I see all of you tea drinkers out there on National Tea Day. I raise my big, hot black tea mug with a dash of milk and honey to you as I turn the next page of my book.
Category Archives: Events
The good kind of exhausted
Spring break is around the corner for us here in upstate New York and it’s not that I’ve worked excessively hard these last few weeks, but it will still be nice to not have to show up to my day job for a week to rest and recalibrate (read: still do work for other job-y things but also find time to drink copious amounts of tea and tackle my TBR mountain). Here are a few highlights from the last few weeks:
Presented two full-day workshops back-to-back on new books with my presenter extraordinaire, Stacey, halfway across the state.
Had an author visit at our high school– fourteen years and running! It’s always stellar to walk away from the day knowing that students had new core memories created by making connections and learning a few things along the way.
Celebrating School Librarians Day by sending well-wishes to school librarian friends of mine near and far last Friday while gearing up to talk libraries for National Library Week this week.
Still trying to read all the books all the time. My Netgalley TBR is immense, I culled copies from my TBR shelves in my studio, and (unsurprisingly) a bevy of audio holds arrived from the public library all at once that I must address.
Love: Readers’ book personalities
For close to fifteen years, I have moderated a young adult book group for local educators through a collective. Many of those years were in person meetings at local school libraries based on who was attending the meeting and who volunteered to host. But the pandemic moved us online and then the convenience of the platform as well as the expansion of who attended meant that it was easier to sign up than dive forty minutes to an hour for some folks.
Over the years, librarians and educators have retired who were active members. Others have gotten busy with other activities and duties and have stopped coming. Other newer members have come regularly. And one thing stays true, that everyone has a book personality.
We do not have a set reading list. Participants talk about what they’ve read most recently and how it can be relevant to our school libraries and classrooms. That’s the beauty of the book group. Thus, we can count on certain genres or categories to be represented based on participants’ personal reading enjoyment. We have an Austen lover who finds every retelling to read and talk about. We had a woman whose parents were academics of English history and thus every historical fiction period piece featuring the reign of kings like Henry VIII would be shared. We had another who couldn’t bear to have an animal die in a book. Count on me to bring a dark or disturbing book.
I love getting to know everyone’s book personality. Of course we all read outside our comfort books, but it’s nice to know that my weakness is another’s strength.
Love: Short form
A handful of years ago, a librarian friend invited me to the movie theater to see the Oscar-nominated animated shorts. She likes weird. The shorts are generally always weird. She knew I’d probably appreciate the weird as well. And thus a tradition was born of seeing them every year.
We went the other day to see them. Yes there were some very weird ones, but we spend a lot time afterward analyzing the message, the visuals, and the storytelling in general. It got me think about short stories– short form writing that can pack a lot or so little that a reader must fill in the blanks with their own experiences to fill out the story. And that’s a magic all its own.
Do you have a favorite short story?
Love: Romance
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.
Love: Book announcements and cover reveals
My bookish Instagram is all about following authors, publishers, and book-related creators to keep track of the social side of the business. There’s nothing more fun than stumbling upon an author’s tease about an upcoming project or cover reveal as was the case two days ago from an author I follow.
There are only a few great surprises left in the world. This is one of them!
Love: the YMAs
Blogging each day during a month has been a fun adventure to challenge me and I’ve decided February is a LOVE-ly month for another round using the theme of love. Have an idea for a post? Drop it in the comments.
This past Monday was the premier event in children and teen publishing: the Youth Media Awards. While it will undoubtedly look different next year without having a midwinter conference beforehand, it will continue to be an event to be viewed. It’s where winners of big awards that add seals to books get announced to the gasps, claps, and exuberance of all who are watching. There are years I’ve been “in the room” and years like this year that I was watching the livestream making audible noises and shaking my hands in celebration. Here were the titles that I was most excited to see come across the screen either because I devoured them (not having known about them previously in the days following the YMAs or precisely because I loved them leading up to the YMAs).
Favorite posts from 2024
With the last day of the year, what’s better than a quick post of my favorite posts from this year because they were often about amazing moments or reads from this past year.
- The “best” lists from this year
- My forty-book reread to celebrate turning forty
- Meeting authors and celebrating books
- The best new comic series this year
And it wouldn’t be the end of one year and the start of another without having my last book of the year and first book of the new year lined up. Several hours ago I finished the National Book Award winner Kareem Between by Shifa Saltagi Safadi. It’s clear why it’s a winner.
And as if Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan made a wish come true that I whispered into the ether or not, my first read of 2025 will be Saga #71.
There’s no doubt this will be the perfect way to usher in a new year of reading. If you haven’t hitched your wagon to Saga yet, make this your year.
Riddle me this
Book birthdays are as special as human birthdays, especially for book lovers who adore the authors that have put the book out into the world. Therefore, happy book birthday to The Bletchley Riddle, coauthored by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin whose individual works are as impactful as their first collaboration and must be celebrated.
The Bletchley Riddle is a middle grade historical fiction set in 1940 at Bletchley Park, home to the infamous codebreakers during World War II. In addition to incorporating ciphers into the text and providing an entrancing overall mystery amidst war, the book’s best feature are the vivid brother and sister duo. Who doesn’t love an alternating point of view? Intricately layered with historical facts because both are powerhouse researchers, Sheinkin wrote Jakob’s character and Sepetys wrote Lizzie’s character. How did it all blend together? Some of their secrets were revealed at an event at Northshire Bookstore in Saratoga Springs, NY last night as the last event for the Saratoga Book Festival; plus the hometown indie bookstore for Sheinkin. To have both authors, since Sepetys lives in Tennessee, was a real treat. Then to have the book in hand (if it was preordered, a spy pen was a bonus gift) and signed after an enchanting evening of their conversation and answering audience questions, made for a memorable book launch.
I’ve only teased a few elements of the book because it’s better to clear your calendar and spend a weekend with a cup of tea and Jakob and Lizzie. And if you want to put a goulash casserole in the oven for later, even better. I did this a few days after I read the advanced reader copy.
Collaborations are hard work, as they attest to, but readers will read the book and find it an effortless meshing of two talented authors who find history that we all need to remember more than we do; finding palatable ways to learn, question, and feel. I wonder… is another collaboration on the horizon?
Isn’t she lovely?
The week or two before the school year begins is a weird one. I try to tie up loose ends from the summer. I start thinking about what I want out of the upcoming school year. But there’s also work that goes into a full-day book presentation my co-presenter Stacey and I do through our local BOCES’ for mostly librarians and a handful of educators.
We met a few times throughout the summer to plan for this and upcoming opportunities around the state to spotlight new books. This past year it morphed from a half day with each of us as the primary speaker to a full day where we are both the primary presenters all day giving a full picture of what’s out for PreK through 12th graders in the book world. This organic merging of our voices came through feedback and constant reflection. With this new journey we wanted to merge our different personalities and styles into a cohesive presentation that focuses on our collective love of literature.
Thinking about yesterday after a quick debrief at the end of the day, reviewing evaluations the participants submitted, and talking on the phone this morning, I’m grateful to do this work with her. We still can’t remember how this came to be that two women from different school districts (hers more small and rural, mine large and urban), from different backgrounds (she’s a career changer librarian and I have been a librarian almost all of my career), with different lifestyles (she’s always on the go and I’m a homebody), and varied approaches (she likes to leap and talk to strangers with pink and blue in her hair and I’m an orderly, organized dress-wearer who makes polite conversation with the same brown hair I was born with) are bonded in this way. We often joke that we are like Matthew Cordell’s Cornbread and Poppy.
I would never and could never do this with any other person. And yesterday was that reminder.
Stacey is energetic. Stacey is personable. Stacey is caring. Stacey has gone to school only to discover that her leggings matched a pair that a second grader had on that day and another day discovered she had the same backpack as another student. Stacey throws the best book birthdays and is a friend to many authors. Stacey is the cohost of Author Fan Face Off with Steve Sheinkin.
Isn’t she lovely?
Readers Be Advised 