TPiB: Steampunk in the Library
“I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.” – Voltaire
Steampunk: Steampunk is a subgenre of speculative fiction, usually set in an anachronistic Victorian or quasi-Victorian alternate history setting. It could be described by the slogan “What the past would look like if the future had happened sooner.” It includes fiction with science fiction, fantasy or horror themes.(Urban Dictionary)
Steampunk is not tricky, it’s a way of looking at the world through a different lens. Worlds that exist in the books of Cassandra Clare, Kady Cross, Kenneth Oppel, Cherie Priest, and Scott Westerfield and HG Wells help set the ideas that you’re looking for, and with these crafts to tie into those worlds, your teens will be into steampunk in no time…. Have ideas that have worked for you? Share in the comments!
Wearables
For day wear with a twist, think about creating a charm bracelet with shrinky dinks and old world charms added in. If you don’t have the means to make the photos at your workplace, think about making them at home and bringing them in the day of with using teen volunteers to scouring old magazines for images.
Over the Cresent Moon’s blog has this example:
Over the Cresent Moon’s blog has this example:
For a top hat with steampunk style and duct tape pizzaz, take a look at what Cut Out and Keep has on their site:
Carryables
For those who have a writing bent in them, what about creating smash books (scrapbook by way of a junk drawer) with your teens? Over on the Craftster site, there was some interesting ideas to get you started, like this one:
It starts from scratch, but if you get a DIY journal from Oriental trading like these, you could easily add embellishments to steampunk them out.
You could also collect all those metal tins (mints, gum, etc.) that your staff and teens have around, and make mini scenes and modge podge pictures into the insides and outsides of them. Go Make Something has a good tutorial for prepping them (although I’m sure there’s others):
And the Guides from the Mesa Library has an awesome directory for steampunk and other crafts…
Filed under: cassandra clare, cherie priest, hg wells, Kady Cross, Kenneth Oppel, Scott Westerfeld, Steampunk, TPIB
About Karen Jensen, MLS
Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).
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