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Author Archives: Alicia Abdul

About Alicia Abdul

You'll find me drinking tea in a dress and reading... or making lists.

Love: School break reading

Today begins winter break which generally means I will try to cram as much reading as I can into each 24-hour day while tidying up around the house, visiting friends, and driving my boys to their job and hangouts with friends. It also means bottomless cups of tea thanks to my Breville teamaker.

I have a few professional titles to read including Jarred Amato’s Just Read It: Unlocking the Magic of Independent Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms and Ashley Hawkins, Emily Ratica, Julie Stivers, Sybil “Mouna” Toure, and Sara Smith’s Manga Goes to School: Cultivating Engagement and Inclusion in K-12 Settings.

And plenty of YA and middle grade titles especially that have started piling up on my Netgalley shelf as I prepare for a new set of presentations with my amazing colleague and presenter, Stacey.

Where will you find me? At home bouncing between the couch with a book or tablet or bouncing around the house with my Shokz headphones listening to an audiobook getting chores done.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on February 17, 2025 in Blogging, Miscellaneous, Nonfiction

Love: When movies get the book right

16 Feb

Yesterday I spent the first morning of winter break donating platelets, which if you’d done it, means about 2 1/2 hours sitting with both arms immobile. I can’t read a book and while I could potentially listen to an audiobook, I’d just be staring around the room, so I took the opportunity to watch a movie since they provide you with this entertainment. I was prepared to watch a movie I’d been wanting to watch on one streaming service but it wasn’t working so I was on another and saw The Martian available. I had been surprised by my love for the book. I had borrowed it digitally a few years back and was prepared to skim read the science fiction story because it’s not usually my jam. But I was sucked in and ignored other responsibilities one summer day to finish it because I loved Mark Watney’s voice. Done. I’ll watch the movie adaptation.

I’m usually suspicious of movie adaptations but have followed Angie Thomas’ tweet from years ago when the adaptation of her book was coming out and she was inundated with messages about it. She likened a book versus the movie as fraternal twins: they share the same DNA however they are different entities. As the mom of fraternal twins and a bookworm rather than a movie buff, it spoke to me on multiple levels.

Eventually I end up watching most movies that have been adapted but I don’t want a lot of movies in general (I prefer documentaries). And just like the book, I was wowed by the movie. Damon is a fantastic actor and the scenes, dark humor, and immediacy of his situation were wonderfully evocative in the movie.

There have been a few others that I’ve enjoyed similarly: Kristen Stewart’s awkwardness as Melinda in Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson matched. The adorableness of the music and characters in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han spoke to me (more) in the movie version than the books. Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy was brought to life with all the confidence of Dumplin herself, Danielle Macdonald.

Do you have a favorite book/movie adaptation?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on February 16, 2025 in Adult, Authors, Blogging, Fiction, Miscellaneous, Shows, Young Adult

Love: The auto renewal*

15 Feb

Public libraries have made steps to be a welcoming space and not worry about the books as much as the patrons themselves. Libraries in our area went to a fine free model. This also included autorenewals. Asterisk: obviously if a book needs to be returned because there’s a queue forming it won’t be auto-renewed. But for a book that doesn’t have a queue, it will send a message that the books have been renewed for another month allowing me to breath a sigh of relief and prioritize reading it. This, while lovingly staring at my massive TBR pile in general.

Thank you, auto renewal. Thank you libraries for understanding that sometimes I get a little greedy and put too many books on hold and then they all come in at once. I panic a little. Then I realize *hopefully* a few will be auto renewed. And I can get through them all before I have to return them.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on February 15, 2025 in Blogging

Love: Romance

14 Feb

Are you a library book? Because I’m checkin’ you out.

I couldn’t help it. Cheers to love this Valentine’s Day highlighting a handful of my favorite romances in every format and for different audiences.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on February 14, 2025 in Adult, Authors, Blogging, Childrens, Comics, Events, Fiction, Graphic novels, Illustrators, Manga, Verse, Young Adult

Love: The other things libraries offer

13 Feb

This isn’t what you’d expect from a title like that. I’m not going to literally list all of the other things libraries offer because it differs from community to community. Instead, I’m going to highlight one that I’m buzzing about that happened last night.

Open Mic Night.

For three years, I have helped shape three open mic nights per year in our new library space. Luckily, another teacher at the school who pitched the idea of these recurring events is a casual artist himself and the best emcee. Collaboratively, we organize one fall, one winter, and one spring open mic night that allows students in our high school to flex their creative muscles in front of a live audience.

The lights get dimmed. The chairs are intimately pushed toward the microphone. The hot chocolate and baked goods smell wafts in the air. And these teens show up and they perform.

Spoken word (recitation and original)

Songs (original and borrowed, solos and duets, rap, Broadway numbers, pop hits)

Musical instruments (keyboards, pianos, drum kits, guitars)

Artistic expression (song and dance and break dancing)

What other things do libraries offer? Places to see and be seen. To build confidence and skill by offering something as simple as a small stage with a microphone.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on February 13, 2025 in Blogging, Miscellaneous

Love: Self discovery

12 Feb

Last week I recommended the entertaining first book in The Misfits series The Royal Conundrum written by Lisa Yee and illustrated by Dan Santat to a girl who didn’t really know what she was looking for. I told her that a fun adventure would await and if it sounded good, then dive in.

She returned today saying she wanted something else. I’m not even sure she cracked it open. As a mood reader myself, I assumed that the good time romp that The Royal Conundrum offered her last week when we talked wasn’t what she was looking for now. We chatted for a few minutes. I showed her a new display of books and talked about a few based on format and topic and told her to roam and see what stuck out.

Ten minutes later she came up to the desk with Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett that I had talked about from our display and the Manga Classic edition of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare that was in a wildly different location than the other. Both a decidedly different mood than the original. We chatted during checkout and she grabbed a few bookmarks content with her choices.

I want to celebrate her self discovery. Her agency in choosing what is right for her at the moment. It wasn’t an assignment. It wasn’t forced. She just wanted to read a good book and meandered through the library without me trailing behind. We need to give kids the space to make their decisions with confidence… or maybe even sheer randomness. Either way, I’m glad she feels at home in the library to return and borrow as often as she needs.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on February 12, 2025 in Blogging, Fiction, Illustrators, Manga, Young Adult

Love: Netgalley

11 Feb

Oh, Netgalley! So many pre-published books and not enough time to read them all in… but I try!

I try to be discerning about what I ask for. But it’s also hard when I am pre-approved by a publisher and it just says “Read it”.

I try to not download all the books. But I can’t help myself when they’re my favorite authors, buzzed about books, or sound so fabulous.

I try to read them one at a time in the order of the archive date. But when the mood strikes me, I might skip ahead.

And,

I always review the pre-published books I’ve been gifted to read. It is the obligation.

I always use the Netgalley app but now that they’ve added a read feature built into the website, I’m using that just as much.

I always share with others this gem of an additional resource. What’s not to love?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on February 11, 2025 in Blogging, Miscellaneous, Upcoming Releases

Love: Picture book biographies

10 Feb

How else can you learn about amazing human beings than with the perfect blend of fact and storytelling and illustration? Picture book biographies are where it’s at. I love learning about people I didn’t know about and others that I did know. Maybe it’s a musician, a children’s book publisher, or a computer. Either way. I’m glad they exist.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on February 10, 2025 in Blogging, Childrens, Illustrators, Nonfiction

Love: Quirky books

09 Feb

I had mentioned in my Love: YMAs post a few of my favorite award winners and honorees including John the Skeleton. It’s a quirky book– in part because it’s a translation? Maybe. But also because it’s odd to write about a “retired” science classroom skeleton going to live with a set of grandparents. It got me thinking about how much I enjoy a quirky book– on my Goodreads shelf, they’re called “offbeat”. To me, it constitutes a book that is unlike anything written in topic, style, mood, tone, plot, or characterization. What might be quirky to me, might not be quirky to you, so I’ll let you decide after I highlight five.

Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides remains in my top five books of all time. I recently reread it and realized just how much I adore the narration of the Lisbon girls’ demise in their house from the vantage point of neighborhood boys. This is in addition to the fact that all of the girls commit suicide by the end of the story and thus lending itself to the melancholy mood that is so direct in so few pages.
Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is another vantage point that’s wholly puzzling– a mountain lion in the hills of Hollywood. Yup. Making scathing work of judging humankind.
David Sedaris wrote and Ian Falconer illustrated Pretty Ugly, a picture book with the goofiest and sweetest twist at the end. The style, the character, the entire premise is quirky but oh so lovely by the time you close the book.
Ian X. Cho’s Aisle Nine made it into the top five finalists for the Morris Award this year. I’ve never read anything with as much zest and disdain for life than Jasper and the alien creature that lives in his apartment with him while he works a dead end job as a supermarket that’s a portal from hell. I couldn’t help but make a puzzled face through most of it with a little Mona Lisa smile.
Jackie Morse Kessler’s final book in her Riders of the Apocalypse series called Breath brought a unique approach to the series in which a contemporary teen embodied a horseman as a way to understand an issue they were faced with.
Lauren Destefano’s Wither was the first in a Chemical Garden trilogy that I got in to. The premise was a medical dystopia with intense characters in an unflattering situation that was creepy and got creepier as the trilogy moved forward.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on February 9, 2025 in Adult, Authors, Blogging, Childrens, Fiction, Young Adult

Love: Turning people on to the library & Libby

08 Feb

Growing up, I was a reader. My mom had bodice ripper paperbacks bought at garage sales. My dad has his magazines. My middle brother was decidedly not a reader and the youngest brother was a casual science fiction and fantasy reader. We were sporadic library visitors.

Fast forward to my retired parents: Mom attends a needlecrafters group at the library weekly and used to attend chair yoga. She participates in their winter or summer challenges and is plugged in to the activities of the library. My dad has a stack of books he reads, generally about history, natural disasters, and conspiracy theories. Both have a Libby account and now that my dad has a pair of headphones he likes, he’s listening to audiobooks like a fiend.

And talking to people while standing in line at the public library to add get themselves a New York Public Library card since we live in New York State to add to their already extensive collection of ebooks and audiobooks from our library system. I had overheard her talking to the library employee that she was over paying for ebooks and audiobooks like she was before and how amazing having a library card was.

Strangers or family, either way, what have you done to turn people on to the library and/or Libby? Have you done visited in a while? Is the app on your phone or tablet? What are you waiting for?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on February 8, 2025 in Miscellaneous