• Lifestyle

    Summer Reading Prep…

    or ” How to Try and Organize My Life for the Next 3 Months”  All of our major spring programming has wrapped up, which is awesome, but after a short reprieve, I am now facing the summer reading kick-off countdown.  And I have WAY too much to do in the…

  • Lifestyle

    Summer Reading Workshop

    I’m spending the day at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia to learn how science and literacy can work together to create an amazing summer reading program. We’ve spent the morning doing some great experiments with balance and sound and all the ideas they have given us have included very basic…

  • Lists

    Summer Reading Lists

    Yep, even though it’s only 20 degrees outside with a 13 inches of snow, we’re already thinking about the summer time, here in my library.  And one of the first projects on my to-do list is to update our in-house summer reading suggestions for grade levels.  Our school librarians do…

  • Activities

    Digger Day

    I’ve seen a couple similar posts in the past few weeks and I think most of my fellow public librarians understand – I’ve hit my summer reading wall!  I’m thoroughly exhausted and am tired of trying to keep everything in the same theme!  Thankfully, last night was our last “big”…

  • Lifestyle

    First (official) Day of Summer Reading

      My summer reading planning begins in November/December, but for the general public today is the day that our Summer Reading Program officially begins.  I got to work an hour early to make sure the adult and young adult links on the website were working, updated the Facebook page, and…

  • Lifestyle

    Young Adult vs. Middle Grade Books

    Summer is fast approaching and as a librarian, I have found that many parents and even some kids are confused and misunderstand the difference between young adult books and books for those students in middle grades.  Once I read past the middle grade novels in my public library in my…

  • Lifestyle

    How gross is too gross?!?!?

    As I was shifting our picture book collection the other day, I came across a book entitled, Poopendous! written by Artie Bennett and illustrated by Mike Moran.  As the book goes, “Poop is yuck, poop is foul.  Step in poop and you will howl.  To red ths book, you  must…

  • Lifestyle

    Summer Countdown….

    Now, for most people summertime means vacation, sun, surf, relaxation, being outside, and spending time with family and friends.  For public librarians, summer is its own monster filled with busy programs, families coming into the library endlessly asking for their summer reading books for school assignments, and more work hours…

  • Lifestyle

    Which Books Should You Read This Summer?

    I must really be in to infographics this week.  I found this great infographic with 101 book choices for this summer.  It was created by teach.com for high school teens as a way to encourage reading for fun this summer.  It’s a great big flowchart with both fiction and nonfiction options.  Now…

  • Activities

    Middle School Book Discussion

    Part of my library’s summer reading program involves 2 different middle school (grades 5 – 8) book discussions.  The first is called “Literary Lunch” and is an hour long book discussion once a week for five weeks during lunch time.  The students bring their lunch and the library provides some…