In April, I kicked off a new monthly program series for elementary-aged kids with a stuffed felt Pikachu sewing project. It was the first program I got to completely design myself at my new job. Coincidentally, it was also my first time teaching kids how to sew. Read on to see what I did and how it went.
Continue reading “Program-And-Tell: Felt Pikachu”
Leaving my previous job in December 2021 meant saying goodbye to the tween book group I had been facilitating since 2018. March 2022 would have been four years! By the time I’d left, most of my original crew had aged out. This made it a little easier to leave, but it was still hard for me to say goodbye. With the job transition, I never posted my last year of titles and activities. Time to dust off this blog and share!
Continue reading “2021 Tween Book Group Activities”
In December 2021, I made the big life decision to leave my first public library job. I started working there in June 2016, when a renewed levy brought on a bunch of new staff as the library system expanded hours and programming. I got hired as a branch librarian in a 3016 square foot library that was housed in a former bank. A series of departures in late 2017 led to my being transferred into the job I had initially been rejected for at the main library in Youth Services. I was absolutely thrilled. By late 2019, more departures led to my temporary appointment as youth services supervisor. Because of the pandemic and an impending institutional reorganization, “temporary” ended up being until July 2021. All in all, I was there for 5 1/2 years.
Continue reading “8 Things My First Public Library Job Taught Me”This year brought many of the same challenges as 2020, but one of the bright spots for me was serving on School Library Journal‘s Best Books committee to select the best graphic novels for youth published in 2021. It was a totally different experience from Caldecott and I found the end goal of a list so freeing in comparison to selecting a single medalist. It was also freeing to not be beholden to the same sort of eligibility rules (unfortunately, Caldecott can only go to U.S. illustrators). Coincidentally, most of my favorite graphic novels of the year were by non-U.S. creators.
Continue reading “Article Alert: Best Graphic Novels 2021”To say 2020 was strange doesn’t even begin to cover it. But it was definitely an odd year for tween (ages 9-12) book group. First, book group stopped like everything else. We weren’t allowed to hold any programs, not even virtual. Then we brought it back via Zoom, but only with books with eBook or eAudiobook versions in Library2Go or Hoopla. In August, we found our groove (and grant funding) to provide book group boxes that we mailed to participants in advance of the Zoom discussion. As of this writing, we’ve done these book group boxes now for a whole year. (I’ll talk more about the process behind creating those in a separate post.)
Continue reading “2020 Tween Book Group Activities”
The Stories Guy 