Community Corner
Zombies and Unicorns Take Over Library
Brains, horns and blood on display at Zombie/Unicorn Prom.
If you had any brains, you'd stay away from the library when the zombies were out. But the unicorns didn't care because, as one of the attendees of the Zombie/Unicorn Prom helpfully explained, unicorns are invincible.
hosted a Zombie/Unicorn Prom on Friday and the crowd was pretty evenly split between zombies and unicorns. They were celebrating their most recent teen/young adult book club selection, "Zombies vs. Unicorns" by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier.
Unicorns were easily identified by their horns, which ranged from actual horn-like appendages to feathers and crowns. The feather-and-crown unicorns were apparently on to something, as the horned unicorns complained of their horns hitting things every time they turned their heads.
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As for the zombies, some of them were downright glamorous-looking, like "hipster zombies" Rachel Jones and Kait Hudok, while others looked more like one would expect a zombie to look.
When zombie Julian Toepfer walked into the room, someone yelled, "Ew, you look gross."
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"Duh. I'm a zombie," he replied.
Toepfer was one of several library employees helping to eat brains and celebrate fantasy with a large group of area teens.
Library Director Dustin Shilling was also on hand, being transformed into a combination of zombie and unicorn by John Boyce, husband of teen/adult program director Sarah Boyce, who was leading a class on duct tape boutonnières, a must-have accessory for any zombie prom.
Shilling is thrilled to have a program like this prove to be so popular in drawing in teens, a population that libraries often lose to sports, academics, jobs and other activities.
"We've been wanting to transform our young adult programming for a long time and were lucky to find someone who could take it forward," says Shilling.
The group is overseen by Sarah Boyce, who is the "brains" (zombie pun!) behind the operation, but much of the programming is decided by the young people on the , which meets monthly.
They also keep in touch via a Facebook page and a bulletin board at the library. They're currently in the process of deciding on their next book club selection.
Whatever they choose, it's going to be pretty hard to outdo the Zombie/Unicorn Prom for sheer creativity and fun.