Rowdy Rowdy Rowdy

You might get the impression that as a New York Public librarian I face tough gangs of hard-bitten teens every day in the dirty aisles of my midtown workplace. Yet due to my cushy job (and the fact that teens only come to my floor to use the bathroom) nothing could be further from the truth. The cities have their problems, sure, but nothing too terrible. If, however, I am sent to librarian purgatory due to some unspeakable crime of an illicit nature (probably involving this blog), that purgatory would take the form of Maplewood, New Jersey. As the New York Times reports (and if this article disappears the author was Tina Kelley and it published on 1/2/07), in Lock the Library! Rowdy Students Are Taking Over, Memorial Library is closing weekdays from 2:45 to 5 p.m. because the teens and middle schoolers. It looks as if the kids who come in are too gross and violent. Here's the kicker: They're delightfully overprivileged.

This comfortable Essex County suburb of 23,000 residents, still proud of its 2002 mention in Money magazine on a list of “Best Places to Live,” is no seedy outpost of urban violence. But its library officials, like many across the country, have grown frustrated by middle schoolers’ mix of pent-up energy, hormones and nascent independence.

Three points for use of the word "nascent".
Obviously closing isn't the best solution. Still, it makes me love my NYC teens all the more.