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Category Archives: Reflections

Move in day

17 Jun

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 on June 17, 2022 in Events, Reflections

 

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

 

Fifteen years

02 Apr

It’s odd to have started my career in school librarianship on April 2nd since a school year stars on in September, but I was a month away from my degree, the high school needed a librarian, and I was going to leave middle school English for someone else to teach which I had done the year before to finish up my library degree. My mother said in response to my announcement that her first grandchildren were going to be twins was that I never do anything the normal way. I think she’s referring to things like leaving for college (freedom and independence) without needing to call her every day like many of my friends or telling her I was going to Kenya and Zimbabwe by myself at 20, or telling her that I was going to get married more like an elopement than a fancy wedding. So starting out as a school librarian in April would be consistent with this theme.

It’s only now fifteen years later that I recognize the added significance that it’s School Library Month. Just starting out it wasn’t on my radar but now we’re planning a whole month’s worth of fun activities like the bookworm jar (guess how many bookworms aka gummy worms are in the jar) and what book has been shredded in the other jar. We’ll do a bingo card and a book face challenge. And have teachers promote their own reading by sharing with us a selfie with the signs in their classroom given to them this year with our school’s logo and the library’s hashtag laminated so they can update what they’re reading. Librarianship is ever-evolving but a beautiful career, so I’m sharing a few things I’ve learned along the way.

  1. Listen to your community. Your library should represent your building, district, and larger community which includes input, collaboration, and the occasional meeting.
  2. Be excited. My exuberance for a new collaboration or program often means I talk a mile a minute and go in a hundred different directions until I settle into what is attainable and sustainable.
  3. Fill your bucket. I keep a folder in my email and a file on my computer with messages, notes, images, and memories when things go right. Not every day is glamorous (let me tell you that I was sworn at and told I should be fired by a student before 9am yesterday morning) so have something to fill your bucket.
  4. Fill others’ buckets. Have treats and cards in the office for quick pick-me-up for someone or go the extra mile when you can to make others feel seen or heard. Not only does it fill their bucket but yours too.
  5. Be involved. I don’t run the blood drives at our school because I have to, I took it over from the retiring teacher because I’m a lifelong blood donor and believe in it wholeheartedly. I advise for our Anime Club at school not because it’ll look good on my resume but because I love the students and give them a place to connect, share, and learn. Plus, they’re often our power users of the library, so it always works out!
  6. Give back. Host observers and interns. Create events that are free and equitable. Share with others whether it be presentations, blogs, articles in magazines, or at a local event. My notebooks fill quickly with ideas inspired by others. And I admire their ability to put themselves out there.
 
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Posted by on April 2, 2022 in Reflections

 

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

 

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:

  1. 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?)
  2. 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.
  3. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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 on March 5, 2022 in Authors, Events, Fiction, Reflections, Young Adult

 

Obituaries

09 Jan

Obituaries got me thinking.

I worked for about a decade in my formative teenage years as a small town diner. The experience shaped me in ways I’m still discovering in my thirties and that was in part due to the myriad of people that come and go as employees but also as patrons. Several days ago a gentleman named Bucky, who was a regular in the diner as both a patron and part-time employee peeling and cutting potatoes most specifically for the breakfast crowd needing their home fries, died. And his obituary published today. It was the kind of obituary I want some day; one that captures who I was at my core. This post was written so that many can know about him, but also it’s part of a larger conversation about obituaries, one of the last things left behind.

There was a recent article in the local paper about the wife of a well-known local TV anchor. She recently passed away about a year after her husband. She did not want an obituary. But her children decided to write one because they felt that she didn’t think she was worthy of one, but she was a formidable woman who needed recognition. And they felt they embodied her personality especially when they ended the short obituary with a joke about death, a rabbi, and speaking at a funeral.

Obituaries are treasure troves. I skim them every day and read one that stands out. Several weeks ago it was a dual obituary for a husband and wife. The wife died and the next day her husband died of a “broken heart”. There are the obituaries that you can read between the lines and identify as suicides. There are goofy ones and others that list every accomplishment from birth to death. There are lives cut short and those that lived good, long ones. There are children. There are surprises, inside jokes, and nuggets of truth buried in them.

Just like books do.

I thought about the books that deal with death in a range of ways. Epically Earnest is due out in June 2022 and included the title character creating living obituaries that were interspersed in the story which then reminded me of Miles from Looking for Alaska who was obsessed with collecting the last words of individuals. And of course, Jack’s old neighbor in Dead End in Norvelt who writes the obituaries for the townsfolk for which he must now help. Michelle McNamara didn’t get the last word in her book because she died before she could finish it as she lost herself in research to identify the Golden State Killer in I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Search for the Golden State Killer. Love, Zac: Small-Town Football and the Life and Death of an American Boy couldn’t have been written as detailed as it was if Zac had not kept a diary of his battle with traumatic brain injury due to football before he committed suicide. And the ultimate connection: the well-researched with a side of humor and endearing love– Mo Rocca’s Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving (of which I recommend the audiobook where he narrates).

The topic should not be shied away from nor should the topic of obituaries go undiscussed. Remember the scene in My Girl where Veda’s dad sits at the typewriter to honor the lives of those that come through their doors?

Do others read obituaries? As my grandfather would say, he read them to make sure he wasn’t dead yet. What’s your reason if you do? Curiosity, the artform, respecting the dead? Do you think about what yours will say? Are you actively penning thoughts for your own?

 
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Posted by on January 9, 2022 in Adult, Articles, Fiction, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Reflections, Upcoming Releases, 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: Holiday vibes

26 Dec

Only recently did I create a bookshelf on Goodreads for seasonal/holiday reading because I don’t often seek them out intentionally or need to retrieve them often, however I’m finding I am more often. With that said, I know one person in particular, a coworker, who reads with holidays and seasons in mind. He first introduced me to Truman Capote’s three short stories (which I read as a collection): “A Christmas Memory,” “One Christmas”, and “The Thanksgiving Visitor.”

A few weeks ago we were again discussing holiday reading and he mentioned a tradition he has that includes Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” which I had never heard of and promptly put it on hold at my library. Serendipitously, it came in just in time for the holidays and I was able to settle in to read the short story on my couch, in my red and white striped pajamas at the foot on my tree, with a white cranberry mimosa. And it was delightful. I highly recommend the ambience and even more so, the short story itself which is exactly what you would imagine it would be from the title and the writer.

After this, I might be a convert to seasonal and holiday reading in a way that was never intentional before. All I know is that I now have a new memory and that one includes reminiscing about old memories and books.

I would love more season and holiday recommendations!

 
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Posted by on December 26, 2021 in Adult, Authors, Blogging, Childrens, Quotes, Reflections

 
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