In the wake of the high profile announcements of the Youth Media Awards, another elegant list emerged a little more quietly. Every five years, a YALSA committee comprised of public, secondary, and academic librarians, selects titles for independent teen reading and lifelong learning in its Outstanding Books for the College Bound. The list includes fiction, nonfiction […]
A great year for #SWVBC (with Libba and Lauren!)
June 12, 2012 by 2 Comments
It’s been a great year for our Somewhat Virtual Book Club. Actually, it seems easy to forget that it’s also been the first year for the SomeWhat Virtual Book Club. In the fall I shared that we experimented by joining several schools around the country for monthly book discussions. Our kids were happy to make […]
YALSA’s Teen Book Finder App (love it!)
June 6, 2012 by 3 Comments
Quick, before the school year ends, share this app with your teens and maybe their parents. Quick, before the school year ends, download this app yourself. You’re going to want to start using the genre search to support readers’ advisory tomorrow!!! YALSA just introduced its Teen Book Finder for iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. (An […]
About The Watermelon: Can a YA novel change the world?
May 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment
My old college buddy (SUNY Binghamton ’75), author Michael Laser recently shared his latest young adult novel with me. We chatted a bit about the world of YA literature and about what inspires him to write. He shared with me that his latest book was differently motivated. The Watermelon is a loss of innocence story […]
Yesterday
January 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Sometimes you’ve got to sit on a day for a bit before you realize how interesting it was. Yesterday was one of those days. Ordinary. But lying in bed, desperately trying to come up with one special thing to blog about, I realized that maybe it was the day as a whole–a slice of school […]
On our somewhat virtual book club
December 11, 2011 by 2 Comments
I’ve been meaning to share about what’s happened to our book club since it grew somewhat virtual. My friend and colleague Jane Lofton beat me to it with this post. I asked her if I could re-post with a few comments to describe what it looked like on the Springfield end. From Jane: Connecting Our […]
Our YA Lit LibGuide (a guest post from Chrissy)
October 18, 2011 by 1 Comment
My big goal for the year is to promote reading. So I asked my practicum student, Chrissy Sirianni, to use my BookLeads wiki as an inspiration and add her own special curating touch to create a YA Lit Guide. And then I asked her to reflect on her work: I was thrilled when Joyce suggested […]
Read it 1st! (For Nerdfighters & the world)
September 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Inspired by Nerdfighteria, we decided to bag the traditional book-to-film display in favor of a far more awesome, far less sucky Read-it-first display. Our Springfield Nerdfighters not only approve, several volunteered to help us pull it together. The Readit1st pledge page offers a variety of embeddable web and Facebook buttons (with logo designed by Hank) […]
Still time for the Trailees!
September 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Good news! The deadline is extended for SLJ’s Trailee Awards! If you missed the August 31 deadline to nominate your favorite book trailer–perhaps because of that little thing called summer–you still have time to gather those little video gems. The deadline is extended till September 15. Submit your favorite book trailer in any of these […]
Am I the messenger (too)?
December 9, 2010 by 2 Comments
Yesterday, at the very end of the day, I was out on the floor helping the usual AP US History bunch dig up the usual primary sources for their usual DBQs, as well as the evidence they need for their debates. Many of these kids also happen to be members of my Book Club. Now, […]
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