I recognize the irony of me (middle-aged woman) telling you (tweens and teens) how to use an app, yet here I am, about to do it anyway. Forgive me, tweens and teens. I know if you were locked in a room alone with this app you would totally figure it out in under three minutes, but since I am currently unable to lock you in a room, writing this article is my next best option.
I want to tell you about the free OverDrive app—also known as Libby—available to A.K. Smiley Public Library cardholders either through the library’s website or the app store. Once you’ve downloaded the app onto your device, the first time you use it you will need to select the A.K. Smiley Public Library as your home library and then enter your library card number and pin (your pin is the last four digits of the phone number used to open your library card account). Once you have done this, you are golden, and a treasure trove of teen titles—and adult and kid titles too—will be at your dexterous little thumb-tips.
When I say a treasure trove of titles, I mean it. I would not engage in false advertising at a time like this. Titles like Karen M. McManus’ One of Us is Lying (and its sequel One of Us is Next), Melissa De La Cruz’s The Queen’s Assassin, Angie Thomas’ On the Come Up, Lamar Giles’ Not So Pure and Simple, Jack Heath’s The Truth App, Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why, Ransom Riggs’ Tales of the Peculiar, Marissa Meyer’s Supernova, Phil 
Stamper’s The Gravity of Us, Jenny Han’s entire To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy (and her other books too)…I could go on and on and on. Your eyeballs would glaze over as I continued naming all of the incredible titles you could (and totally should) check out RIGHT NOW.
If you don’t have a specific book you’re looking for, no problem. Just select “Teen” from the explore page and browse the categories. Dystopian, coming-of-age, horror, paranormal, romance, sci-fi, fantasy, nonfiction, humor, suspense, mystery, poetry, graphic novels—there’s a little bit of everything (just not all in one book…but how freaky/amazing would that book be? You should totally write it.).
Did I mention there are over 1000 teen titles to choose from?
Did I mention there are also more than 500 teen audio books to listen to if that is your thing?
Teens, why are you still reading this article? Go forth and lock yourself in a room, get this free app (with your parents’ permission, of course) and stare at your phone or Kindle or tablet and make the adults in your life think you are mindlessly addicted to technology while you secretly become more brilliant by reading beautiful, terrifying, funny, relatable literature. And if you are a resident of Redlands and you don’t have a library card yet, you may be eligible to get a free temporary electronic card…visit the A. K. Smiley Public Library website (www.akspl.org) for more info. We look forward to the day we will see you once again in the library.
Remember Miss Scarlet and Professor Plum? This book is a totally modern, thoroughly edgy, perfectly spine-tingling take on the classic game…one that finds prep boarding school students Scarlet Mistry, Finn Plum, Beth “Peacock” Picach, Vaughn Green, Samuel “Mustard” Maestor, and others stranded in a school dorm after a violent winter storm. Things get worse when the teens discover the dead body of their school headmaster, Mr. Boddy. In the Hall with the Knife is a good old-fashioned murder mystery, teeming with a familiar yet fresh cast of characters, all of whom have shady secrets and dark motives that spill out in tantalizing bursts as the story unspools. Warning: this novel is the first in a trilogy, so don’t expect to breathe a sigh of relief after the last page.
Next, if you dressed up like the character Eleven for Halloween (a.k.a. you’re a superfan of the Netflix series Stranger Things) you must read the graphic novel series 
love about the book is that these women’s stories are told in depth, not just as accessories or sidekicks, or a list of heroic accomplishments, but as real people whose experiences often aren’t rosy. These women had to defy cultural expectations to get things done and they did. If you want to epitomize cleverness during Women’s History Month in March, namedropping defiant women from around the globe, get cracking on reading this book now.