reading Celebration.

How to enter:

• Create your own book trailer, reviewing a book that you read for Summer Reading. You can submit more than one video, but each video has to be for a separate book.
• Post the video on YouTube using the tag: SJPL2012SRC
• Sign up for Summer Reading here, starting in a few weeks.
• When you log the book you read on the Summer Reading website, make sure to include a link to your video in the review field.

Entries will be judged on creativity and content by a panel of library staff.

Need some examples? Check out the winning entry from last year's Book Trailer Contest, created by Nathan Verdonk.

Here are links to some professional book trailers:

- Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

- The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

- The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

Teens who submit links to their Book Trailer will automatically be entered in the contest. The top 3 winners will receive:

• 1st place: Kindle Fire
• 2nd place: $50 gift card for iTunes
• 3rd place: $25 gift card for Jamba Juice 

Entries for the contest must be submitted between June 1 and July 31, 2012.   Winners will be announced in August.

Enjoy a special evening with Khaled Hosseini, best-selling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns.  

Date: Thursday, August 23, 2012

Time: 7:00 p.m.

Location: Almaden Branch Library and Community Center

6445 Camden Ave. San José, CA

The event is free and open to the public.

Light snacks and refreshments will be available.

Join us as author Khaled Hosseini talks about his writing inspirations, life experiences and upcoming projects.  Audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions and meet the best-selling author.  The event will be followed by a book signing.

About the author:

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, moved to San José as a teenager, earned a bachelor's degree in Biology at Santa Clara University, and a Medical Degree at the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine. 

While in medical practice, Hosseini began writing his first novel, The Kite Runner.  In 2003, The Kite Runner, was published and became an international bestseller, published in 70 countries.  In 2006, he was named a goodwill envoy to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency.  His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns was published in May 2007.  Khaled works to provide humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan through The Khaled Hosseini Foundation.

Join the discussion!

Our Online Book Club is reading The Kite Runner this month. 

This program is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Persuasion, Jane Austen's last completed novel, satirizes social status and emotional turmoil with her famed wit and ironic style.  Not just any love story – Penguin Classics has compared the romantic narrative to the well-loved fairy tale, “Cinderella,” in the characters, conflict, and aspects of plot.  However, this tale is distinguished by the resplendence of literary beauty that is both philosophical and awe-inspiring: the impact of the theme, ‘persuasion,’ is recounted in a cleverly woven path that directs the heroine to her eventual felicity. 

Intrigued with the return of her former beau -- Captain Wentworth -- from eight and half years prior, Anne Elliott is placed in the uncomfortable position of remaining in company with him while he is courting another!  Austen displays the pain and agony of his return, the unspoken words, and misunderstandings that continue to evolve and devolve in the plot.  Along with that conflict is an underlying tension from the recommendations of Lady Russell, who discouraged the engagement all those years ago in the first place.    

Gillian Beer explains that Austen was perceptive that the ability to persuade or to be persuaded is crucial in regards to communication.  Beer states: "...  Jane Austen gradually draws out the implications of discriminating 'just' and 'unjust' persuasion."  That is, the narrative displays a profusion of variations of those inducing, or attempting to entice, others—or themselves.  Finally, Beer describes Austen's work as: "… the novel's entire brooding on the power pressures, the seductions, and also the new pathways opened by persuasion.”  Although, erudite in tone, Persuasion is in effect, a treatise on Austen’s personal challenges with similar phenomena in her own familial relationships.  It is one of the most fascinating and enduring novels ever!

A fabulous read! 

Are you planning on taking the SAT this Fall? San José Public Library will be offering 2 practice tests this summer, giving you the opportunity try your hand at the types of questions you will see on the actual test. These full length practice tests will be proctored by Princeton Review  and are open to all high school students. Pre-Registration is required.

Saturday, June 16, 2012 - 10:30am

King Library (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library)

Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 1:00pm

Rose Garden Branch Library  

In addition, you can check out a variety of new study books for both the SAT and the ACT.

Lastly, you may also want to look at the LearningExpress Library Tutorials, Tests, eBooks which are accessible with you library card, and have great College Preparation materials, including tools and tips for both the SAT and ACT.