Party in the Pit

About a week ago the teens approached me with a program request that we've never gotten before: a dance party. While I whole-heartedly agreed that that would be awesome, in order to soothe my librarian soul and I had to make it book themed. With the release of Divergent on DVD recently, my brain was stuck on Veronica Roth's description of the Pit in the Dauntless headquarters. Loud, dark, with wild clothes and great music? Sounds like an awesome place to party. I ran it by the kids, who were totally on board with my crazy schemes, and "Party in the Pit" was born.

For teen programs, food is one of the first decisions we make. This time didn't take a lot of thought, though. What else would you feed a pack of Dauntless teens than hamburgers and cake? One of our teens made us a Dauntless cake and the awesome Amity pie pictured below. They tasted just as good as they looked!

While we watched the movie I drew tattoos on some of the more brave participants. I used permanent markers and free-handed the design. I'm not suggesting that this is the best method, what with permanent markers being so... permanent and all. Washable markers would work just as well, but they won't stay through the night.(And in case you were wondering, hand sanitizer takes permanent marker off skin.) I was pleased with how well the markers blended on skin. It worked well for the whole watercolor look, which I think makes the symbols look more unique and futuristic.

While I was drawing my sister was doing some crazy braided hairstyling. We had Mohawks and cris-cross and one style that gave the illusion of the shaved side look. That paired with the tattoos made you feel pretty freaking dauntless.

When the movie was over we turned on the disco ball and strobe lights that the kids brought in. When I was wasn't dancing I was playing with an app called Light Camera. The kids tried to write messages, including a shout-out to our library. (HPLD!)

Final review: B+. We could have gotten more into the theme, and there's some ideas I would have liked to try, but for a program we only planned in a week, I think we pulled it off. I always lament the small amount of people that come to out stuff, but in this instance it worked in our favor. Everyone who wanted a tattoo or hairstyle got it.

If I did it again: I would try to incorporate the feeling of being in the Pit some more. I didn't do a lot of decor because there's a fine line between cheese and cool, but if I could think of some creative way to have the walls look like stone I would totally try it.