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…
What do you call a group of girls? A giggle?A gossip?What about … a force. I was so excited to be asked to be part of the blog tour for the new Anne Ursu book The Lost Girl (which comes out this Tuesday, February 12th) I mean first of all, it’s a new Anne Ursu book AT LAST. But…
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…
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…
11/28/14 We have a FOURTH list of titles for Ferguson! Believe it or not, we got through the third list in less than two days. This is amazing, world. These titles have been approved by Scott Bonner. They fill gaps in Ferguson’s popular reading collection for teens (lots of African-American authors) and expand their collection of titles…
The beauty of Koningsburg prose was how acutely she captured the aches and pains of being an outsider, a loner, a kid that was a little different. There’s something particularly middle-grade about that, I think, the aches and pains of not just figuring out who you are but understanding that who you are is a little different…
When I started thinking about why I loved The Monstrumologist series (the series is The Monstrumologist, The Curse of the Wendigo and the forthcoming Isle of Blood, which – DON’T FORGET – releases next week and is the book we’re currently doing a PR push for!) why I thought it was so damn special in…
Being evacuated sucks. It sucked when I drove away from Hattiesburg after Katrina, it sucks when I am unable to get into Los Alamos right now. It’s just the worst. I HATE being away from my library this long during our usually busiest and happiest season. I wanna go back to freaking work already. So,…
Debbie Reese is my blogging heroine, my blogging role model. If there’s one blog I wish my blog could be like, it’s Reese’s American Indians in Children’s Literature. She was the model for what I wanted this blog to be like. She says things people don’t always want to hear, whether it’s about Little House…
I’ve been absent for a bit because I was attending the 2010 ALA Annual conference in Washington, D.C. You can read about my top five experiences at ALA at the PLA blog. I was super-excited and nervous about it, because this year is my first year on a selection committee and we were having our…
