Pretty Little Liars Program


Ever since Pretty Little Liars premiered in 2010, I was hooked. With all of its mysterious twists and turns, it was hard not to be. This show has dominated ABC family & is still holding on strong in its 6th season. 





What I love most about it is that it is based off of Sara Shepard's book series. 


With this popularity and my own love for the show, I decided to turn this into a library program. Since the TV show is rated TV- 14, the target audience for this program was high schoolers. 

For my program, I wanted something laid back. I decided to do a countdown to the top three fan rated "scariest episodes."  I picked these episodes based off: 



Of course, we have to give a shout out to the episode that kicked off one of the most nail-biting shows on TV! Okay, the pilot is nothing compared to some of the later drama, but thinking your murdered friend is haunting you via creepy texts is straight-up terrifying!

1. The Pilot - (Season 1, Episode 1)

I chose this one to appeal to kids who may have not seen the show. I also wanted to watch this one to allow participants to look for clues about who the mysterious "A" is. 



This episode meant the introduction of possibly the most terrifying child on television right now: Creepy Boy Seth! Plus, the Liars find a disturbing diorama of Ali's death in a doll shop in Brookhaven, almost meet an equally-disturbing fate, and Spencer sees what is apparently Ali, back from the dead. No biggie!

2. If These Dolls Could Talk (Season 2, Episode 24). 

This episode was just super creepy. It had lots of weird little dolls, and a creepy boy in it. The teens really like this one just for its thrill factor. 


Anytime the Liars head to Ravenswood, you can automatically assume there's gonna be some wild moments! The mid-season finale had tons of creepiness: Emily gets kidnapped and wakes up in a coffin about to be sawed in half; they find A's lair and the scarily accurate timeline he's been keeping about their lives; CeCe falls to her "death" but her body quickly vanishes from the scene (as tends to happen on the show), and they find out Ali was totally buried alive and probably is still lurking around Ravenswood. PLUS, EZRA IS.... Well, you know if you've seen it, and if not, we won't spoil that scary surprise!
We can't wait for the Halloween episode to find out what happens next—it's sure to be the most terrifying one yet!

3. Now You Seen Me, Now You Don't (Season 4, Episode 12) 

The teens picked this one for its thrill factor. It is a crossover episode between the show Pretty Little Liars and its spin off series called Ravenswood


This program was very easy & the teens really enjoyed it. It was fun to discuss their theories on who they thought "A" was. They got so into their conversation they didn't want to leave. Which is saying something because this was a drop in 3 hour program and they stayed the whole time. 

The only prep I had to do for this program was make popcorn. 

I also set out some fun little activities for them to do while they talked & watched the episodes. 

Some of the things I set out were: 

Adult Coloring Sheets 

Friendship bracelet supplies and tutorials

I chose to do this activity based off of the bracelets that appeared in the show. 



....and finally, I just set out some foamy play dough.


This was my first program of the summer, and right during finals. Many found this to be therapeutic to take a break to color and play with play dough. I think I was on track with planning it like this. 

What I Learned 

I had more boys show up to this program then girls which really surprised me. 

Although I didn't have many show up for program, I did feel like it was successful. I was able to help a few teens who were stressed with finals and that was a library win for me. 

I feel like my biggest pitfall was that  I did not advertise it well. One of the teens told me it was an amazing program, but the library does a terrible job at advertising. 

Even though it stung a little, I felt like he was right with this comment. I think next time I will advertise it as a final study break & try and reach out to more social media outlets.

I am going to try this program again with the TV show Supernatural around Halloween. I am hoping to advertise it better, but I am a little disappointed that it didn't go better before. 

How does your library advertise to teens? 

Until next time, 

Pamela






1 comment

  1. It is very difficult to advertise to teens. Even though we have flyers out in our teen section I have them telling me they didn't know we had certain programs. The schools will not let me pass out flyers there. For a while I made slides for the school's morning tv segments, but didn't get much response. I have Twitter and Instagram, but have had trouble getting teen followers. They don't read the newspaper. Now, I have made shelf talkers that hang in among the books. Not sure how that will work. I have not seen great success yet! I find attendance at my summer programs has been slowing down on the teen front. The best promotion I have is teen advisors telling friends at school. And, now I think the more teen advisors the better. If you want to know what I do with teen advisors contact me at lbostian@cclva.org. Best.

    ReplyDelete