Reflections | Readers Be Advised

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

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 Alicia Abdul 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 Alicia Abdul on December 26, 2021 in Adult, Authors, Blogging, Childrens, Quotes, Reflections

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:

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

The 31 Days of December: The best spot

20 Dec

If you’re a book lover, it’s not hard to love Macanudo, the daily comic by Argentinian comic Liniers, especially when he writes and draws his central character, Henrietta and her cat Fellini because the focus of most of those comics are about her reading. The comic from the other day was another perfect one: the good spot to read.

Where is your good spot? What is your good book?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 20, 2021 in Blogging, Childrens, Reflections

The 31 Days of December: Hosting interns

15 Dec

After close to fifteen years as a school librarian, I have hosted handfuls of student observers and interns interested in the field of school librarianship. Each has their own story whether it’s rolling into a Master’s program right after their Bachelor’s or making it a second career. Some will thrive as school librarians and others I recommended should consider public librarianship and in one case, the woman was barely there enough for me to have any idea what kind of school librarian she would make.

However, as a person in the profession, frankly any profession, you should be open to the idea of hosting people interested in your field regardless of how busy or overwhelmed you feel because we want any job to have more people in it– not for Hunger Games competition but to create diversity and a new crop so that there is someone to fill the retirements of those that come before and know what they’re doing when they step into those roles. It’s maddening to see positions (especially in schools) where a position and person has so much institutional knowledge and a system that when they announce their retirement, nothing is done to train the next person to do it and give them the resources to do it well.

Internships might become mentorships, friendships, or simply collegial relationships. So it makes sense to cultivate these up-and-comers. With a constant need to reinvent our practice with the changing times, I always welcome interns for what they bring– fresh perspectives, new ideas, and a positive attitude.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 15, 2021 in Blogging, Reflections

The 31 Days of December: The joy of cleaning and audiobooks

13 Dec

What did I do before audiobooks?

I’ve been a late convert to audiobooks. The combination of mobile technology and my insatiable need to ABR (always be reading), I became an audiobook lover several years ago and I haven’t been able to stop. And I thought today, during my usual Sunday morning routine of house cleaning, organizing, and laundry, what did I do before audiobooks? I can’t remember the before time. I think I might have listened a little music here or there or simply done it in silence. Not any more. For the most part whenever I’m engaged in this kind of work, I usually slide my phone into my Spi-Belt and get it done. It makes the time go by in a way that I feel like I’m cheating– being entertained and/or learning about a topic while actually enjoying housework.

How many of you audiobook while doing chores?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 13, 2021 in Audiobooks, Blogging, Reflections

The 31 Days of December: Blinding me with science

04 Dec

Today is the second anniversary of my now-thirty nine year old cousin’s heart transplant. I blogged about it here. And I shared a book that I read pretty soon after that called The Man Who Touched His Own Heart: True Tales of Science, Surgery, and Mystery by Rob Dunn. I want to celebrate her two years with a new heart and having her on this planet still.

Plus give a little love to the nonfiction writers out there who blind us with science. I seek out nonfiction regularly for every type of audience from picture books like Tiny Stitches to middle grade like Breakthrough! to young adult like Jane Against the World to adult like Pump. Simply because I’m fascinated by science. I’m in awe of it, the developments over time, and the people who make it happen. I still get a little teary thinking about my LASIK surgery in October, correcting my fairly horrible eyesight (since fifth grade) in the matter of 15 minutes. I think about our school’s valedictorian last year who was going to become a surgineer– she didn’t want to *just* be a surgeon but she wanted to design the robots that aided in that surgery, the engineer too.

Cheers to STEM and the books that explain it to those who love reading about it.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 4, 2021 in Adult, Blogging, Childrens, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Reflections, Young Adult

The 31 Days of December: Book highs

03 Dec

Last night I couldn’t contain my elation. Being the chairperson of the 2022 Excellence in Nonfiction Award for the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) underneath the American Library Association (ALA) has been rewarding work this year. It was my year to give back having sat on both award and selection committees, so I volunteered to chair. The experience has been the best distraction from an awkward year still in the throes of a pandemic.

Then last night we deliberated on our five finalists that will be announced in a press release next week. By 7:15pm EST time we had our finalists. We signed off the call and I high-fived my family.

Reading is one of the benefits of the committee work (of which I’m a confirmed bookworm) but the other is networking with other professionals in the field: our committee is a mix of public and school as well as academic librarians literally spanning the country. Their contributions to the conversation, their observations, critiques, and evaluations as well as comradery in the experience led to a book high that even after a sleep is still racing through my system. And it will only get more exciting once everyone knows, then when we pick our winner, and the Youth Media Awards are announced at the end of January.

Give me all these feelings. They fill my cup.

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on December 3, 2021 in Blogging, Nonfiction, Reflections, Young Adult

Who am I?

11 Oct

I was never someone who read more than one book at a time.

Now I’m the person who has a graphic novel on my tablet through Hoopla, an audiobook to listen to through Libby, a book sitting on the kitchenette table in my office during lunch, and an eReader or a print book that travels around with me in my work bag and purse with the added Netgalley shelf app newly downloaded to my phone.

With this kind of access, I am definitely not reading one book at a time anymore.

Who am I?

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Posted by Alicia Abdul on October 11, 2021 in Blogging, Miscellaneous, Reflections