Welcome Back!

So, did I miss anything major in 2020?

Yes, that’s right it’s a relaunch of this blog as my professional website (and sometimes still blog) – after all these years! While the blog is still an element of this site, including that I of course still wanted to host my many years of posts, I also wanted to turn this into more of a professional website, so it now has info on how you can work with me and information about my work as an editor and writer along with my conference presentations and other professional and personal bits. Huge thanks to websydaisy design for the new look.

Remember when library blogs were THE absolute best and we all learned from each other and shared and typed out stuff we had tried and failed and wanted to do? The good ol’ days! Hard to believe the first post on this site was in 2010. So much has happened in my world and the library world since then, that’s for sure. But I hope we all still have something to say to each other. Goodness knows I’d love to still be reading blogs so maybe one way to make that a reality is, well, to try writing on my own!

I can’t promise I’ll keep this blog as updated as I might dream of (just being realistic) but I do want to try to do a better job of sharing and creating content here. For the past two years, I’ve been out of public service and working in library consulting – it’s a whole different world so any content here will certainly reflect that in a variety of ways. As I hammer all that out, please feel free to explore the new site. I’d love to hear feedback from you about it or what I’d REALLY love is to hear about what kind of blogs/reviews/coverage in this section would be most helpful for you in your library practice. Nothing motivates me more than knowing what people want to read!

Let’s see where we find ourselves next, whaddya say? 

When

WHEN AIDAN BECAME A BROTHER, hooray!!

There are tons of books I can’t wait to see in 2019. Every year, I love the steps publishing, especially small and independent publishers, take towards being more reflective of the reality of the current world we live in. We are not making near enough strides fast enough but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate…

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Books

The Message of Your All White Booklist

“Well, they’re my favorites, I can’t help if I like what I like.” Back in July, Grace Lin shared a picture from her local public library on Twitter. When I saw it, my heart sank. I felt a shock of embarrassed sadness. And then I just felt fucking mad. First, imagine Grace Lin is your library patron!…

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Professional Annoucement

At the request of the ALSC Executive Committee, I have formally resigned from the 2018 Newbery Committee. Let me explain. At the beginning of this month, I tweeted a story about one of my kid library patrons and their reaction to a book. (this tweet thread is now deleted, in case you were looking for…

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ABIGAIL

REVIEW: ABIGAIL THE WHALE by by Davide Cali

Where’s the fat kids in picture books? Well, you might guess the answer. They don’t really exist. Or they’re lumpy, somewhat grotesque bullies.  Or maybe you can find a few rotund hedgehogs or something but hey they’re really more adorable than anything else. You know what fat people look like in picture books? Like this:…

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dino yell

Dinosaurs @ Your Library!

Last summer we repeated one of our popular standalone programs – DINOS!  It had been a few years since we did this program and, as many of you know, I recycle these themed programs at least every 2-3 years.  (unless it’s something very pop culture-y that has dated.  But that’s a rarity.) Since last summer…

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P  e  scaled

How We Do Library Tours (Grades 3 & 4)

We did it!  We finished another school year of library visits and tours! Lessons were learned, improvements were made, and tons of kids, teachers, and parents visited our main library and our branch library for tours and outreach. I previously wrote up the process of how we do tours for our K-2 visits and people have…

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rainbow cakes

Rainbow Fairy Magic @ Your Library

In a way, this event exemplifies everything I think these one day stand-alone programs can be: no matter what you might see, you don’t have to spend a TON of money and endless staff hours creating something that looks like it came out of a party planning book.  You don’t have to limit attendance just…

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2016 ALA Elections

I am standing for election on the 2017 Newbery ballot and I can’t believe I am actually typing that sentence but … there you have it.  It’s real. It’s really real! Even being on the ballot is just a dream come true and I am so grateful to ALSC for the great fortune of being…

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