Breaking Dawn @ Twilight

Karen went on vacation and returned to amazing reports of successful library programs and activities! I am eager to share one example for you to enjoy:

Nampa’s teen group, TALK put on a fantastic event for the release of Stephenie Meyer’s fourth and final book in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn.
Breaking Dawn @ Twilight…

As the sun works its way towards twilight, teens start lining up at the Nampa Public Library’s front doors. Among the casual dresser, one can also see suits and dresses, including prom dresses stepping out of cars and taking their place in line. At 7pm, the doors open and teens start filing in. Every teen signs in and receives a raffle ticket for their chance to win a new copy of Breaking Dawn. The first 60 teens receive a button with dripping blood and wolf tracks asking the question, “Who would you choose?”
The teens head to the basement where the party is just starting. As the teens step down the stairs and walk into the open basement area, the atmosphere changes from the usual library look of books and shelves into a dimly, candle lit room. Music is coming from a DJ up front on the stage. Round tables with black tablecloths, highlighted with candles, sparkly rocks, trivia cards and chess pieces colored in red, black and white set on the stage and continue throughout the rest of the room. Just in front of the stage is a professional dance floor. Centered over the dance floor is a spinning disco ball and soft swags of red and white draping from the center of the disco ball out. Streamers follow suit cascading out from the dance floor and continuing over the other round tables scattered around the room. Each round table is candlelit and decorated with the theme colors of red, black and white. Coordinating streamer wind socks create a wall separating seating area from the hall.

In the back of the room a long table holds a large white frosted cake with black roses. An array of cupcakes, dripping with vampire bites, waits to be bitten again. A punch bowl is filled with red punch and little bags of blood candy and animal cookies wait to be eaten.

One of the TALK members, Cristina walks around with a basket full of temporary tattoos including claw marks, vampire bites and red lips and offers to adorn any willing participant with their own Twilight inspired tattoo.
In a side room, adult volunteer Frances sets up for a duct tape craft to make duct tape roses of various colors, including black of course! Duct tape wallets can be created too.

Holly (library staff) takes the stage and welcomes the teens to the party and introduces teen TALK member Jessica. Jessica, TJ, Justin and Katherine kick-off the evening with a performance of a Twilight skit written by Jessica. The teens pull it off with spice and humor and the crowd of teens laugh and relax a little.

As teens eat and mill around, Holly once again takes the stage to offer some basic instruction in swing dancing. Teens fill the dance floor for the demonstration and practice. After the instruction, the music continues, mist fills the room, pin lights dance and the strobe light flickers as teens fill the dance floor. Dancing continues through the night with intermingled interruptions to give Salsa Dance lessons, Twilight costume contest voting and to give copies of the book away!

A total of 90 teens participated in the Twilight Party. The teens from the TALK group (Nampa Public Library’s teen group) worked hard to create press releases, posters, bookmarks, trivia cards and more to promote the event. TALK also promoted the event in the community by handing out bookmarks and asking area businesses and organizations to post flyers. In fact, two teens went to the Barnes and Nobles release party and promoted the Nampa Library event there! Many TALK members worked on some of the “behind the scenes” steps such as creating a supply list, researching costs and helping with scheduling. The teens worked together to transform what was a drab, noisy and stale white basement room into a Twilight inspired space that one could even imagine seeing Bella and Edward taking a spin on the dance floor.
Dawn Kindberg
Nampa Public Library