The Bradford Area Public Library’s Teen Book Club will travel to the Chautauqua Institution near Jamestown, N.Y., today to tour the facility and hear Roger Rosenblatt interview well-known author Margaret Atwood.
The group, which includes around 17 club members and 15 adult chaperones, will board a school bus at the library at 8 a.m. and return at 4 p.m., according to the library’s executive director Guy Bennett.
Bennett said the library has a secret surprise for the club members on the trip. After getting seated on the bus, each member will be given a copy of Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” to have on hand for signing at the event.
He said the club now has 20 members — double the amount that had initially signed up when the club got started last fall. Bennett attributes the increase in participation to Marie Troskosky, who volunteered to head up the club.
“She just loves it and has worked magic with getting this trip together and getting the kids together,” Bennett said. “She almost single-handedly raised the money to do this, for the bus and the tickets, gathering the adults and coordinating. She even had a yard sale at the library that helped raise almost half of the money.”
According to Bennett, this is just the first of many trips the library hopes to fund for the club.
“We hope to do many trips with the club in the future,” Bennett said. “This first one was just an opportunity to hear an author, to meet an author. We want them to connect with authors.
“Plus they get to experience the Chautauqua Institute so it’s a nice day trip and a great opportunity,” Bennett added. “I’m delighted that Marie was able to pull this all together.”
The Teen Book Club is dedicated to providing an opportunity for teens to share their love of reading with other teens, according to Troskosky.
“It offers a forum for discussing the books we read together and those we read independently,” Troskosky said. “It is a place where over some pizza and soda, we can laugh, talk and just be with friends. It is also a place where we can just sit back and listen to others talking about books.”
The club extends a welcome to all teens who are ages 12 to 18. Each teen is given a free book at most meetings, which is discussed at the next meeting.
Only students who have attended at least two meetings will be given the next book. Students who have been members, but who have to miss a meeting, should come to the library’s main desk to pick up their book for the next month, according to Troskosky.
The club offers a wide variety of current young adult novels ranging from fantasy fiction to romance.
Since January, the club has read “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green, “Nothing But the Truth” by Avi and “Eleanor and Park” by Roswell.
The club meets the third Tuesday of every month from 5 to 6 p.m.
“It gives me goosebumps just to watch their meetings and listen to the dialogue that they have,” Bennett said. “It really gets them into reading.”
