Category Archives: Miscellaneous

From 8pm tonight until 8pm tomorrow, I’ll be reading. With a community of readers built over the course of more than 10 years, the Dewey’s 24-hour Readathon was created by a woman whose last name was Dewey. She began it in 2007, but died in 2008 where a group of colleagues decided to continue to carry the torch.

While it has changed hands one more time, I don’t feel more at home than participating in this readathon held a few times each year. But the summer readathon is special in that it’ a “reverse readathon”– one that for me in upstate New York begins at 8pm Friday rather than the traditional 8am Saturday.

I’ll also be moderating a few Goodreads hourly discussions and one blog post via their WordPress site which will keep me busy while doing my reading in all it’s forms. I’ve got my stack, plus extras to substitute if needed especially to complete the BINGO board or a mini-challenge. I’ve only NOT gotten a blackout for BINGO once and I blame it on COVID.

Snacks and food is generally planned (and baked). Loose tea replenished. Audiobooks loaded. Let’s do this.

Yesterday my friend Stacey, a fellow school librarian, reader, presenter, and blogger with a sweet tooth wrote a post about some of her recent wins. Part celebration and part encouragement to keep on going when things seems so dim, she posed the question to readers about what wins they’ve had recently. Here are a few of mine.

Win #1

Reading a newly-graduated student’s published book after buying it from Amazon. Really, a published book and it was an atmospheric one-sitting read that I’ll be covering soon. This reminds us why we’re educators.

Win #2

I’ve continued my personal challenge to read a book a day since the last day of in-person instruction on Friday, March 13th. Beginning on the 14th, I’ve read at least a book a day and share the titles on Instagram. Where some have been unable to concentrate on reading during the pandemic, I have found comfort and routine in the completion of at least one book a day.

Win #3

Every summer, I run several professional book groups for staff at my high school to the point that it’s become part of the culture. Not only is completion rate high, but the camaraderie adds to summertime joyousness and we all get something out of it. Last week, one of the math teachers posted that if it wasn’t for these book groups, she wouldn’t be reading at all, so she was appreciative of the work I put in to crafting the groups and selecting the books each summer.

And I’ll ask you, what wins have you had recently?

Within the last few days the Eisner Awards were announced. While I didn’t watch the video announcements, I took a look at the long list via Comics Beat. Here are my X thoughts.

1. While Lorena Alvarez who colored Hicotea was not the winner, the coloring was out of this world and a visual feast. I won’t soon forget Hicotea for that reason.
2. Gosh, Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me. I can’t imagine why it’s a winner a few times over. I blogged about the graphic novel and several of the reasons I loved it so much are why it’s on the list between Valero-O’Connell as a penciller/inker to its writing to it just being the all-around best!
3. My boys would probably tell you that Dog Man: For Whom the Ball Rolls by Dav Pilkey should have one, but that’s just their opinion. We’re the pre-order the next one and pick it up on publication day, see Dog Man: The Musical, own-all-the-books-and-reread-them-so-often-they’re-falling-apart kind of family.
4. They Called Us Enemy by Takei was a phenomenal reality-based story, but gosh darn it, there was something about my recent read of Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Jacob that just had such a unique style and presentation that I wouldn’t have minded if it won.
5. The reinforcement that Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama is phenomenal by placing it on the list for best US edition of international materials (Asia) makes me put purchasing the entire series from my indie bookstore at the top of my list for tomorrow. I read the first one from the library and spent the evening making my own hat. That’s how much I loved it. I’ve been waiting (that good kind of wait) to read the rest in the series, but I don’t know why I’m torturing myself. It will end tomorrow.

When you’re listening to an audiobook, what else are you doing (if anything at all)?

When you’re reading a book, what else are you doing (if anything at all)?

Readers I follow on social media make honest readers of others when they share their stats. They tend to be monthly and presented as a library card,  book journal, a Canva creation to share and monitor things like how many pages were read, how many were authors of color, or which categories or genres they fell in to.

I’m not there yet, but I have been sharing my daily reading via Instagram during the pandemic and I use Goodreads religiously (read: obsessively). So technically my stats are at my fingertips, but what I do want to do is look back at my month of books and feature at its end, the one book that was outstanding. It’s like a book club choice, but only I vote. And the criteria will mix the basics of best books (story, character development) with things like originality and longevity.

When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed

… which just celebrated its book birthday on April 14th. The story is a graphic memoir of Mohamed’s life with his brother Hassan in a refugee camp as told and illustrated by Jamieson. It’s her effortless and beautiful illustrations that bring together a difficult story for middle grade and high school audiences about the conflict in Somalia which led to Omar and Hassan’s circumstances: seeing their father murdered, their village burned, and their mother missing where for their childhood and teenage years they toiled in a very large camp with an older woman to look after them from the next tent over.

The story unfolds in several parts as it moves through time and it works with the narrative, dialogue, and illustrations to elicit an array of emotions that connect the reader. It will speak to any reader– being seen if you are a refugee, understanding if you are not. Jamieson and Mohamed chose to talk about the easy and the hard parts with the ups and the downs and provide an emotional punch in the afterword and author’s notes for a fully-developed arc that is only the beginning of stories from around the world.

The graphic novel is a gem for its format but also the contribution to the genre itself and one of the kinds of stories that I want to pull off the shelf for years to come.