![]() I am one who believes that not every program at the library necessarily needs to be connected to reading. We also added a few elements that involved creative thinking and writing in the game-for instance, when they got married and had children they were required to fill out marriage and birth certificates. Each space needed to be read and the teens needed to follow the directions properly. They enjoyed that so much we accidentally discovered while setting up that we made an entire extra building! How did you tie in reading to the game? While it might not seem like much, there is actually a lot of reading involved in the game. The biggest element of the creative process was the seven white buildings we had to make. So doctors got scrubs, journalists got fedoras, college graduates got flower bouquets, physicists got goggles, and so on. For example, for each career that someone could land on we wanted there to be a prop for that person to carry throughout the whole game. They really like how creative they can get with making props and coming up with ideas for what can be done. The teens and I spent two and a half months working on The Game of LIFE. We always enjoy the actual making of the game. First, the “uncle” is in some trouble and you give him $1,000, then he leaves you a skunk farm and you have to pay to get rid of it, then he needs to be bailed out of jail-they found this hilarious and enjoyed making fun of the “evil Uncle” throughout our preparations for the game. They were inspired by the look of the game, the fact that it had way more spots and things to do, the cars were old-fashioned, and the text of some of the spots you could land on were outrageously crazy! For example, they loved how in the older version there were spots about an uncle whose actions progressively got worse as one got further in the game. What, may I ask, is more unknown than life itself?” What did your teens like best about the experience of creating their own game, and LIFE itself? I think the teens were really, really excited by the older version of LIFE. As one TAB member Kayla Harbour said, “The theme for TRW is 'Seek the Unknown'. Luckily, my library had a copy of the older one which everyone agreed was way cooler! So that was what we went with for the grant application. There were three groups among the teens when it came to deciding on this game-the ones that love LIFE and have played the older version, the ones that love LIFE and have played the newer version, and those who have never played LIFE before. They considered Clue and Monopoly, then finally someone mentioned The Game of LIFE. They really wanted to stick with the life-size game idea and make that our “thing.” They originally thought about doing a life-size version of the original Arkham Horror game board (which, oddly enough, looks a lot like a Candy Land set up), but then they decided they wanted to do something new. Last summer, I reminded the teens about the TRW grant again and asked for ideas. Compared to Candy Land, it was much more work and involved more detail, Over the course of the two and a half months leading up to the 2012 TRW my teens volunteered nearly 353 hours to make that program a reality. So that experience led to our idea in the summer of 2012 to apply for the YALSA/Dollar General Teen Read Week grant and do a life-size version of our favorite board game, Arkham Horror. We did the old school version that was pre-candy characters, so we got to make props for the Peppermint Forest, the Peanut Brittle House, Neapolitan Floats, and so on. The teens had a blast making all the game props. The grant enabled us an opportunity to spend time over the summer playing the game for “research” purposes! Why did we decide on The Game of LIFE for our 2013 Teen Read Week? Back in the summer of 2011, my TAB ended up doing a life-size Candy Land game for the kids at the library. Can you tell us a little bit more about the game? Was it part of your TAB's application to get the second YALSA/Dollar General Teen Read Week grant? Well, The Game of LIFE is the game everyone associates with the tiny cars you fill with little peg people! My teens were pretty mixed between those who had played an older version and a newer version of the game and those who knew the game but had never played before. The TAB's leader, youth librarian and advisor Lindsey Tomsu, a 2013 Library Journal Mover & Shaker, recently got in touch with us and let us know that for Teen Read Week 2013, the group created a life-size version of The Game of LIFE. In March 2013, School Library Journal reported on the creation of an Arkham Horror board game by La Vista Public Library's Teen Advisory Board (TAB) as part of its 2012 Teen Read Week (TRW) celebration. ![]()
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