Allow Myself to Introduce…Myself

So, it’s taken me quite a while to get organized to drop by and say hello in a post, rather than comments, and now I’m feeling a little pressure to do a really amazing job with my introductory post, which is resulting in my throwing two pop culture jokes your way (more on that later).

Hi! I’m Sophie Brookover. Like Sarah & Karyn, I’m a Printz Committee alumna (2012 represent!) and have been a public YA librarian. Also like Karyn, I’ve been a high school librarian. I now work for LibraryLinkNJ–The New Jersey Library Cooperative, where I’m a Program Coordinator and my bailiwick is continuing education (or as I like to describe it, developing programs to help already-awesome librarians become even more awesome). (And, as noted in my fancy, official bio, my opinions are strictly my own.)

Obviously, I am so, so thrilled to be a part of Someday My Printz Will Come! Reading good books carefully & discussing them thoughtfully with lovely, lively people is one of my favorite activities of all time, and the experience of serving on the Printz Committee was a radical, year-long course in honing those skills. I look forward to learning how to do an even better job, with an even larger pool of fellow readers & discussers, this year!

As for what I’ll bring to the table in terms of what I look for in a book, and genres I particularly like, I’ll read almost anything as long as it’s good — horror, romance, fantasy high & low, humor, science fiction, and yes, realistic fiction. I’m not a huge fan of mystery or historical fiction, but I’m not going to let a little thing like personal preference get in the way of this process. Something amazing doesn’t have to be something I like or enjoy, and as Karyn pointed out so ably in her analysis of Daughter of Smoke and Bone, sometimes a book I love to bits is a book too flawed to make it past being a Contender to being a Shortlister.

When I’m reading, I like to look at all of the elements set forward in the RealPrintz guidelines, though I’ll confess to having a preference for Voice/Style, Story, Characters & Theme(s).

Oh, my goodness, this is turning out to be the boring-est introductory blog post of all time. You are falling asleep as you’re reading this, aren’t you? But you’re way too polite to say so, I know. I appreciate that, I really do. I’ll sign off here & promise to be way, way less soporific the next time you see me in a regular post or in comments.

Wait, one last thing. I’ll be at PLA in Philadelphia this week — Thursday & Friday. If you see me, say hello!

Filed under: Housekeeping, Process, RealCommittee