Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Unless I was serving on a committee, I reviewed and continue to review every book I read on Goodreads. Generally there’s a bit of summary woven into my reactions to the book. These are often connections to other books or subjects, emotional reactions to decisions made by the characters, or how the story was told from formatting to illustrations. While it’s not completely formal I’ve gotten incrementally better about what I pay attention to and it can be primarily attributed to my reviewing for professional library journals.

If you’re an educator and/or librarian with an interest in literature for any age range, consider reviewing for a magazine. While there is a general formula for how to create a review that benefits the readers of the reviews, there is flexibility in the review specifically for the book itself and an ounce reserved for the personality of the reviewer, but not too much. I think that’s why many turn to blogging and vlogging because it allows for the personality of the reviewer for sure when you’re managing your own reading and the reviews. Questions about whether you should review a book you don’t like is often a topic of discussion just like booktalking a book you haven’t read.

Within the last few months I’ve shared my suggestion to a few avid readers who happen to be English teacher colleagues. I sell it with the aforementioned elements of being a stronger critic but there’s also an added bonus of getting advanced copies of books to keep a pulse on forthcoming titles and buzz for purchasing the hottest books.

I urge anyone with some flexibility in their reading habits (but it’s okay to have a niche too!) to consider reviewing for a magazine. Usually it begins with submitting a few reviews for review from the review editors before advancing to the next step. The joy is then in giving back to fellow educators and librarians your valued opinion on what to purchase, read, and share.

Here are five thoughts for Friday:

1. As school librarians, I’m excited that each year we get to celebrate a school librarian of the year. Congratulations to Cicely Lewis!
2. I don’t read in bed- I compartmentalize my furniture and house and beds are for sleeping. I read on the couch or a chair where I have a place to set my tea. I always need tea when I’m reading, how can you not?
3. I fear running out of print books before quarantine is lifted. I likely won’t, but it’s a fear nonetheless.
4. Applause to those that stick with a book even when they don’t like it, but I’ve adopted the policy that as soon as I can verbalize why I don’t like a book and it hasn’t turned itself around by the time I’ve picked it up and put it down several times, I quit it but not before I skip to the last chapter and read it to see if I really missed something.
5. While my daily blogging for April has been an additional task to do each day, I’m finding it quite invigorating. Is there anything that I should cover that I haven’t so far?

The majority of Monday was rainy and windy after a beautiful Easter Sunday. By mid afternoon there were thunderstorms ready to roll in too. So I made a pot of tea, grabbed a stack from by TBR pile, and cuddled up for some reading time underneath a blanket.

Isn’t that what rainy days are for?

I’m listening to more audiobooks as I get older. It’s not because I’ve suddenly become an auditory learner, for sure that’s not the case. If I really want to learn something, I won’t choose to listen to it. But I am finding more time to engage with audiobooks doing household tasks and if it’s really good, even in the car where I typically prefer music.

It started when I did my first twenty-four hour readathon where my goal was to read as much as I could in that time frame which would include listening to an audiobook. Then I found that I was downloading an extra book here or there outside of readathons.

For those that are audiobook fans, I ask

• Why do you listen to audiobooks?
• What are you typically doing when listening to an audiobook?
• Are there genres that you always listen to while others you prefer not to?
• Are you “plugged in”, Bluetooth, on speaker?
• What are your favorites?

In your work life, who gets you? Like, really gets you? Is it a colleague with the same job title or someone who works in a different building with a different job title? Is it your administrator?

Motivation to do well in work often comes down to who you work for and who you work with, in addition to what you believe about your work. Just like when we talk about building relationships with our students because it’s not about the content it’s about the connection, we can apply this to our colleagues. I wrote a post about my co-librarian last year. She’s the person I spend more time with than anyone. We share the same vision and mission and continually re-calibrate our teaching and learning to improve. She gets me personally and professionally which makes my job a lot easier to do each day.

So if you have someone who gets you, take a minute to thank them. If you don’t have someone who gets you, find someone because it enriches the work you do.

Yesterday a former student posted a picture of a page of a book and posed this question on Instagram:

What kind of feeling does reading give to you?

I admit, my first thought was pride that as a college-aged woman a few years removed from high school when I had known her, she’s sharing about her reading and asking her collective friend group about it too. Sometimes like religion and politics, we’re too afraid to share out thoughts for fear of what others will think. So I was proud that she was still reading. And proud that she was willing to share her thoughts and ask others too.

She described reading as euphoria. I commented that at its most basic for me, I think connection is how I would describe reading.

What do you think?

As I sit here on Sunday morning, I’m reading the newspaper. It’s not just Sunday but every day that I read the newspaper, mostly digitally but a few times a week in print. It started in 5th grade when my teacher would give us trivia questions and most often they came from the news.

As I sit by the fire on Saturday night, I’m reading a magazine. Typically when watching a half-interesting show on television or around the fire, I’ll bring out the magazines I buy delivered to my door each month for recipe inspiration, fitness tips, and cleaning and decorating ideas. I’ve always enjoyed the tactile nature of a magazine with their glossy pages and have one too many times created inspiration boards by cutting them up (this was pre-Pinterest).

As I sit on any day on my side of the couch or outside on the patio in the sun, I’m reading a book. I’ve always got a stack upstairs ready to choose what I’m in the mood for, plus a few extra on a reading tablet and my phone.

As I sit on a weekday night in front of the computer, I’ve queued up the blogs I subscribe to and read their commentary on school librarianship, reading, books, entrepreneurship, business, and news because I like learning from others.

As I go for a walk to break up a readathon or when I’m cutting up dinner in the kitchen, I open up my trusty gals Libby and Sora and listen to an audiobook tell me saving rhinos or a Harvard murder mystery.

Reading is reading is reading. However you do it and make time for it.