Virtual ALSC 101

I'm serving on ALSC's Membership Committee and I'd like to formally invite you to Virtual ALSC 101 on Saturday, August 1 from 7:00pm-8:00pm ET (4:00pm-5:00pm PT). Whether you are a new ALSC member, an experienced ALSC member looking to get more involved, or not an ALSC member yet at all, I think this is going to be a really fun event.

Check out Tanya Prax's post on the ALSC Blog to learn more about it and register now for this free, virtual event!  

NoveList & LibraryReads Free Genre Webinars

Photo by Abhi Sharma

ETA (1/21/19): The archived webinar is now available! Go forth and learn!

You all. Yesterday, I attended the first free webinar in a new series on genres that NoveList and LibraryReads are partnering up to present. It. Was. Fantastic.

Even before the webinar started, attendees were suggesting their favorite sci-fi novels and talking about subgenres in the chat (which continued throughout the webinar - I copied and pasted the chat into a Word document to save it and it was 33 pages).

This first webinar in the series was on Science Fiction and I found it very engaging and helpful. We got an overview of the development of the genre from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to what's new and trending today. The slides had TONS of suggestions for books along the way. I could tell that they paid attention to being inclusive with many female authors and authors from different cultures and ethnicities represented.

After the overview of the genre presented by a member of the LibraryReads team, a NoveList team member spoke about appeal factors in the genre and how to use NoveList to search for books for sci-fi readers and narrow the searches down to find a great match. I think you'd get the most out of it if you're a NoveList subscriber, but even if you're not, there were still tons of information about the appeal factors in the genre and book suggestions that would are useful.

This webinar was a bit like my Reader's Advisory class in grad school boiled down to one hour. I LOVED that class, so I was definitely nerding out. If you are unfamiliar with genre fiction or just want a refresher or if you're not confident about searching NoveList or if you have staff that aren't using NoveList because they don't know how, this is a FANTASTIC RESOURCE.

The webinars are centered on adult reading, though there were definitely YA titles that I spotted throughout. If you work with teens or adults, it's well worth watching.

The full schedule of genre webinars for the year is posted on this NoveList blog post and the webinars will be archived in case you can't make the actual time. As soon as the sci-fi archive is available, I will post it.

ETA: The archived webinar is now available! Go forth and learn!

A Look Back at 2018

2018 was my first full year in my new position as Collection Development Lead at my library and I did some things!

• I got kudos from my boss at a leadership meeting for spending pretty much the entire collection budget for the first time in many years. 

• I've been building my Personal Learning Network for adult collection development (Early Word Galley Chat has been great for this!) and learning so much about adult materials.

• I set up a location in our ILS for our new branch and have been working on getting them the materials they need up there. 
• I have learned soooo much about our ILS vendor. 

• I revised our Collection Development Policy and set up an online form where patrons can suggest purchases.
• I got us a subscription to Wowbrary and it's making our holds lists for new materials grow and grow!

• I renewed our magazines and databases and set up systems to collect more data so that these renewals will be easier next year.

It's been a great year and I continue to love my job (although I continue to miss baby storytime...). I have goals for next year. LET'S DO THIS, 2019!

Building a Collection Development Toolkit

Image of a light bulb inside a chalk thought bubble. Like, an idea.

When I took on a new position as Collection Development Leader at my library, I knew I would need to reach out to find resources to help me in my job. I have been pretty good at staying on top of what's being published as far as youth materials since that's been part of my job for many years. But I am brand new at collecting materials for adults, so I've been building up my resources in that area. Not only did I need resources, but I needed to figure out how to manage them in a convenient way.

One system that's worked for me is signing up for collection development and reader's advisory emails and then setting up filters so that they go to their own folders and I can peruse them when I have time. Emails go straight to their own folders and then I reserve some time each day or every couple of days to look through them.

What are the resources I have found so far? 

Book Pulse from Library Journal. Becky Spratford of RA for All pointed me to this resource and I am so grateful. Updated each weekday, this blog points out popular titles for the week, books new to the NYT Best Seller List, and books that have been reviewed in big publications or mentioned in the media. It also shares general book news like award announcements, author deaths, etc. The posts can be emailed to you, so I get them in my Book Pulse folder each day.

Baker & Taylor's Fast Facts. This weekly email includes not only hot titles for the upcoming week and titles about to be featured on radio and TV but it includes a spreadsheet of all titles being published the following week. Sometimes that's too overwhelming, but it's broken down into Adult Fiction, Adult Nonfiction, New Paperback, etc. so unless it's a super busy week it's helpful to me to double-check and see if there's anything I've missed that I want to make sure I order. My library is a Baker & Taylor customer, but it looks to me like you can access their Fast Facts even if you're not (I could be wrong!)

Shelf Awareness Pro. This is another weekday email blast that sends out book-related news. A lot of it pertains more to bookstores, but it helps me keep my eye on the publishing world. Even the ads can be helpful, pointing me to books that are being heavily marketed that I might want to put on my radar.

Check Your Shelf. This is a new bi-weekly email sent out by Book Riot for a librarian audience. Even though I haven't actually gotten my first email yet, I trust it will be a useful resource since I already rely on Book Riot's blog posts to help make me aware of new and upcoming adult books. Bonus: if you sign up now you can enter to win a free library cart!

LibraryReads. Each month, LibraryReads announces librarians' top ten picks for the upcoming month so you can put them on your radar. I get these emailed to me so I can forward the list out to my public services staff and make them aware of hot books that will be coming out.

RA for All. Becky Spratford has an amazing blog with tons of resources for reader's advisory, which goes hand in hand with collection development. I've found out about many great resources through her blog.

Book Riot. Here's another great blog for staying on top of what's new and upcoming in books. What I love about this site is that it's geared towards all readers; there's something for everyone here. Not every post is relevant to my work, but there are tons of book lists and they make an effort to feature diverse books, which is important.

Rich in Color: Diverse Books Release Calendar. Here's another great resource for keeping on top of diverse children's books coming out. It's something I have bookmarked to check each month so I can be sure to be collecting diverse titles for my library.

These are some of the resources I have found most useful and use regularly. I use other resources from my vendors (e.g. Baker & Taylor's Automatically Yours plan and their First Look carts). What should I add to my toolkit?

Reading Wildly: Manga

Last month for Reading Wildly, my staff and I tackled manga. This is a genre that is SO popular, especially with our teens, and it's a genre that none of us naturally gravitate towards. That makes it a perfect genre to include in our Reading Wildly meetings!

We talked a little bit about why manga might be so popular with teens - it's often funny or wacky or strange, so something a little different than typical American books. Even the format feels like a rebellion or like something that many adults wouldn't understand or like or bother with. Emotions are often depicted as over the top (which can be exactly how something FEELS when it's happening to you). Manga series can last tens or hundreds of volumes, which gives readers plenty of fuel to keep going and engaging with the characters or plots they are enjoying.

Here, our teens know what they love and what they want in manga and anime. Most often they are the ones making suggestions to us on what to buy, rather than our staff giving them reader's advisory. But even if our RA skills aren't called for very often with this genre, it's great to pick up books, series, and genres that our teens and kids love so that they know that we honor what they value and we're willing to give it a chance.

I don't know that anyone in our group necessarily discovered a newfound love for manga, but I appreciate that they were all willing to give it a try! Here are the series we read from:

• Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama
• Cactus's Secret by Nana Haruta
• Case Closed by Gosho Aoyama
• Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan
• Danganronpa by Spike Chunsoft
• Fairy Tail by Hiro Mashima
• Food Wars by Yuto Tsukunda
• Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa
• Miki Falls by Mark Crilley
• Skip Beat by Yoshiki Nakamura
• Strobe Edge by Io Sakisaka

Next month is Reader's Choice as we gear up for the Summer Reading Club! What great books have you been reading lately? 

Leaders are Readers: A #PowerUp17 Book List

I had the GREAT pleasure of attending the first Power Up Conference in Leadership for Youth Services Managers and Staff at the University of Wisconsin - Madison last week. It was such an amazing two days and I am feeling really empowered (!!).

But the learning continues even now that I'm back home from conference. Not only will I be taking some time to read back over my notes, journal, and reflect, but I am busy tracking down all the great leadership and professional development books that were mentioned at the conference! Of course (since we're librarians), many of the presenters had book suggestions for us. And here's a compiled list. If you're looking to power up your leadership skills, start with these books!

Leaders are Readers: A #PowerUp17 Book List

**I did my best to write down as many book suggestions as I could, but of course I couldn't be in two sessions at once. If you remember any that I'm missing, please comment and I'll add them to the list!!**

The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything in Business by Patrick Lencioni (Josey-Bass, 2012).

Being the Boss: 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader by Linda A. Hill and Kent Lineback (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011).

 Brene Brown - This author was mentioned, though not a specific book.
Daring Greatly (Avery, 2012).
The Gifts of Imperfection (Hazeldon, 2010).
Rising Strong (Spiegel & Grau, 2015).

Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block (Berret-Koehler, 2008).

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson et. al. (McGraw-Hill, 2002).

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink (Riverhead Books, 2009).

Effective Difficult Conversations by Catherine Soehner and Ann Darling (ALA Editions, 2017).

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't by James Collins (HarperBusiness, 2001).

It's Always Personal: Navigating Emotion in the New Workplace by Anne Kreamer (Random House, 2011).

Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek (Portfolio, 2014).

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandburg (Knopf, 2013).

Library 2020: Today's Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow's Library ed. by Joseph Janes (Scarecrow Press, 2013).

Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer (Harper, 2006).

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek (Portfolio, 2009).

Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath (Gallup Press, 2007).

**What books did I miss? Please tell me in comments and I'll update!!**

Reading Wildly: Romance

For our March Reading Wildly meeting, we read romance. This was a genre suggested by one of my staff members and once we put it on the schedule, I started noticing how often I was getting requests for romance, too, particularly at our teen desk.

Here's what we read and shared at our meeting:

• My Best Everything by Sarah Tomp
• Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
• Every Hidden Thing by Kenneth Oppell
• Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour (#OwnVoices)
• The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love by Sarvanez Tash (#OwnVoices)
• Hot Cocoa Hearts by Suzanne Nelson
• Me and Miranda Mullaly by Jake Gerhardt
• The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon (#OwnVoices)
• Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan (#OwnVoices)
• When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon (#OwnVoices)

Next month, we're reading manga, which is outside the comfort zone of many of us (if not all of us!). We've reached out to our Teen Anime Club to suggest some series that we should check out, but if you have any manga recommendations, I'd love to hear what you suggest!

Reading Wildly: Fantasy

**I just realized that I never posted this roundup from our Reading Wildly Fantasy discussion in December! Better late than never?**

My team met again for Reading Wildly and this month we discussed fantasy books. We have some lovers of fantasy and some for whom fantasy is a chore. One thing we discussed is that even books we pick up, read a little bit of, and put down can still be helpful for reader's advisory. When Becky Spratford (RA for All) visited us to present our staff day, we practiced speed reading and learned that you don't have to read an entire book to get enough information for reader's advisory.

One of my staff members mentioned that she tried several books that she just couldn't get into before she finally fell back on a favorite author for our book discussion. Well, if you are familiarizing yourself with your collection and reading parts of books, that can be helpful, too. When that fantasy fan comes up to the desk, you'll be familiar with a few more books than you were before! We're not all going to love every book we pick up for Reading Wildly because the purpose is to stretch ourselves beyond what we normally gravitate to reading.

Here's what we read this month: 

• Alison Dare Little Miss Adventures by J. Torres
• Cloaked in Red by Vivian Vande Velde
• The Evil Wizard Smallbone by Delia Sherman
• Frostborn (Thrones & Bones) by Lou Anders
• George's Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl 
• The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
• The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz
• Mighty Jack by Ben Hatke
• Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
• Serpentine by Cindy Pon
• Silence and Stone (The Faerie's Promise #1) by Kathleen Duey
• A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling

We also spent some time brainstorming and deciding on genres and topics for next year. I tried to give us a good blend of genres that were real stretches (the ones everyone groaned at) and genres that my staff didn't mind so much. We've got manga on the list for next year, which will be a stretch for all of us, I think. I'm also very excited to read and share #OwnVoices titles one month. 

January will be a Reader's Choice month to ease us into the new year and I hope to have a 2017 schedule up soon. 

In 2017, we're doing something a little new: we're partnering with GreenBean TeenQueen Sarah Bean-Thompson of the Springfield-Greene County Library District in Missouri to share our book discussions each month. Sarah and I will both be blogging about it along the way and I'm excited to expand our network of librarians and share even more titles! 

Reading Wildly: Reader's Choice

We kicked off a new year of Reading Wildly this week with our Reader's Choice book discussion. I like to keep things low key for our first meeting of the year, but it's still great to get together and talk about books! Here's what we read:

• Al Capone Does My Shirts (and sequels) by Gennifer Choldenko
• Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things by Lenore Look
• Baby's in Black by Arne Bellstorf
• Cinnamon Moon by Tess Hilmo
• Crow Smarts by Pamela S. Turner
• Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline by Becky Bailey (a book from our Parents' Shelves!)
• Lucky Broken Girl by Ruth Behar (out in April)
• The Mighty Odds by Amy Ignatow
• My Brother Loved Snowflakes by Mary Bahr
• The Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry
• The Thing About Leftovers by C.C. Payne
• The Thousandth Floor by Katharine McGee

Next month, we're back into our genres and topics and our topic for February is #OwnVoices. I've asked everyone to read Kayla Whaley's excellent post #OwnVoices: Why We Need Diverse Authors in Children’s Literature to help with our discussion of these titles. 

What #OwnVoices titles would you recommend??

Reading Wildly: Gentle Reads

This month for Reading Wildly, my staff and I read gentle reads. What do I mean by gentle reads? We classified this month in three ways:

• Teen books that do not contain mature language and situations
• Books for young readers who are reading way above their grade level
• Christian fiction 

I believe the genre originally suggested for this month was Christian fiction and I expanded it a little bit to include some more options. We ended up sharing books from all three areas that we considered gentle fiction. Of course, you can never guarantee to anyone that a book is going to be absolutely free of anything that might offend - it's impossible to know every thing that could potentially offend someone. 

One thing I was proud of this month is that when we went to make our suggestion list for each other last month, we had a lot of ideas for children's books and very few ideas for teen books. Most of the books we all ended up sharing at this meeting were teen books. Without my asking them, staff gravitated towards the area where we had less experience. That's exactly the idea behind this program!

I'm going to post two separate lists here: one for teens and one for children reading above grade level. These lists contain not only the books we read, but also books that were suggested by my staff last month. I included all of these titles in our Evernote lists and I've encouraged staff to add to the lists as they read gentle fiction throughout the year. 

Here's what we read and suggested: 

Gentle Teen Reads (includes Christian fiction): 

• A Simple Song by Melody Carlson (Christian Fiction)
• Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O'Roark Dowell
• Pies and Prejudice (Mother-Daughter Book Club) by Heather Vogel Frederick
• A World Away by Nancy Grossman (Christian Fiction)
• My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows
• Anomaly by Krista McGee (Christian Fiction)
• Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
• Shadow on the Mountain by Margi Preus

Books for Younger Kids Reading Above Grade Level

• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater
• The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
• The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich
• Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein
• Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff
• The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
• Winterfrost by Michelle Houts
• Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt (Newbery)
• Alvin Ho (series) by Lenore Look
• Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger
• Marty Maguire Has Too Many Pets by Kate Messner (and others by this author)
• Greenglass House by Kate Milford
• Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
• The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye
• Nuts to You by Lynne Rae Perkins

What would you add to our lists of gentle reads? 

Reading Wildly: Thriller/Suspense

Last year, I was working the Teen Desk when a girl who was CRAZY about the author April Henry came in looking for books. Of course, all of April Henry's books were checked out and she was asking if we had anything similar. And I was stumped. Nothing came to mind that I had read or even really heard of except The Face on the Milk Carton, which kids were reading when *I* was a kid.

That's a long story to say that I requested this genre for one of our Reading Wildly months this year. Of course, I helped my patron with the help of sources like Novelist, but it definitely identified a gap in my knowledge.

This month, we read "thrillers" and I learned after Becky Spratford's RA workshops at my library that what we were actually reading about would be considered suspense novels.

Here's what we read:

• Blackbird by Anna Carey
• Fake ID by Lamar Giles
• The Girl I Used to Be by April Henry
• Girl Stolen by April Henry 
• I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga 
• The Night She Disappeared by April Henry 
• The Plot to Kill Hitler by Patricia McCormick 
• The Safest Lies by Megan Miranda 
• The Gathering (Shadow House #1) by Dan Poblocki

For the most part, this genre wasn't a huge favorite with my staff, although I had one who got really into it and found several books that she enjoyed. 

Next month, we're going the complete opposite way and we're going to be reading gentle books. I suggested three ways that staff could take this genre: 

• Christian fiction - definitely something that gets requested in our fairly conservative community
• Gentle teen reads - books from the teen area that don't contain mature language and content
• Children's books for kids who are reading way above grade level (say, a first grader reading at a fourth or fifth grade level)

So, we'll see what we end up with next month! When I passed around the paper for staff suggestions for this genre, we were very lacking in gentle options for teens.

What are your favorite gentle reads for teens? 

Reading Wildly: Funny

At today's Reading Wildly meeting, we discussed funny books. We've discussed funny books in the past and we keep on doing it because this is a genre that kids want all the time and it can be hard to identify these books using the catalog.

We talked about some sources for identifying funny books, including lists on the internet and getting recommendations from friends or colleagues. We also talked about how a lot of funny books have parts that are funny and parts that are serious and that there are different kinds of humor that kids may be interested in. Some kids are really looking for wacky, weird humor and others like something more subtle.

Here's what we read:

• 33 Minutes (Until Morgan Sturtz Kicks My Butt) by Todd Hasak-Lowy
• Cody and the Fountain of Happiness by Tricia Springstubb
• Crap Kingdom by DC Pierson
• Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon
• Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo
• The Haters by Jesse Andrews
• How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell
• It Ain't So Awful Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas
• OMG Shakespeare
• Rocket & Groot: Stranded on Planet Strip Mall by Tom Angleberger 
• Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here by Anna Breslaw
• The Templeton Twins Have an Idea by Ellis Weiner
• The Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Jones by Will Mabbitt

SUMMER IS COMING, so next month will be Reader's Choice, though I have challenged my staff to read something from the room they don't normally gravitate towards. Staff who normally choose books from the Children's Room should pick something from Teen, staff who normally gravitate towards teen books should choose something from the Children's Room. And if anyone feels like they read pretty equally then they can choose. 

We probably won't be able to meet over the summer months because we're so busy in our department, but I'm definitely intending a return to our library staff "summer reading log" where we'll share our reading with staff and patrons!

This was the start of our "reading log" last summer.

Reading Wildly: Reader Profile Swaps

This month, at Reading Wildly, we did something we'd never done before. In November, I distributed copies of Becky Spratford's Reader Profile and asked everyone to fill it out for themselves. At our December meeting, everyone picked an envelope with someone's reader profile and I asked them to practice their reader's advisory by giving their person at least three suggestions. For our January meeting, I asked everyone to read at least one of the books that had been suggested to them and talk about it at our meeting.

We really tried not to make our meeting a show-and-tell of how successful the reader's advisory transaction was (and I think everyone found something they liked, anyway, which is great!). Rather, we talked about what the challenges were with this assignment and what resources we used to make our suggestions.

Some of us felt pressure, even though we were working with people that we know and feel comfortable with. That pressure was elevated when working with very avid readers - what to hand someone when they seem to have read everything? Time was also a factor - we all knew that we had a limited amount of time to get our suggestions in to allow our person enough time to select and read something. Of course, we have even less time when we're on the reference desk!

One thing that everyone felt helped them feel more confident was handing their person multiple suggestions. This is always something I recommend when doing reader's advisory: encourage people to walk away with a couple of choices. Giving their person three choices gave more flexibility for that person to pick up something they were in the mood for.

We talked about filling out the Reader Profile for ourselves and I think everyone agreed that it was different for us to stop and think about why we liked or didn't like a book. One of our teen librarians pointed out that she loves when kids talk about a book they hate because that will often give her more information about what type of book might work for them. It's also sometimes easier for kids (and people?) to express what they didn't like than to think about what elements appealed to them in a book.

I think this was definitely a fun exercise and a little more interesting than just doing a Reader's Choice month, so we will definitely be doing this again. Just from seeing everyone's Reader Profiles come across my desk, I think that it would be fun to mix it up and try again with someone different.

Next month, our genre is Sports and I assigned an unrelated, but still very interesting blog post: The Importance of Making Reading Resolutions from a RA Service Standpoint by Becky Spratford. Since it is still early in the year, I think this is a great post for us to talk about. Plus, Becky will be visiting our library later this year in October and presenting some workshops for our Staff Development Day, so I am really excited for everyone to familiarize themselves with some of her work before we get to meet her! (That is going to be a great day; I am already really excited!!!)

Have you every practiced reader's advisory on other staff members or on family or friends? How did it go?

Reading Wildly in 2016

Yes, we will continue to Read Wildly in 2016! (More info on Reading Wildly, my staff reader's advisory training, here!)

Last week, my staff and I sat down to choose genres for our 2016 Reading Wildly meetings. I was really proud of the thought they put into it and I think we hit on a great mix of repeats (those genres many of us don't gravitate to naturally) and new-for-RW genres. Here's what we decided to explore this year:

January: Reader profile swaps (basically reader's choice, but you can read about what we're doing in this post)

February: Sports

March: Survival

April: Sad/Tearjerkers

May: Funny

June: Reader's choice, but Teen staff read something from Children's and Children's read something from Teen (and if you read equally, then you pick!)

July: Graphic Novels (always accepted, but my staff don't always choose them)

August: Transitional chapter books (2nd/3rd grade)

September: Nonfiction

October: Thriller

November: Gentle ("Clean" reads, although I hate saying "clean")

December: Fantasy

Watch my Reading Wildly page for updates on how these meetings go and what we read each month!

And what about you? What are the genres that are a stretch for you to pick up and read?

Reading Wildly: Fairy Tale Novels

Hello, blog. It's been awhile. Things have been a little crazy around here. But we are still reading! This month for Reading Wildly, my staff and I read fairy tale novels. Frozen, The Descendants... fairy tales are all around us and there are lots of opportunities to find readalikes for the books and media kids are loving.

Here's what we read: 

• Fairest of All (Whatever After #1) by Sarah Mlynowski
• Flunked (Fairy Tale Reform School #1) by Jen Calonita
• The Frog Princess by E.D. Baker
• Frogged by Vivian Vande Velde
• If the Shoe Fits (Whatever After #2) by Sarah Mlynowski
• The Island of Dr. Libris by Chris Grabenstein
• Of Giants and Ice by Shelby Bach
• A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz
• Wednesdays at the Tower by Jessica Day George
• A Wicked Thing by Rhiannon Thomas

Confession: I missed most of our book discussion this month because I was at a meeting that ran way late. However, my staff were on the ball and shared their booktalks until I could join them. 

The second half of this month's meeting was spent discussing what genres and topics we want to tackle for next year and explaining the activity we're going to do for January's meeting. 

For January's meeting, I had asked everyone to fill out Becky Spratford's reader profile, as discussed on her awesome blog RA for All. I collected these before the meeting and at our meeting, we each picked one. I'm asking folks to work with their partners to come up with a list of at least 3 book suggestions by the end of next week. Then I'm asking everyone to read at least one of their suggested books for next month's meeting. I am hoping this will be a fun exercise and result in everyone having something enjoyable to read over the holidays and the beginning of the new year. 

I'm really excited to talk to everyone about their process in completing this activity and what they learned about themselves by filling out their own reader profiles. I typically leave January's Reading Wildly meeting as reader's choice since I know everything is so busy during the holidays and I think this is a great way to do that while still incorporating some RA practice and thought. 

We also discussed what genres we'd like to explore next year and I was really proud of my staff members for putting a lot of thought into this and making some great suggestions. Everyone was a little quiet at first when I asked what they'd like to feature next year, but once people started making suggestions, more and more came flying! 

Reading Wildly: Horse Books

For this month's Reading Wildly meeting, we read horse books! It was a great genre to explore because almost everyone (including myself) read their horse book(s) very reluctantly, which, yes, means it's a genre we need to push ourselves to pick up and explore from time to time. 

We kicked off our meeting with a discussion about our common text, the article "What Makes a Good Horse Book?" by Anita Burkham from The Horn Book. This article was helpful for mt staff and me because it gives some clear guidance as to what horse lovers are looking for in a good horse books. I know it helped me to pick up on these elements as I read my books.

Here are the horse books we read this month:

• Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
• Bramble and Maggie by Jessie Haas
• Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• A Hundred Horses by Sarah Lean
• Paint the Wind by Pam Munoz Ryan
• The Princess and the Foal by Stacy Gregg
• Racing Savannah by Miranda Kenneally
• Runaway Radish by Jessie Haas
• The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
• The Winter Horses by Philip Kerr
• The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
• Welcome Home! (Misty Inn series) by Kristin Earhart

Next month, we'll be talking about fairy tale novels and reading a couple of articles about the fantasy genre: "Stepping Into the Wardrobe: A Fantasy Genre Study" by Maria Colleen Cruz and Kate B. Pollock (Language Arts, January 2004) and "Finding Fantasy: The Genre That Makes Difficult Topics Easier for Students to Discuss" by Robin Fuxa (Reading Today, October/November 2012). 

We'll also be choosing topics for our 2016 Reading Wildly meetings (exciting!!). We may repeat genres we have done before or add new ones. We're Youth Services now, which includes teens and expands our reader's advisory responsibilities. I'm excited to talk about the possibilities for next year! I know that in June & July we're going to do Reader's Choice and that in January we'll do kind of a variation on Reader's Choice using Becky Spratford's Staff Reader Profile that she posted on her awesome blog RA for All. 

Reading Wildly: Scary Books

It's October, so it's time for another round of scary books for this month's Reading Wildly meeting. We explored scary books a couple of years ago, and it's such a perennial favorite that we brought it back this year. We were a little pressed for time at this meeting because we had to combine our department meeting and our RW meeting (happens sometimes, especially with Fall Break happening), so we didn't have a really in-depth discussion about our article. It was Are Goosebumps Books Real Literature? By Leslie Anne Perry & Rebecca P. Butler (Language Arts, Oct. 1997) and we did have a few takeaways:

• Kids know what to expect when they pick up a Goosebumps book: an easy to read, slightly scary and exciting story. 
• Scary stories, including the Goosebumps series transcend gender divides. As much as I really hate the idea of "girl books" and "boy books" (and I really do hate it), scary stories, for kids who like scary stories, are easy to hand to both boys and girls without objections from kids or parents. 
• If we had had time, I would have liked to compile a list of scary story series that would be good for everyone to know, but alas we didn't have time for this. 

So, here are the books we read: 

• Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter
• The Dark Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia McKissack
• Evil Librarian by Michelle Knudsen
• Guys Read: Terrifying Tales, edited by Jon Scieszka
• Half-Minute Horrors by various authors
• The Haunted Library by Dori Butler
• Hoodoo by Ronald L. Smith
• Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
• The One-Eyed Doll (Scary Tales series) by James Preller
• The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight (Goosebumps series) by R.L. Stine
• The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co.) by Jonathan Stroud 
• Wait 'Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn
• The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma

For next month, we are reading horse books (Children's) and animal books (Teen). It was determined that teens didn't have an overwhelming interest in horse books, but my teen librarians did feel like animal books were something more teens were interested in. We'll also start to brainstorm genres that we'd like to explore next year and I'm excited to now have our teen librarians' input in this process! 

Horse books are definitely NOT my wheelhouse, so do you have any suggestions for me?!

Reading Wildly: Contemporary Fiction

This month for Reading Wildly, we read contemporary fiction. You may also call this realistic fiction, but we specify contemporary because we're talking about books set in the present day, not historical fiction. 

To kick off our discussion, we talked about the article "One Tough Cookie" by Carey E. Hagan, the Field Notes column from the September/October 2011 Horn Book Magazine. In this article, Hagan discusses her difficulties in getting boys to check out books that are perceived as "girl books". 

My staff had a lot to say about this article. We talked about how it was difficult to get not only boys but parents of boys to take home books about girls (sometimes, not always!). We talked about how dangerous this is - to encourage boys to check out and read solely books about boys is to tell them that the lives of girls are not something they have to care about or value.

We shared some strategies for combating this mindset. First and foremost, we must be cognizant that it's good to present boys and girls with books about both boys and girls. We, as gatekeepers, need to check that we're not booktalking a book as "for girls" or "for boys". Instead of emphasizing the gender of the characters, talk about what the characters do or what's exciting, funny, or interesting about the book. Solicit impromptu book reviews from young readers and file those away so that you can tell young readers "I know a boy who read that book and he said it was cool." etc. 

Just as we should be including diverse books in what we're booktalking and suggesting, we need to include books featuring protagonists of both genres. 

Here's what we read: 

• Alvin Ho: Allergic to the Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace, and Other Tourist Attractions by Lenore Look
• Ask My Mood Ring How I Feel by Diana Lopez
• Blackbird Fly by Erin Entrada Kelly
• The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds
• Burned by Ellen Hopkins
• Cody and the Fountain of Happiness by Tricia Springstubb
• Jake Drake, Class Clown by Andrew Clements
• The Last Leaves Falling by Sarah Benwell
• Lost in the Sun by Lisa Graff
• Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson
• Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen
• Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy
• The Summer of Chasing Mermaids by Sarah Ockler
• Tiger Boy by Mitali Perkins
• The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye

For our October meeting, we'll be reading scary stories (and slightly scary stories!) and reading the article "Are Goosebumps Real Literature?" by Leslie Anne Perry and Rebecca Butler from Language Arts, October 1997. 

What scary books would you recommend for us to check out? 

Reading Wildly: Nonfiction

Woohoo! Welcome back to Reading Wildly! We had a nice little break over the summer because it is basically impossible for us to get together and meet while summer craziness is going on. Now, the kids are back in school, we are scheduling tons of booktalks, and it's time to pick up with our monthly reader's advisory training. 

Our topic this month was Nonfiction, and before we started sharing our booktalks, I asked for a show of hands who found themselves regularly reaching for nonfiction when it's not assigned as their RW topic. I had a few who seek out nonfiction (including myself), but the majority of my staff do not feel that they gravitate towards nonfiction. 

I have found that a lot of people have that disinclination. I don't know if it's just that they expect the books to be dry and boring or if the larger format of children's nonfiction is not as amenable to carrying a book around with you, or something else. But I am here to tell you that if you are avoiding children's and YA nonfiction, you are MISSING OUT BIG TIME!!!!!!

(Also, I was once like you. I set a goal to read two nonfiction books a month and I found some great titles that I loved and I have been loving it ever since!)

Ahem. When you get right down to it, nonfiction is an important part of offering a balanced booktalking selection and advising readers who prefer to read true stories. We shared some great titles this month, and I hope you will pick up a couple of them and give them a try! Here's what we read: 

• 5,000 Miles to Freedom: Ellen and William Craft's Flight from Slavery by Dennis Fradin 
• Aye-Aye: An Evil Omen by Miriam Aronin
• Bodie: The Town That Belongs to Ghosts by Kevin Blake
• The Boys Who Challenged Hitler by Philip Hoose
• Enchanted Air by Margarita Engle
• Encyclopedia Horrifica by Joshua Gee
• The Giant and How He Humbugged America by Jim Murphy
• Lion, Tiger, and Bear by Kate Hurley
• A List of Things That Didn't Kill Me by Jason Schmidt
• Little Author in the Big Woods by Yona Zeldis McDonough
• Nelson Mandela: South African Revolutionary by Beatrice Gormley
• Stonewall: Breaking Out in the Fight for Gay Rights by Ann Bausum
• Terrible Typhoid Mary by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
• Tricky Vic: The Impossibly True Story of the Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower by Greg Pizzoli
• The Watcher: Jane Goodall's Life with the Chimps by Jeanette Winter
• Who Was Queen Elizabeth? by June Edding
• The Year We Disappeared: A Father-Daughter Memoir by Cylin Busby and John Busby

We didn't discuss an article this month because SUMMER, but I had selected one, so I passed it out as optional reading: The Dazzling World of Nonfiction by Donalyn Miller (Educational Leadership, November 2013). 

For our meeting in September, we will be discussing contemporary, realistic fiction and the article One Tough Cookie by Carey E. Hagan (The Horn Book Magazine, September/October 2011). 

An ALA 2015 Recap

My friends, the 2015 ALA Annual Conference was such an amazing experience! I am really grateful for all the connections I have made through ALA, for my awesome 2015 Newbery Committee and our honored authors, for the education I received at conference, and for all the FUN this conference brought!

You definitely want to check out the live blogging posts on the ALSC Blog for lots of detail about sessions and goings-on at conference. But I also wanted to share a little bit about what I was up to at this conference:

PS: I am going to use the word "amazing" about 100 times in this post. Deal.

• Learning from other amazing youth services librarians at Guerrilla Storytime. 

• Celebrating our amazing Newbery Honor authors, Cece Bell and Jacqueline Woodson, at a fancy dinner with our committee. 

• Doing the Dumplin' pose at a HarperCollins breakfast. You do not want to miss this book. I promise. It comes out in September and I have a review coming soon.
  
• Presenting on an AWESOME panel about managing youth services (check out hashtag #futureYS for take-aways!)

Photo by Dan Bolstrom, ALSC

• Meeting up with the ALSC live bloggers and our ALSC Blog manager Mary Voors.
  
• Sitting in on the Children's Notable Recordings meeting and learning a lot about evaluating and discussing audio recordings. 

• Celebrating our 2015 Newbery Medal winner, Kwame Alexander!!!!!

• Picking up some highly anticipated books at the Exhibit Hall. (These are not all, but I didn't actually take that many books home this time around!)

• Drinking wine on the 46th floor before my FIRST Newbery Caldecott Wilder Banquet and...

• Hanging out with this guy in my fancy Newbery dress. 

• My first Newbery Caldecott Wilder Banquet. I was completely star-struck the entire time and just sat at my table with wide eyes taking in all the famous authors whirling around me. (Also, Jacqueline Woodson's son was at my table and engrossed in a Babymouse book for the later part of the evening!)

• Being with my people. Love. 

If I don't get to go to an ALA Conference for awhile, this was a GREAT one to go out on. I had a blast and learned a lot. I already miss my magical world of ALA Conference. BUT I know this guy is happy I'm home: