Reading Beyond: Book Lists for Advanced Readers

Here’s a frequent question that librarians receive:  “What can I give my first grader to read if she is reading at a fourth grade level?”Sometimes kids still enjoy books even if they can read well beyond them (Harry Potter and Mr. Putter and...

Talking Is Teaching

There’s a group of early childhood professionals (librarians, teachers, family literacy providers, childcare consultants, and more) in the Chippewa Valley working on an initiative to address the 30 million word gap identified by researchers Hart and Risely in...

Teens’ Top Ten List Announced!

Many thanks to Eau Claire Memorial High School librarian Pam Gardow, who sent over the annotated list of this year’s Teens’ Top Ten list, courtesy of YALSA!  Annotations written by Teens’ Top Ten Book Groups.2017 Teens’ Top Ten1. Dinan, Kurt....

On Being Honored

Photo credit:  Kris Adams Wendt (she says the magical hands were not intentional, but appropriate!)Last week, I had the experience of a lifetime, as I was honored as the WLA/Demco Wisconsin Librarian of the Year.  The honor itself, plus the kind words of...

STEM Inspiration Conference

I love hearing from colleagues who have flown the coop, so to speak, and are working in libraries outside of our system.  First of all, I love to hear from them because I like them, and love to hear what they are up to and what they are thinking about. ...

Making Justice in Madison

There are some public libraries that are doing great work with kids involved with the juvenile justice system.  At ALA last summer, I attended a program about a library that lines up volunteer bedtime readers and author visits at the local juvenile detention...

Collection Development Resource

The blog has been a victim of the triage that becomes necessary during especially busy times, which August, September, and October seem to be.  BUT.  I have it on my calendar to do a blog entry several times in the upcoming weeks, so look for more...