Events | Readers Be Advised

Move in day

Nervous energy pulsed through me on Wednesday morning, but I wasn’t really affected by it since I was exhausted by an almost three-hour end of the school year party with my Anime Club on the last day of school the night before. The nervous energy was that the moving company smartly hired by our district to move our books from the old library to the new library was arriving that morning. It was going to take two days. And we were ready to roll up our sleeves, directing and organizing as they moved them back and forth.

What should have taken two days ended up taking a little less than one because they sent extra guys and our collection of around 15,000 was tiny compared to others they have moved using their custom made rolling bookshelves. So maybe it was the speed of what was happening or that it’s been 15 good years in that space that I couldn’t stop for more than a few minutes in the old library before I began to tear up.

This same exact thing happened when my husband and I started a home renovation that included knocking down the back half of our house. Yes I knew it was happening, heck, we paid people to take the wrecking ball to it and it was still a powerful few moments of emotion actually seeing it happen. We knew we were on to better things. And this is the case in the library. We are returning to a library fit for 2,600 students after being chipped away for more than a decade leaving it a shell of what it was when it was originally build in the 1970s. Yes, it had been rehabbed once about eight years ago when the floors and ceilings needed to be redone, but then the capital project began to build a campus for our students on the property.

And as we spend the next two weeks moving everything else over now that the books are moved in addition to cleaning up the books themselves, there have been moments over the last two days and will sure enough happen today, when I stop and take it all in. We are still waiting on the furniture and computers, including in our office so I know another wave will take me when that comes in.

I’m also filled with genuine pride when staff (who see the open construction door and walk over to take a look and then tell more colleagues to come over too) say things like “You deserve this” and “I have to take pictures, no one will believe how beautiful and big it is”. It’s what the students deserve after years of having the walls literally closing in on them. In addition to four study rooms, there are bathrooms and water fountains inside the library, space to spread out, and an updated look that everyone says makes them feel like they’re in a college library. It certainly does look like one and I look forward to retiring- still many years away- out of this spectacular space with so much natural light, I could probably grow a full garden inside!

More pictures to come and a final post when everything is in!

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on June 17, 2022 in Events, Reflections

Pure happiness at the Con

16 May

Field trips give me grey hairs, but they’re worth it. It’s also been a minute because the pandemic had put events on a shelf. And actually, when it hit in March 2020, I was ready to take a busload of students to another Con at a local college. Before that I had taken them to an inaugural one close by as well. To say that we live in an area that appreciates the Comic Con culture is an understatement now that I’m writing this out. There are many options to enjoy the company and costumes of others who love to cosplay in addition to the vendors selling their wares and panels featuring celebrities and celebration.

Therefore this weekend’s Saratoga Comic Con in Saratoga, New York left most of the students I took from our high school in a frenzied state– feasting on the sights, sounds, and paraphernalia of the Con. We weren’t even off the bus, tilted to one side as they all rushed to shout out the windows to costumed attendees for their fabulous attire. As we waited in line, another student kept shouting that this was the best day of his life. Then don’t get me started on their excitement once we got in. I needed to count them once again and hand out their wristbands which was akin to herding cats. They were itching to get moving and no one knew that more than the two gentlemen standing at the front doors pulling security. Throughout the day they joked with me about my Mother Hen clucking and said a warm goodbye after I corralled them on the stairs for one last post-Con picture.

Circling our photo were a handful of former students who were also Anime Club members that I ran in to throughout the day warming looking on the 28 students that bussed it up from thirty minutes south. We caught up on what they were doing now and posed for pictures. My homemade outfit was a hit though with the temperature getting up to 80 degrees, I left the tights and boots at home. Nonetheless, I got shouts and posed for pictures with the best of them. But mine paled in comparison to other epic attire including some of my own students.

The Con wasn’t just about dressing up and being around like-minded individuals, but learning and being entertained. The bus was close to coming back to pick us up, but many of them finished the day with me in the ballroom at a dance showcase of J-pop, K-pop, Asian-themed dancing that featured the emcee of many of the panels of the day who also happens to be employed at our high school and helps with Anime Club. Her knowledge and personality made our high school proud and the students definitely made her more social media famous as they recorded away as she performed.

I’ll be ready for more grey hairs next year seeing how happy they were by days end.

Signing off as Ms. Marvel for the day which as I was on my way home, I realized, no one was going to pump my gas for me. Back to the real world. I guess even superheroes have to do that.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on May 16, 2022 in Comics, Events, Graphic novels, Manga

Missed opportunity

07 Mar

Using Edelweiss and Netgalley are useful tools as a school librarian: to gain perspective on new things that are coming down the pike in publishing, a get ahead of books that I should be ordering, to get to hype books and authors before their next bestseller comes out.

I was so excited to request a graphic travelogue called Uniquely Japan: Discover What Makes Japan The Coolest Place On Earth by Abby Denson because I was going to be taking almost twenty of my high school students to Japan this summer. A trip that had been postponed several times due to the pandemic. So what better way to discover the coolest things about Japan from this graphic story?

Then within the span of two weeks, I received the approval for the request and downloaded it to read then found out that our travel company would not be able to send us to Japan because of the continued restrictions.

But I wanted to read it still though it would be painful. We chose to cancel the trip altogether since many of my students were seniors who had held on through three postponements and because it is exhausting to have to continue to wait. I cancelled the day before we were to go on our winter break and decided to rip this one off like a Band-aid, reading Denson’s book first. And how my heart broke because Denson’s approach was as unique as the title implies in how she presents the information but also in what she chose to present. I had fun on each page while feeling little pinpricks of sadness that it was not going to happen for us this summer.

One day I’ll get there, hopefully with students, and I know the book that I will have by my side.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on March 7, 2022 in Events, Graphic novels, Nonfiction, Upcoming Releases

Dressed up for books: National Dress Day

06 Mar

It’s a shame that National Dress Day fell on a Sunday when I have absolutely nowhere to go. But I’ll still celebrate by spending some quiet time among my closet full of dresses and I might make a Reel of some of my favorites, we’ll see.

Either way, if you would have told my sixteen year old self that my almost-forty year old self would be exclusively wearing dresses, she would have laughed. I was a tomboy growing up and only developed an affinity for fashion in any sense as I began my professional career. And within the last decade, it’s turned into a general “uniform” of dress, heels, and an accessory like chandelier earrings. There are quite a few stories of professional women who’ve adopted a uniform to help them concentrate on their life rather than their looks or to simplify routines or to fight back against the patriarchy. I have adopted this dress code (get it!?!) to simplify my routine but also because I dress for me, and I love dresses for their design, structure, and beauty, especially when I found Loft. Even my damit pambahay (the Filipino word for house clothes which I discovered in a book) are comfy sweatshirt dresses.

Cheers to National Dress Day and a gallery of some of my favorites. You can always find my dress pics in the library or at home on Instagram alongside my book recommendations. And if you want more about my love of dresses, here was a 2019 post.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on March 6, 2022 in Events, Style

Let’s talk about it

05 Mar

I don’t usually fall asleep on the couch at 6pm, but when I do I have an excuse. It was a Friday night after a day that included instruction in the morning about citing sources and then a book discussion virtual author visit collaboration with an outside agency that was doubling as my observation for the afternoon. There was some heightened stress with this event because it had been postponed two weeks earlier due to physical violence at our school that led to a lockdown and early student release. I wanted to make sure this went off without a hitch.

There were a few obstacles to get here:

This was strictly student interest based. This was a collaboration with our county’s case manager for crime victims and those experiencing sexual violence who wanted to pair a book about dating violence with discussion of resources and what healthy relationships look like. We settled on Bad Romance by Heather Demetrios, bought the books, and distributed them to students interested during lunch periods using an “all call”. We had a range of ninth through twelfth graders, though some had signed up because their friend was signing up. Their buy-in waned as we got closer to the event. Students chose not to attend either because of the vulnerability of the discussion or because they weren’t truly interested at the start (maybe it was the donut they got with the book?)
Scheduling the event. Due to the pandemic, our school day shifted start and end times and after school looks vastly different than it used to be. Namely, unless it’s a specific club or sport, they don’t stay after school anymore, so the option to do an after school event wasn’t really discussed. We settled on an “in-house field trip” for the event spanning several periods. But this posed problems for students who had quizzes and tests they couldn’t miss. They came for a little while but didn’t get the impact of the full event.
It was rescheduled. They’re teenagers and my fifteen years as their high school librarian has taught me one thing that is best summed up with the Zits comic from a few weeks back–

I sent emails, I made invitations, I made an updated invitation bookmark, I put it on social media. Yet, some students still didn’t show up.

But with all of that, here were the wins:

For newer librarians, I want you to repeat after me “quality over quantity”. I learned this for my first author visit more than ten years ago. It’s been to have a smaller group of students who want to be there, than pack an auditorium of students who don’t. I will take authentic, meaningful connection even in a school as large as ours rather than trying to force the connection. So when we first started warming up with introductions and book discussion and the student exclaimed that “this was probably like the best book I’ve ever read” you could have wiped up the puddle of tears from underneath my chair. This is why we do the things we do.
We had the author virtually! This was something our community partner had checked in on and when Demetrios was available, we were behind excited. It went deeper when Demetrios told her story and shared super powerful exercises that the students did in addition to the Q&A.
Snacks! You can’t have a program like this without snacks. And because I’m a nerd and had to reread the book anyway, I decided to take notes on any food mentioned in the book to see if that would work. Yup! Snacks included Doritos, Pepsi, Oreos, Twizzlers, donuts, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Was that a general mix of unhealthiness? Sure, but it works for snacks for teens who regularly show up with a Monster and Takis at 8am. I won’t always encourage this, but it worked for an afternoon book discussion pick-me-up. And the donuts were the first to go.
True connection. The students that were there were highly engaged with each other and with our community partner, the author, and myself. They valued the conversation and asked whether more of these types of activities would continue. The community partner and I looked at each other and knew that that’s exactly where we were going if this was successful.

Then the bell rang and students were done for the day and week as it was a Friday afternoon, but they left happy and fed. The minute they walked out the door, the reflection conversation immediately began in my head and with the community partner. How did that go? What could we do better? What would we change next time?

There will be a next time…

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on March 5, 2022 in Authors, Events, Fiction, Reflections, Young Adult

No ‘case of the Mondays’ here

25 Jan

Maybe it was because I stayed up way past my bedtime to watch the Bills and the Chiefs game that jazzed me for the week. No, that can’t be it. It was the impending Youth Media Awards on Monday morning that got me excited for the week. Being the chairperson for the Excellence in Nonfiction Award, this was the day. The day where we awarded the winner her medal in front of a pre-recorded but live-stream of the ceremony at the advantageous time of 9am EST and shared the finalists (which had already been shared in December) so that everyone could go out and read them widely– although I’m pretty sure many had already had these titles on their radar.

I wore a new dress, I bought myself a chai tea latte– which I never do– and drove in to work early to log in to our committee’s watch party Meet. My body was buzzing and I was overcome with emotion. It was a different emotion than being in Seattle in 2019 where everyone was together in person for the ALA annual conference and Youth Media Awards both because it was a shared in-person experience but also because it was my first on an award committee. I had already served on a selection committee, but an award committee has a whole different feel. This emotion was a mix of pride, excitement, honor, and pure joy.

The watch party was exactly where I wanted to be because my committee made up of two Lauras, Janet, Rebecca, Mike, Ginny, Yolanda, and Jeana was phenomenal. We had fun and got our work done. We talked for hours about the crop of nonfiction books published in 2021 over the course of a year. We debated. We respectfully disagreed. We laughed. Then Monday morning, we had Oregonians who were logging in at 6am, barely a cuppa something hot in their hands and those of us that were a bit into our work day. And we shared the same excitement to share the books out and hear what the other committees selected as well.

If you’re a librarian, it’s one of the most indescribable feelings to work together toward a shared goal like committee membership is. I urge you to take the leap if you haven’t already.

If you’re an avid reader and book lover, tune in each year to celebrate the love of children’s and young adult literature. Buy the books. Share the books.

If you’re a child or young adult, read. Read. Read. You’re who the authors and illustrators write for.

I won’t pretend I didn’t tear up because I’m good at hiding it. But I was so damn proud. Of the work we did, of the American Library Association and YALSA for their efforts to continue the tradition of the Youth Media Awards, of the authors and illustrators who do the work that we get to celebrate. It’s a shared love of knowledge, art, and words that fills my cup in ways that other things just can’t. There was certainly no ‘case of the Mondays’ for me yesterday. I’ll probably be riding this excitement until February 24th when we get to celebrate with the finalists and winner. Tune in because it’s not over quite yet.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on January 25, 2022 in Authors, Events, Nonfiction, Young Adult

It usually begins with a book

20 Jan

My middle school sons spent the last few months working with a talented group of middle schoolers (and a few elementary schoolers) in their junior production of Willy Wonka. It was a magical experience altogether and not just because my kids were a part of it but because the directors chose bright and fun props and costumes to make the viewer experience a feast for the eyes. And isn’t that what Willy Wonka does when the Golden Ticket winners enter the factory that has been closed to the public for many years?

When it all came to a close after the third and final performance, I reflected on where it began. With a book by Roald Dahl called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

And isn’t that how most things start… with a book? We don’t give them nearly enough credit sometimes. The best blockbuster movies (and then the reboots upon reboots) and plays, fanfiction and t-shirts– usually based on a book. There are two versions of the book made into a movie, both of which were watched by my kids in preparation for their theatrical performance.

But it usually begins with a book.

And of course I decided to do what I do best and return to the OG- Dahl’s book and found that I highlighted one of the closing passages that seems to always stay true in any version:

“Listen,” Mr. Wonka said, “I’m an old man. I’m much older than you think. I can’t go on forever. I’ve got no children of my own, no family at all. So who is going to run the factory when I get too old to do it myself? Someone’s got to keep it going- if only for the sake of the Oompa-Loompas. Mind you, there are thousands of clever men who would give anything for the chance to come in and take over for me, but I don’t want that sort of person. I don’t want a grown-up person at all. A grownup won’t listen to me; he won’t learn. He will try to do things his own way and not mine. So I have to have a child. I want a good sensible loving child, one to whom I can tell all my most precious candy-making secrets- while I am still alive.”

Imagination. The way a child’s brain works to find the magic and the beauty, right from their own imagination. I can hear the music now.

If ever you need a break, borrow a children’s book (or five) and unlock your own imagination. It can begin with a book.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on January 20, 2022 in Authors, Childrens, Events, Fiction, Middle grade, Shows

The 31 Days of December: Book flood

24 Dec

It is Christmas Eve which means I’ll be celebrating with family today which includes homemaking pierogies and having meatless delights like clam chowder and mushroom soup, dill galumpkis, and of fish. Then after mass in the evening we’ll return to our house before we turn in for the night, awaiting Santa Claus. What I’m hoping for before we turn in, is a little bit of uninterrupted reading time with some chocolates which is exactly was Icelanders do for their annual book flood that most Americans know about by now.

Months before Christmas Eve a catalog goes out for Icelanders to pick and purchase books for one another that are exchanged on Christmas Eve before they retire for the night to snack on chocolates and read. For the book lovers, this is a dream though sometimes unattainable because it’s not as culturally ingrained as it is in Iceland. But one can try. I’m going to make the effort to do just that, even if for a short while.

If this is a part of your Christmas Eve, share it in the comments!

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 24, 2021 in Blogging, Events

The 31 Days of December: Excellence in Nonfiction finalists announced

17 Dec

I’m a little biased because over the past year I’ve worked with a group of phenomenal librarians: Ginny, Laura, Laura, Yolanda, Jeana, Mike, Janet, and Rebecca. Together we make up the 2022 Excellence in Nonfiction Award Committee through YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association), a division of the American Library Association. Our charge is to select the best written, researched, presented nonfiction writing targeted toward kids ages 12-18. We read through hundreds of books, nominate the special ones, debate their merits, whittle it down to five finalists, and then by next month, select the winner to be announced at the Youth Media Awards. It’s the most rewarding work. And here are our finalists:

Check out the full release with annotations on YALSA’s website. I’ll sign off so I can go pop a little bubbly that they’re out in the world!

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 17, 2021 in Blogging, Events, Graphic novels, Nonfiction, Young Adult

National Book Lovers Day: 5 photos

09 Aug

Pass up the opportunity to go back through the photo archives and share my favorite bookish pictures? Never! A story in five pictures. Share your favorite bookish photos too!