We've now made it to our next stop on our country wide road trip. We've made it into Saskatchewan, where rumour has it, you can see your dog running away from home for days. Saskatchewan, like Alberta has many great authors to celebrate, so, we've narrowed it down to 3.

Far from her farm roots near Regina, Melanie Schnell takes us to civil war-torn Sudan with her multiple award winning first novel, While the Sun is Above Us. Melanie lived and researched for this book in South Sudan for 7 months, and her dedication to her writing shows. Through powerful and emotional prose, Melanie gives us two intertwined characters, Adut and Sandra. These women, of vastly different circumstance, experience a violent local conflict that changes their lives forever. While Melanie has written for television and has had fiction, poetry and non-fiction published, While the Sun is Above Us is her first novel. It has been shortlisted for four Saskatchewan book awards, Book of the Year, Regina Book Award, Fiction Award and the First Book award. She is currently working on her second novel.

Alice Kuipers, currently living in Saskatoon, has written several YA novels, including her first award winner, Life on the Refrigerator Door . It has been published in 28 countries and was named as a New York Times best book for teens. Her second novel, The Worst Thing She Ever Did, has won an Arthur Ellise Award. Her most recent and third young adult novel, 40 Things I Want to Tell You was a 2013 CLA Young Adult Book Award Honour Book. She will also have a picture book, The Best-ever Bookworm Book by Violet and Victor Small, will be published in 2014. All of her works have been published in 29 countries.

In 40 Things I Want to Tell You, Alice’s main character Amy, a.k.a. Bird, writes an advice column for teens called Top Tips that I imagine she really wishes she had followed. Self-searching and filled with inner turmoil, Alice Kuipers’ latest book shares with readers much more than just 40 Things.

Arthur Slade was born in Moose Jaw, but currently lives in Saskatoon. He has written severl YA novels, including the novel Dust, which won the 2001 Govenor General's Award as well as the 2001 Saskatchewan Book Award. His most recent work is Island of Doom, which is the fourth and final book in The Hunchback Assignments. The other titles in this series include The Hunchback Assignments, The Dark Deeps, and Empire of Ruins.

In, Island of Doom, Modo, a shape shifting, masked spy is on a personal quest....to find his biological parents. Along with some characters from the previous novels, some good and some not so good, Modo and a fellow spy, Octavia, make a thrilling dash towards the conclusion of this series.

My Book of Life by Angel, What Happened to Ivy, and 40 Things I Want to Tell You. What do these three books have in common? They are all awesome, all deal with tough, tough things and all are winners or honour books for the 2013 Canadian Library Association's Young Adult Book Award!

My Book of Life by Angel, by local author Martine Leavitt, takes the cake (aka is the winner). Angel, a teen prostitute in love with her pimp Call, decides to keep a diary when her friend becomes one of the many girls who are mysteriously going "missing" (being murdered), however when 11 year old Melli shows up she realizes she has to do more than that, preserving what innocence a dark and hardened teen can have. My Book of Life by Angel is also a verse novel so it's appropriate that this award was annouced during International Poetry Month!

In 40 Things I Want to Tell You, by Alice Kuipers, Amy has it all - great parents, a sexy boyfriend, and an amazing best friend. In fact, she's so together that she writes an online advice column to help other teens. This all changes when Pete enters her life. He is exactly the opposite of Amy, yet she is drawn to him, and it might just be that losing control of one thing could make her lose everything.

Kathy Stinson offers a summer seaside workshop for kids and teens, and also wrote What Happened to Ivy. David's sister, Ivy, was born with multiple serious disabilities, and she needs constant attention, usually from him. He loves Ivy, but sometimes he hates that she always seems to be the center of his parents attention, and that his parents only see him as her helper. That changes when girl-next-door Hannah enters his life; she makes him feel special. Then Ivy has an accident, and suddenly everything is different. David must confront his feelings of guilt and wrestle with the idea of forgivenss as he struggles with the questions surrounding Ivy's death.

All of the finalists are excellent books by great Canadian authors so be sure to check out the rest of the short list:

Frustrated with homework? Finding that no matter how hard you try you can’t remember what you studied earlier? Try out these books for some excellent strategies to help you out:

Study smart, study less

Study Smarter, Not Harder

Study skills : do I really need this stuff?

Don’t forget, that we also have copies of The Key that you can borrow; these are a great way to help review for upcoming exams. Just remember to put a copy on hold as they are rarely on the shelf, it’s free with your library card!!!

No time to stop at the library for a book? The E-Library is also a great place to find useful information that you can use for any paper or help with homework. Check out these great downloadable resources:

How to Study

Get organized

If you have no time to even download books, check out this great website, for some tips:

http://oedb.org/library/features/hacking-knowledge-how-to-learn-faster-deeper-and-better-in-the-21st-century

Also, check out some of our other blogs that have some great suggestions:

http://calgarypubliclibrary.com/blogs/teen-zone?t=e-library

Don't sweat it if none of these work, we also have the Peer to Peer Study Group every Monday evening on the 2^nd floor of Central Library. It runs from 4:30 to 6:30, but you are more than welcome to stay until 8 pm. This program runs until April 29.

Staff are always here to help you out as well. If you can’t make it to the library, check out the info chat, where staff are more than happy to help you find anything that you need.

Do you like helping others? Do you want to gain some volunteering hours to add to your resume or portfolio? Volunteering is a great way to gain some experience for work and a great way to show off the things you have done when applying for post secondary education. I don't know about you, but I also find volunteering to be a rewarding experience. It feels great to know that I'm helping someone to learn something new or improve on skills that they already have.

If you are in grades 7 to 12 the Calgary Public Library has several volunteer opportunities that you can be a part of. Check out all the volunteer possibilities that we have for you: Computer Buddies, Cyber Seniors, ESL Teen Talk, Peer to Peer Study Group, Reading Buddies, and Library Mascot "Curious" Are you interested in volunteering at a specific branch? Check out the current opportunities at each branch. If you are interested in volunteering in one of these programs, fill out this application form either online or pick one up at your closest library.

Frustrated with how the semester ended? Ok, so in September you were really ambitious to start the school year off with a bang and keep it up for the entire school year. Yet things haven't worked out as you had planned, right? Does everything your teacher tell you sound foreign to you? No worries, Central library has the solution for you!! From Monday, February 4 to Monday, April 29 (with the exception of February 18), we have a gathering place on the second floor for teens to meet with teen volunteers to get help with their homework, from 4:30 to 6:30. You are more than welcome to stick around until 8 pm to finish anything that you have already started. Check out these previous blogs, OMG, it's due tomorrow and Kick Next Semesters @$$ for some great homework help databases. Don't forget to check out all the other awesome programs that we have for you to check out.

How many of you are as excited about upcoming The Hobbit movie? December 14 can’t seem to come fast enough for me. Having said that, I will need to re-read the novel as it seems like it was such a long time ago since I originally read it. Don’t get me wrong, I do remember what the novel is about, but would love to refresh my memory of its details. I don’t know about any of you, but when it comes to the adaptation of books into movies, I tend to like the book better. The odd time, I have found myself enjoying the movie adaptation of a novel as well; The Lord of the Rings Trilogy being one of those rare occasions.

When I was initially talking to people about the movie, I was surprised to hear that the movie was going to be in two parts, but in doing some digging, I have learned that it will be actually in three parts. I find this news to be exciting. I have to question however, why a novel that is shorter than each The Lord of the Rings (LOR) have been done if they were done in two parts, right? The first part of the three part series will be called The Hobbit : An Unexpected Journey is set to release on December 14 of this year. The second movie, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, will be released around December 13, 2013. The third movie, will have the same title as the novel, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, with news that it will be released on July 18, 2014. I am glad that Peter Jackson is directing The Hobbit, as it will be nice to see a continuation of his work on a book that is part of The Lord of the Ring series.

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that you don’t need to read The Hobbit in order to get the idea of The Lord of the Rings and vice versa, but having read The Hobbit first, does help lay the ground work for The Lord of the Rings. I am also excited to see that a lot of the cast from LOR will be returning to play the characters that they had originally portrayed. Looking at some of the trailers online, I can't wait for the movie to come out in theatres!

No worries, the Calgary Public Library’s E-Library is here to help. The E-Library can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and has loads of databases that can be accessed for free from the comfort of your house. Your library card gives you access to these awesome resources. Click on the link to the E-Library from our website and login using your library card and PIN.

Here are some great resources to check out:

Read today's newspapers from around the world in Newspaper Direct Press Display.

Canadian Encyclopedia, has great Canadian information about Canadians, the country, what happened on a specific date and alot more information about Canada.

The World Book Online Reference Centre has encyclopedia articles on various topics, government resources and current events as well as other great information.

Access Science is a great database where you can search all things science. Each article is also cited in either MLA or APA.

Check these databases and the others for some awesome information.