My Favorites From the Youth Media Awards

Earlier this week ALA (American Library Association) announced the 2017 youth media award winners, which includes over 20 awards for books, video and audio books. Here are my favorites from the award-winners.


Learn Something New at Your Library

After a decade of swearing off New Year’s Resolutions, this year I decided to set a goal that would be doable and enjoyable: learn one new thing or fact per day. It’s manageable because it’s small, and learning is something I place a high value on and enjoy doing. The Library also makes it super easy with an abundance of resources. I’m going to talk about two of my favorite online databases.


History Gets a Sci-Fi Twist in Kindred

What if you found yourself suddenly transported into the past? What if you traveled over and over to the same place and you had no control over when you came back? What if the past was so dangerous that you wondered if you would ever come back at all?


For the Musically-Minded

I’ve been head over heels in love with musicals from a  young age, an obsession which has only intensified over the years. I love the bright colors. I love the … Continued


Sing!

Singing with your child is a wonderful bonding experience. Did you know it also helps them get ready to read?


Getting it Together

Confession time: I have recently become obsessed with bullet journals. It’s an organization system that takes the idea of keeping a planner, a myriad of Post-It to-do lists, and a journal and then throws them into a blender. You can keep all of that stuff tied together in one handy, non-digital notebook, hopefully with the result of being super productive.


Books, Glory, Awesomeness… How A YA Trivia Contest Reignited This Librarian’s Reading Fire

For those not in the know, Battle of the Books is like pub trivia without the booze, that instead focuses on a specific book list for each participating grade level, all while bringing TONS of teens from all over the city and county together in their love of reading (and the thrill of competition!). One of my favorite parts about this program is the collaboration that goes into suggesting book titles to make the final cut, which happens across the Library and even beyond Teen Services (teamwork makes the dream work!). And if you’re anything like me, you get to experience a new genre/author/writing style than what you might normally pick out for yourself to read.


For the Folk (pt.3)

In this third installment of our short series of Folk-Blogs, I want to mention my love for the work the Smithsonian does, especially for the preservation of folk music through … Continued



My Year of Reading Memoir: Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

I fell in love with memoir a few years ago, and authors are publishing new and exciting stories about their lives all the time. Each month I’ll highlight a different memoir, and I invite you to read along with me! This month I read Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime­. Despite my mild fandom, it became abundantly clear upon reading the inside jacket how little I knew about the remarkable circumstances of Noah’s early life.