Tales from a Loud Librarian

A few months ago, I received an email from YALSA past president, Linda Braun. She was putting together a panel for the ALA conference that would be called: Trends in YA Services: Using Mobile Devices to Serve Teens. Several librarians were going to speak, but she wanted a couple of teens to talk, too. The idea is that the teens would comment on the programs and activities that the librarians were going to describe as happening in their library systems. She wanted the kids to give their opinion of these programs. Did they sound engaging and would they want to participate? It was a big success. The teens were happy to give their opinions. Librarians were coming up to me afterwards complimenting the students' participation. As one librarian told me, "you have touched lives." That felt really satisfying.  The students sat on the stage with the librarians They could respond as often as they wanted  The panelists include three librarians from New York, one from San A...

At 11:30, all of the teens and librarians met to head upstairs to one of the meeting rooms. When we arrived there was pizza, salad and cookies awaiting everyone for lunch. We want to send a big Shout Out and thank you to RasShahn Johnson-Baker at Penguin Publishers  who made this all possible. After we ate, two very popular authors entered the room: Jay Asher of Thirteen Resons Why and Carolyn Mackler of The Earth, my Butt, and Other Big Round Things . These two authors have a new book to be published in November, 2011 called The Future of Us . They worked on it as a team even though Carolyn lives in New York and Jay lives in California. They colloborated by phone and email. The premise sounds like a lot of fun. Two teens in 1996 load AOL onto a new computer and find something that they never heard of, Facebook. By seeing the future Facebook they find out about their future lives.   Authors, Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler, speak about their new book, T...

I can now finally breathe. I attended my last conference event on Monday evening, but it has taken me two days to recover from the five days of activities. I was in seventh heaven networking with librarians from across the country and meeting all the authors that my students and I love to read.  However, this blog post isn't really about me and my experiences at the conference but about my students. On Sunday, June 26th at 9AM, I met seven of my students; Lisa Valence, a Taylor teacher; and six other local librarians and their teen patrons. I passed everyone a badge, and we stormed the exhibit hall. We started our journey at the EasyBib booth  After our visit all the girls scattered to visit the booths on their own. Their goal was to find the publishers meet the authors, and pick up the great swag that was available: pens, bags, post its, and books. Lisa and I wandered the hall with the only boy in my group. Standing with one of his all time fav sci fi authors, Orson...

 The cheerleaders lead a cheer about books for the video Starting tomorrow, June 23rd, voting will open for the Follett 100K challenge grant. I created a video about reading for pleasure and the Taylor library. The library video with the most votes will win a grant. Actually, several other libraries will win grants for their written submission. I am hoping to win one of those grants, but I still plan to get out the vote. You never know. Voting runs from June 23rd until September 8th, and you can vote once a day. Here is the link: Please vote for my video on Follett $100K Challenge! Hey, if you have family and friends who won't mind helping us, please ask them to vote too. THANKS!!!!

On June 14th, three members of Bookmarked and I were broadcast on the local public radio station. There is a weekly show on WWNO 89.9 FM called The Reading Life . Host Susan Larson visited Taylor in May to record the show. I am on vacation in the mountains and Internet is spotty. So I have not heard the show yet because I don't think that it will stream clearly. Anyway, I hope some of you readers will be interested. To hear the show, click here to open the link.

The last day of school for me was May 26th. With school out, I am busy with home projects, getting ready for vacation, etc. Though I like to post weekly, it just might not happen. Below is a list of some of the books that I have recently read: Matched by Ally Condie: Loved it. Anxiously awaiting the sequel due out this fall. Yes, I know it is another dystopian futuristic novel, but the characters are wonderful. I heard an interview that Condie did, and she explained that she put a little bit of her husband in the two male characters. She also made sure that both of them were worthy of Cassie. The idea being that Cassie might want to be matched with either one. I also read Shine by Lauren Myracle. I am sounding like a recording; I loved that one, too. It tells the story of a girl who decides to play detective when her old friend is beaten in what looks like a hate crime. It takes place in a poverty stricken  mountain area of North Carolina. Many of the characters have drug a...

We had a meeting on June 6th to talk about our upcoming visit to ALA.  Two kids decide to fight over a book. Luckily, it was just for fun.