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Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Readers advisory for June ’22

01 Jul

What a June! Finishing up the second wackiest school year and moving into a brand new library while teaching two graduate young adult literature courses and that’s just the professional side. But putting in the work this month means there will be smoother transitions in the fall and a comfortable summer.

Does that mean I didn’t read? Heck no! The pull to read is strong and has similarities to what I’ve learned is another habit- procrasti-baking: when I’ve got a lot to do, I bake instead. Reading though like baking is actually a necessary element to working through the busy times. It’s a chance to be intentional, thoughtful, reflective, quiet. Here were some of my favorites with a one-word shout out in no particular order:

Witch Hat Atelier volume 9 by Shirahama:

Witchy

Dessert Can Save the World by Tosi:

Delicious

Columbine by Cullen:

Riveting

The Puzzler by Jacobs:

Thorough

The Aquanaut by Santat:

Adventurous

Carrie by King:

Dramatic

Swim Team by Christmas:

Heartwarming

All Signs Point to Yes edited by Montgomery, White, Davis:

Celestial

Mamo volume 1 by Milledge:

Lush

 
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Posted by on July 1, 2022 in Miscellaneous

 

She took notes

06 Jun

I’ve only said it a hundred times that readers advisory is the reason I love being a high school librarian.

And last week, I had a delightful interaction with a student who I had helped maybe once or twice before. In a school of 2,600 students there are the repeat customers and those that come in intermittently and while I don’t remember her name, the face time with her was one of my favorites. I don’t even remember how it started but likely was when I told her that if she needed any help to let me know as she was walking in and out of the shelves. She told me what she was looking for by name dropping a few specific titles to which I asked what she most liked about them.

And then she took notes.

She had a hand-sized Steno notebook, the ones you see police detectives using in those old Law and Order episodes and as I pulled a book off the shelf and set it on top to talk about, she pulled out the notebook and took notes. We went back and forth on about six or seven titles before I checked in about whether she wanted time to look back at them and pick which ones she was going to take and if none of them worked, we could talk again.

I was pulled away from the desk a few minutes later, so I don’t know which ones she checked out with our teaching assistant, but I will remember her handheld Steno notebook and how she took notes on titles and authors.

In a world where adults are quick to say that teens have their noses glued to their smartphones and they don’t read, this girl had a Steno notebook looking for books.

 
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Posted by on June 6, 2022 in Miscellaneous, Reflections

 

Readers advisory from April 2022

30 Apr

April is always a full month of reading in part because of spring break. I spent a lot of time running back and forth to the library picking up interlibrary loans plus the books that came in to our library, advanced copies via Netgalley and Edelweiss, and digital copies from Hoopla.

Here were some of my favorites:

  • Love in the Library by Tokunda-Hall and illustrated by Imamura
    • Based on the author’s grandparents, it’s the story of romance and perseverance during the Japanese internment as a children’s book.
  • Answers in the Pages by Levithan
    • A middle grade that Levithan adeptly writes about the rampant book censoring and banning spreading across America with a unique approach of a story within a story.
  • Playing Dead: A Journey through the World of Death Fraud by Greenwood
    • The audiobook allowed me to follow the journey Greenwood takes to see how easy it is to get a death certificate while sharing popular, famous, and lesser-known cases of faking death.
  • Vessel: A Memoir by Chongda
    • Detailing his relationship with his parents, including his dying father, it is a reflective memoir with heart.
  • The Art of Sushi by Alarcon
    • This graphic novel highlights the skill and dedication it takes to be a premier sushi chef.
  • Boys I Know by Gracia
    • The realest of the real YA titles I’ve read recently featuring an Asian main character.
  • Queen of the Tiles by Alkar
    • YA thrillers are all the rage and this one will be super popular. A mix of the dead girl falling over the Scrabble board during competition and the whodunnit red herrings.
  • Love from Scratch by Hill
    • Love wins.
  • Saga, issue 58 by Vaughan and Staples
    • The end of May can’t come soon enough. Vaughan and Staples will forever be my obsession with their epic scifi drama series Saga.
  • Seasons by Pang
    • A visual feast, this children’s book is a tribute to the beauty of the Earth in various biomes and the animals and plants that live there.
 
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Posted by on April 30, 2022 in Miscellaneous

 

The morning after

26 Mar

Seventy teenagers for an evening in the library (and adjacent hallways) leaves a librarian exhausted and fulfilled. It meant collaborations with the PTSA and parent volunteers in addition to prepping prizes for the raffle drawings and collecting permission slips. Luckily word-of-mouth helps with advertisement, especially when fun-hungry upperclassmen emerging from the pandemic remember the Falcon Library After Darks that had to be suspended for two years. They help usher in the underclassmen looking for a chill spot on a Friday night.

Activities included food (re: pizza) because they are teenagers including additional snack bags donated and put together by our PTSA (a beautiful new partnership). Then announcements and a few raffle prizes before splitting off to activities like gaming, Twister, graffiti art, movies, and more. All before wrapping up with a mini dance party and the running of the nonfiction gauntlet. Don’t know what that is? You have to be a Falcon to find out.

I go home, like my colleague, and rehash the night in my head before waking up the next morning with a bucket overflowing with good vibes: happiness, fulfillment, newfound love and appreciation for the hardworking people who made it a success from start to finish, and general heart eyes for our students.

 
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Posted by on March 26, 2022 in Miscellaneous, Reflections

 

Readers advisory: When to walk away

08 Mar

A girl came into the library yesterday looking for something to read. It was not for a class and she wasn’t looking for a particular author or title. I made my usual pitch that she was welcome to browse, but I could also provide some recommendations if she’d rather. She took me up on my offer and we walked to the fiction stacks because she said she was looking for fiction, that much she knew.

Then she dropped a few more categories: probably something realistic because the last book she read was realistic. I picked up Ibi Zoboi and Dr. Yusef Salaam’s Punching the Air, noting that it was verse if she had read that format and explained a bit about it. She shook her head and said that maybe something from a female’s perspective. So we rolled backwards from Z and I picked up Jeff Zentner’s Rayne and Delilah’s Midnite Matinee, gleefully telling her that he visited a few years ago. As I began to talk about that, she also threw in that she wanted a first-person perspective. I noted that the girls alternate the story but it was first person. She nodded but then asked about books that had some fantasy to which I replied that that was a different direction altogether and shifted our spot. I pointed out another book or two and realized that after a few minutes of watching her face and listening, that I needed to walk away. She did need to browse and I was getting in the way.

I decided to walk away.

I asked if she’d be good to browse alone because it sounded like she had ideal books bouncing around in her brain that I was stopping her from discovering, especially after watching her pull a book off the shelf she had been eyeing midsentence. Her response told me what I needed to know, and I told her I’d be at the desk when she was ready with books to check out or suggestions later on.

Fifteen minutes later she came to the desk with two books because she couldn’t decide. I excitedly checked her out and she chatted about how she has rediscovered reading again and wants to keep the momentum going. I was happy to get out of her way when I knew the vibe between my recommendations and her vision of shopping for books wasn’t working. Ultimately she found her books through self-discovery.

Librarians do need to walk away from patrons during readers advisory because we get in our own way or the way of readers discovering their own power within the stacks. I’ve done this before and I’ll do it again. There is time for readers advisory like there are fabulous book displays and shelf talkers to do the recommending. It all works together like magic in the library if you’re doing it right.

 
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Posted by on March 8, 2022 in Miscellaneous, Reflections, Young Adult

 

The 31 Days of December: The year reviewed

31 Dec

It shouldn’t shock you to know that I have planned my last book of 2021 and my first book of 2022. Last year I finished the year with Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs and started it with In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner. While I was disappointed because Fathoms wasn’t what I expected, Zentner is always a good choice and proved a worthy first book of the year.

I will end the year knowing that the final book will be spectacular because I’ve made sure to pace myself to finish it before midnight. It is John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed. Once I realized I was firmly on the side of loving everything about it with its chapters written as essays using the theme of reviewing items of the Anthropocene through Green’s eyes, I stopped and counted the days until the 31st and read up to the point where I could then read one chapter per day to finish on the 31st. Not only will it be the last book of year, but it will certainly also be the outstanding book of the month and help me usher in the year reviewed in a brief listicle:

  • Pilates
    • I thought Pilates was a thin person’s fitness regime, so I didn’t have the courage to begin Pilates until I had lost some weight many years ago. However, I realize now after a handful of years attending weekly Pilates classes that it’s about strength and flexibility regardless of age or body type and kick myself for not beginning sooner. Either way, the weekly connection to my body at the studio I attend reminds me of the power of our bodies and how maintenance of them is important. Pilates whether at home or at a studio with equipment, I give 4 stars.
  • High school
    • My memories of high school are probably skewed. I was a grumpy teen who had a few good friends, worked rather than played sports, and never attended my prom. I don’t regret those choices actually and in retrospect should have been happier than I was. Fast forward and now I work in a high school. I’m sure that probably also changes my memories too. And working at a high school during a pandemic in a district that chose to be virtual because of budgetary concerns was a sad proposition to bear not only because I lost my coworker to budget cuts (and had her return in the spring of 2021 when things became more stable) but that students were left to connect with school through the computer. Staff did their best, but morale was low. It’s a changeable time. Some teens are self-aware and confident in who they are and where they want to go while others still have a lot of maturing to do and whether that happens before they graduate or not is anyone’s guess. I was not self-aware and confident, but can appreciate where I am and who I am now. High school is 3 stars.
  • Minnesota
    • This summer despite having a flight cancelled and needing to rent a car one-way to drive eighteen hours to get to a family reunion and spend some time with my in-laws, we were able to travel within an hour or so to see a beautiful gorge, walk through the largest candy store in the state, see some buffalo, and meet friends who live lakeside. Yes, there’s a lot of corn and bean fields, but that’s also where family was. I give Minnesota 3.5 stars.
  • Cemeteries
    • In addition to the mysterious stories etched (and now invisible) on the stones, there are messages in the choices of other features of graves that are endlessly fascinated. It’s both the architecture and atmosphere that get me every time. Cemeteries are 4 stars.
  • Berry picking
    • Depending on the season, you could be baking in the heat or bundled up in the cold. Your feet might get wet or your fingers stained. Yes it might be easier to go to the store and buy them, but the farm-to-table connection is lost. Both of my parents grew up on farms and I grew up next to my aunt and uncle’s. so I know the dedication it takes to farm. I also know that there’s a different between a strawberry picked from a vine by your own hands and grabbing a plastic container in the store. You can bide the seasons by the fruit and veggies available. Seasonal eating is the best kind of eating. So yes, it might be a bit more expensive (what with driving out to the farm and usually paying a little more) but then you’ve got the fresh stuff to eat and freeze as you please. The memories past and present make berry picking 4 stars.

Thank you, John Green for inspiring this post as well as future thinking on reviewing life in the Anthropocene. Hats off to a year that was spent with family and books, celebrating where and when we could as I raise my glass to 2022 where I want to do much of the same.

Stay tuned for my first book of 2022 (I know what it is of course, do you?)

 
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Posted by on December 31, 2021 in Adult, Authors, Blogging, Book of the Month, Miscellaneous, Nonfiction, Reflections

 

The 31 Days of December: Top 10 of 2021 childrens, middle grade, & adult edition

28 Dec

The year end review is here! Over the next three days I’ll be featuring three top tens including today’s childrens, middle grade, and adult edition, tomorrow young adult fiction edition, and Thursday’s graphic novels and manga edition. I have had to intentionally leave off young adult nonfiction since I have spent the year reading close to two hundred middle grade and young adult nonfiction titles for my work on the 2022 Excellence in Nonfiction Award and therefore cannot talk about them.

In no particular order, these ten books feature elements like lyrical prose, thought-provoking questions about life, and the necessary empathy to be a human being in this world. Whether it’s grief or loneliness, needing to find your purpose, or going on an adventure, these ten authors kept me riveted from start to finish.

 
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Posted by on December 28, 2021 in Adult, Blogging, Childrens, Cover Love, Fiction, Middle grade, Miscellaneous, Reflections, Verse

 

The 31 Days of December: Blogs in the rearview

25 Dec

As the year-end lists will start to roll out here, I figured we would kick it off with my favorite blogs to write from this past year:

  1. My year of a book a day
  2. Trifecta
  3. Reporting for duty
  4. 24in48 whirlwind
  5. Peanut butter finds its jelly, again
 
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Posted by on December 25, 2021 in Blogging, Miscellaneous, Reflections

 

The 31 Days of December: All the books

23 Dec

As the year comes to a close and I share my year-end lists like everyone else from my favorite blog post topics to my favorite books published this year, there’s also the year-end review of your reading in general which Goodreads conveniently packages up for users to review and share. One thing is apparent- it is not humanly possible to read all the books. It isn’t- simply because of the number of books published, life, reading habits, and everything in between.

This post had me laughing yesterday and prompted this topic:

Truly, I think that will be me haunting a library and reading all the books. It also reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode that a fellow reader and colleague was shocked I had never seen which I was able to watch; the episode was called “Time Enough at Last”- I could also relate.

So yes, I want to read all the books. Yet I know I can’t. But I also make sure that I’m enjoying what I’m reading, more so than ever which I’ve done better with after hearing Nancy Pearl speak many years ago. There are simply too many books, so why waste your time on a bad one? And you have your favorite authors and your favorite subjects so you make as much room as you can. You prioritize reading but you can’t let it take over your life in ways that feel daunting. It’s not another chore. It’s a hobby, it’s a pastime, it’s an education.

As we roll into a new year and you think about whether to set a reading goal, do a challenge, or simply read for enjoyment, remember it’s not always about all the books, but as many as you can fit in and around your beautiful life. Preferably with a cup of tea.

 
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Posted by on December 23, 2021 in Blogging, Miscellaneous, Reflections

 

The 31 Days of December: Dial a librarian

19 Dec

Taking advantage of being alone in the house on Saturday, I wrapped a few last presents to put under the tree while listening to an audiobook. As I looked over, I saw a chat message in one of my social media apps light up with a message. It was a coworker who was looking for a few book recommendations for his significant other.

What I liked about his plea, with a mea culpa of waiting until the last minute, was that he recognized that it was overwhelming to be in a bookstore and want to purchase a book for someone but that there’s too much. The paradox of choice. When I go into a bookstore, I know what I’m looking for. I’m usually never browsing because I spend my work days browsing professional magazines, blogs, publisher emails, etc. So I cannot relate to my coworker because even when I’m purchasing for others, I usually have titles, topics, or authors already in mind.

He was resourceful– he dialed a librarian. What expertise do you have that others would dial you up?

 
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Posted by on December 19, 2021 in Blogging, Miscellaneous

 
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