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Category Archives: Young Adult

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

 

Readers advisory for February ’22

28 Feb

The end of month brings a brief pause to reflect on what I’ve read over the past month. I’ve usually always worked toward identifying that one book that made me pause. I also read a lot so one book each month is difficult and why I generally break the one book rule I’ve self-imposed, hence why I changed the title of the month’s-end post to readers advisory.

This month I decided to pull my favorite children’s book, young adult, and adult title. In order, a nonfiction, a graphic novel, and the audiobook.

Born Hungry: Julia Child Becomes ‘the French chef’ written by Alex Prud’homme and illustrated by Sarah Green was an easy choice for a book everyone should read because children’s biographies are superbly informative in addition to capturing (when done right) the essence of the topic at hand. In this case, the nephew of Child, writes a celebratory story of how Child didn’t become ‘the French chef’ until very late in life, proving that you can do anything you set your mind to and have a passion for. Using Green’s bright and vivid illustrations to compliment the story, it is a feel-good story that’s food-centered.

Yasmeen written by Saif A. Ahmed and illustrated by Fabiana Moscolo is a graphic novel with a hard truth to face. That many girls were kidnapped, raped, tortured, and maimed as part of the unrest in the Middle East. Yasmeen is an Iraqi girl whose family settled in Texas after leaving their war torn home but without her because she had been captured and used as a pawn. The graphic novel does not sugarcoat her trauma and the fight she gave to break free. But what levels this graphic novel up is the intricate use of time in the panels and on the pages which takes an astute reader of the format because of the level of understanding of the story, characters, and setting. A passive reader will not understand the story completely. And it’s powerful. You do not want to miss anything.

I listened to the audiobook read by Michelle Zauner, the author and subject of Crying in H Mart: A Memoir. While I did not know who she was and had only downloaded the audiobook because of it’s popularity and subject matter (you’ll often find that I read and share about food memoirs or food stories). I recognize that there is wide general appeal, but it went deeper for me as I’m sure that others who feel like they do about the book can attest; it’s Zauner’s relationship and caretaking of her cancer-stricken mother and simultaneously about the food of her life through the lens of her now suffering mother. Food is balm. Food is love. Food is history. Food is memory. I don’t often reread books, but because I had listened to the audiobook, I’ve considered rereading it in print because I remember several times stopping in my tracks while listening to a poignant phrase or sentence or scene.

What did you read this past month that you loved?

 
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Posted by on February 28, 2022 in Adult, Audiobooks, Book of the Month, Childrens, Fiction, Graphic novels, Nonfiction, Young Adult

 

Down the rabbit hole

26 Feb

Several years ago I read Higginbotham’s Midnight at Chernobyl and recognized the depth of research that went in to writing a book of that heft, literally and figuratively. I had also read Blankman’s historical fiction called The Blackbird Girls that deals with Chernobyl and religion for a tween audience. Then with the attack on Ukraine by Russia this past week, I decided to put Marino’s Escape from Chernobyl at the top of my TBR where it was sitting somewhere in the middle and it brought me back to the tragedy, drama, and cover up that was the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, especially with the ticking clock to start each chapter.

And it didn’t end there; in a rare move, my husband ordered the HBO miniseries Chernobyl that had aired several years ago that so many had talked about but we had never watched because I had mentioned it.

He is glued to the TV watching the news coverage on multiple channels plus the radio. So between my reading and the current state of affairs, we mixed some drinks and sat down to binge the series on a Friday night. What a powerful mix of dramatic storytelling and truth. I can learn quite a bit from books, but there’s something about the visual elements of the series that aided in a deeper understanding of the politics and science that dominated the narrative of this disaster.

And what did I spend some time doing this morning? Researching other books to read and putting a few on hold at my library and downloading another via Hoopla. I’m already down the rabbit hole. I figured I would keep going.

What topics have wrapped you up in a multimedia quest to learn as much as you could about them?

 
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Posted by on February 26, 2022 in Adult, Fiction, Middle grade, Nonfiction, Research, Shows, Young Adult

 

Pigskin picks

13 Feb

In honor of the Super Bowl today, here are a few pigskin picks.

Whether fiction or nonfiction, these all hit on topics associated with the game.

  • A verse novel that features ZJ’s dad whose brain is failing him after multiple concussions playing the sport which inalterably changes the family
  • DJ is a girl playing a male-dominated sport
  • Based on Green’s own past with the sport, this fictional story of Ben, a middle school quarterback deciding whether the cost of the game is worth it seeing his dad suffering from debilitating pain from his years playing professional football
  • Love, Zac always gives me goosebumps. Most of the story is Zac’s own words from the journals he kept and Forgrave’s commentary about the status of the sport of American football
  • Some men gave some, some men gave all and Tillman gave up a career in professional football to serve his country and paid the ultimate price

Each of these stories is worthy of a read, just maybe not during the game today. Go Rams. Go Bengals. I’m just hear for the cider and snacks.

 
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Posted by on February 13, 2022 in Authors, Fiction, Nonfiction, Verse, Young Adult

 

Readers advisory from January ’22

31 Jan

Continual improvement is something to strive for, taking to heart Maya Angelou’s quote

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.

So what used to be the “outstanding book of the month”, I’ve rebranded “readers advisory” taking into account my blog and handles on various social media. This will be a book I read during the month to highlight which will range from children’s books to adult, any genre, and published whenever. And in true obnoxious fashion, I couldn’t pick just one from this past month– really I could have picked three or four, though I’ve distilled it down to two.

Both young adult fiction, one already released and one that will be published in June. Yet what they have in common is eloquent storytelling. Chim’s historical fiction title Freedom Swimmer taught me about the Cultural Revolution and actual freedom swimmers through the intertwined stories of two characters. Albert’s witchy fiction is a mystery layered with magic, real magic in which Ivy discovers her mother’s history with witchcraft and how that has affected Ivy’s life and her own gifts. I could not put either down when I picked them up.

In addition their evocative covers highlight elements of the story that draw readers in be it the placid waters as a boy dives in or the hot pink text and gold rabbit doorknocker. Teens will pull them off the shelves from the covers alone. Freedom Swimmer is quick, almost too quick, while Albert sculpts a robust story that engages readers from start to finish.

This two-some cannot be more different, yet they both stuck with me after I had finished reading them and that’s why I have an advisory out for all to read them.

 
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Posted by on January 31, 2022 in Book of the Month, Cover Love, Fiction, Upcoming Releases, Young Adult

 

Cupid’s arrow straight to my heart with An Arrow to the Moon

26 Jan

During lunch I typically read something from the shelves or the new cart that I can get through during the period which is usually a graphic novel, a manga, a short nonfiction book over a few days. This is in addition to the audiobook I have on for the car and housework. And in addition to the book I’m reading in the course of the day or week. So I know I’m in love with a book when my general reading book becomes my lunch reading book. That’s what happened when Emily X.R. Pan’s book, to be released in April, made its way into my life.

An Arrow To The Moon is includes elements of magical realism that were present in her first book The Astonishing Color of After. But this one had a layer of moodiness that lent an atmosphere of quiet desperation. Hunter’s family has hidden themselves away in ways Hunter has yet to grasp. But protecting his younger brother Cody helps him find purpose. He also has an instant connection to Luna, a girl who thought she wanted to be the stereotypical perfect Asian child: going to college, getting a well-paying job, doing as her parents say, staying away from boys. And that first connection (for a 90s girl who still owns the Romeo + Juliet DVD as well as the movie soundtrack) happens at a fish tank.

And the pieces begin to fit together. Pan’s use of multiple perspectives continually refreshes the story in addition to her short chapters though the book itself is a hearty 400 pages. I hurried up and then slowed down; I wanted to know what was going to happen next but I also didn’t want it to end. Though when it did I clutched it to my chest in awe of how Pan wove Chinese mythology with a pair of contemporary star-crossed lovers battling misperceptions and parental infidelity, secret-keeping and their own mythological beginnings. It has magic and it is magic.

This one was like Cupid’s arrow striking my heart, my big bookish heart that is a sucker for atmospheric and intelligent writing eager for something new and different. THIS was it.

 
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Posted by on January 26, 2022 in Authors, Cover Love, Fiction, Upcoming Releases, Young Adult

 

No ‘case of the Mondays’ here

25 Jan

Maybe it was because I stayed up way past my bedtime to watch the Bills and the Chiefs game that jazzed me for the week. No, that can’t be it. It was the impending Youth Media Awards on Monday morning that got me excited for the week. Being the chairperson for the Excellence in Nonfiction Award, this was the day. The day where we awarded the winner her medal in front of a pre-recorded but live-stream of the ceremony at the advantageous time of 9am EST and shared the finalists (which had already been shared in December) so that everyone could go out and read them widely– although I’m pretty sure many had already had these titles on their radar.

I wore a new dress, I bought myself a chai tea latte– which I never do– and drove in to work early to log in to our committee’s watch party Meet. My body was buzzing and I was overcome with emotion. It was a different emotion than being in Seattle in 2019 where everyone was together in person for the ALA annual conference and Youth Media Awards both because it was a shared in-person experience but also because it was my first on an award committee. I had already served on a selection committee, but an award committee has a whole different feel. This emotion was a mix of pride, excitement, honor, and pure joy.

The watch party was exactly where I wanted to be because my committee made up of two Lauras, Janet, Rebecca, Mike, Ginny, Yolanda, and Jeana was phenomenal. We had fun and got our work done. We talked for hours about the crop of nonfiction books published in 2021 over the course of a year. We debated. We respectfully disagreed. We laughed. Then Monday morning, we had Oregonians who were logging in at 6am, barely a cuppa something hot in their hands and those of us that were a bit into our work day. And we shared the same excitement to share the books out and hear what the other committees selected as well.

If you’re a librarian, it’s one of the most indescribable feelings to work together toward a shared goal like committee membership is. I urge you to take the leap if you haven’t already.

If you’re an avid reader and book lover, tune in each year to celebrate the love of children’s and young adult literature. Buy the books. Share the books.

If you’re a child or young adult, read. Read. Read. You’re who the authors and illustrators write for.

I won’t pretend I didn’t tear up because I’m good at hiding it. But I was so damn proud. Of the work we did, of the American Library Association and YALSA for their efforts to continue the tradition of the Youth Media Awards, of the authors and illustrators who do the work that we get to celebrate. It’s a shared love of knowledge, art, and words that fills my cup in ways that other things just can’t. There was certainly no ‘case of the Mondays’ for me yesterday. I’ll probably be riding this excitement until February 24th when we get to celebrate with the finalists and winner. Tune in because it’s not over quite yet.

 
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Posted by on January 25, 2022 in Authors, Events, Nonfiction, Young Adult

 

Four and please, plenty more

24 Jan

Jennifer Dugan will publish four young adult fiction novels come May 17, 2022 with her newest, Melt With You. She does have some comics which I haven’t read, however, I have read all four of her YA fiction titles and I can tell you she works some unbelievable magic in between the pages of her books typically focused on love and coming-of-age.

First, let’s celebrate her titles and covers which are the first things teen readers see and evaluate. The titles tells you exactly what you’re getting and the covers do too. The artwork is soft but mixes the contemporary story with the illustrated style that pulls a person toward it.

Second, the books are character-centered. You can tell from the covers which all feature the main characters on the covers, but also the minute you step into the book, you’re in the middle of someone’s head: how they feel, what their conflict is, how they want to move forward and problem-solve (or avoid it).

And third, they’re feel-good stories. Yes, there is the conflict that needs to be resolved but ultimately, the issue that the character is experiencing is able to be overcome or dealt with. Dugan’s stories are the ones that make it easy to believe that teens can overcome obstacles and work through issues. Oftentimes I find as I’m booktalking in my high school library that there is death, destruction, and heartbreak around every corner. Those books have a place but too many in a row makes it seem like being a teenager is a dark, hopeless place and that’s not true. They’ll raise their hand and ask for a funny book or a romance and ask why everyone’s parents are dead.

It doesn’t hurt that Dugan is somewhat local to us here in upstate New York and as I’m writing this, I’m writing myself a Post-it reminder to contact her to arrange a visit to our school in the near future.

And as the title of my post proclaims, I hope that she doesn’t stop at four, but has plenty more to come.

 
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Posted by on January 24, 2022 in Authors, Cover Love, Fiction, Upcoming Releases, 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

 
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