March Madness Battle of the Books!

It's March 1!  Here are some sort-of interesting facts about today: 

• 1692: Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba were arrested for practicing witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.  They probably never dreamed that would one day inspire novels and essays and entire college courses, not to mention movies (I don't know if they'd have been more shocked knowing they'd one day be important historical figures or learning that one day there'd be such a crazy, magical thing as "moving pictures," i.e. movies)
• 1803 and 1877: Ohio became the 17th state in 1803 and "most" of Nebraska became the 37th in 1877 (happy birthday, Ohio and Nebraska!)
• 1941: Captain America first appears in comic books (making him 72 years old!)
• 1978: Charlie Chaplin's coffin was stolen from a cemetery in Switzerland.  Apparently two guys dug it up, then reburied it in hopes of getting some money from Chaplin's family.  I gotta say, I've never heard of anyone kidnapping a dead body, coffin and all, for ransom.  It kind of seems like a lot of work to go through, though I guess dead kidnapped people are quieter than live ones.  ANYWAY.  So a lot of other stuff has happened on this day throughout history, but I'm just going to share one more, my favorite:
• 1980: Snow falls in Florida.

You know what else happened on March 1st?  The APL March Madness Middle/High School Book Battle polls have officially opened!!!  You can vote each week beginning today for your favorite books--"The Fault in Our Stars" or "Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition"?  "The Giver" or "The Westing Game"?  You choose!  This week 16 books are competing against one another; next week, 8 will be competing, and so on until there's one winner, the MOST AWESOME AMAZING TEEN BOOK CHAMPION WINNER as decided by you guys!  We'll keep updating the bracket in the Teen Zone here at APL to reflect which books make it through to the next round.

HERE is the list of books in the competition   |   HERE is where you can VOTE!

Note: You don't have to be in 7th or 8th grade to vote!  Any teen can participate by voting online or stopping in the Teen Zone @ APL and filling out a paper ballot.

March Madness, or The Big Dance

So "March Madness" refers to the crazy popular college men's basketball single-elimination championship tournament held each spring; it's one of those quivery-excitement thing that people (well, at least sports-type people) look forward to every year.  AND, as I just learned, March Madness is also apparently known as "the Big Dance."  Which, let's be honest, sounds a lot less awesome than March Madness (although I do find it completely entertaining to imagine big dudes hanging around, talking about "the Big Dance").

Anyway, this March APL is going to be hosting its own glorious, utterly nerdy version of March Madness, but instead of rounds eliminating basketball teams, our tournament will be a most awesome book for 7th graders and up championship.  Each week, teens get to go online and vote for their favorite among the 16 selected books that are pitted against one another until the whole thing culminates in one winner.

      

The bracket, by the way, is up on the wall behind the computers in the APL Zone, and it looks AWESOME.  Like, seriously epic, and I'm totally not just saying that because my boyfriend put it up and it took him 7 hours on a Saturday when we could've been home watching the IT Crowd or Sherlock or out shopping in Des Moines.

So on to the books.  Some of the winners are going to be hard to pick: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is up against The Graveyard Book.  The Giver is playing against The Westing Game. Seriously?  Seriously?  Tough call.  I'm glad I'm not the one who has to choose, though I think I'll have fun trying to predict each elimination rounds' winner.

Will post the link to the online voting when it's available...In the meantime, definitely brush up on some of the books on the list linked above and get ready to vote at the beginning of March when the polls officially open (sounds dramatic much?)!