Teens have a Minute to Win It this Saturday at MPL

Teens can compete in a series of 60-second competitions during the Mentor Public Library’s version of Minute to Win It at 2 p.m. this Saturday at the Read House, which is next door to the library’s Main Branch at 8215 Mentor Ave.

Children who are 12 and older will compete in several different challenges, depending on what time allows. The challenges include:

• Face the Cookie, in which people need to move a cookie from their foreheads to their mouths, using only the muscles in their faces.
• Dicey, in which teens will balance as many vertically stacked dice as they can on a popsicle stick. Not difficult enough? They will be holding the Popsicle stick in their mouth.
• the Cookie Unicorn, where teens will balance as many cookies as they can on their forehead without letting them fall.

And participants will only have 60 seconds to complete each challenge.

The competitors who win the most challenges will receive prizes.

You can sign up for the competition on Mentor Library's web site.

Try to balance as many cookies as you can on your forehead while competing in Cookie Unicorn.

While you’re at the library, you can sign up for summer reading too.

For every book you read or library program you attend between now and Aug. 1, you get a raffle ticket and a chance to win cool prizes like Captains Tickets or gift cards to Panera, Target, Amazon and more. You can even register online.

See you at the library.

Don't drop your dice or things can get... dicey.

Teens have a Minute to Win It

Teens competed in our Minute to Win It competition this Saturday.

You're going to want to watch the video—if only to see the faces the contestants made during Face the Cookie. (They have to move a cookie from their foreheads to their mouths, using only the muscles in their face.)

By the way, teens still have time to sign up for Mentor Library's summer reading program and our free horror writing workshop this Saturday.

Super Awesome Summer Fun-Time Video Countdown

It's too soon to eulogize the summer of 2013.

Our end-of-summer party isn't until August 15; and children still have about two weeks until school begins again.

(Yes, kids, only about two weeks. Mentor Schools restart on August 21; Lake Catholic, August 22; and St. Mary's orientation day is August 26.)

Sure, we still have some fun stuff coming up. (I'm especially stoked for the Abbey Road concert and for Holi on the Lawn -- stoked enough to use the word "stoked.") But that doesn't mean we can't take stock of how awesome a summer this has been.

And, in my humble opinion, the best way to do that is with a TRL-style video countdown.

5. Ronald McDonald teaches kids that readers are leaders

The moral of Ronald's lesson is both true and important, but it's his juggling skills that have me absolutely fascinated.

4. Teens beat the buzzer in Minute to Win It competition

In case you were wondering, two of the teens managed to successfully move their cookie from forehead to mouth using only their facial muscles.

I tried it twice myself. All I got was broken cookies.

3. Mentor's Rock Roots come home to roost

I refuse to pick a favorite band from our Mentor Rock's Roots concert series, which featured four homegrown bands from in and around Mentor.

Instead, I'll link to performances from all three concerts and you can tell me who your favorite was:

• Altered Generation
• Brendan Burt Band
• Cheap Clone and Hedgehog's Dilemma

2. Constructing catapults at the Lake Branch

True to Lyndsey Gvora's hopes, a lot of the kids who participated that day said, "Wow, I didn't know I could do that."

1. Becoming a library ninja

This is my favorite library video of the summer so far; but, as I said before, the summer isn't over yet.

For more information on programs and events happening at the Mentor Public Library, visit www.mentorpl.org.