I Survived Summer Reading

Another successful Summer Reading program is over. I can't believe I've been at my current library for three SRCs! Aside from the usual crazy program schedule, this year's reading game was fairly different; SJPL experimented with an online software for logging books and did not give out cheap, lower level prizes. We definitely saw decreased participation, but according to head of Youth Services, it looks like we had more program follow-through. I'm hoping we'll have plenty of time for discussion and evaluation before next summer. However, given serious budget constraints, we may find ourselves using the software again regardless of any conclusions we come to...

So... today we had our second annual "I Survived Summer Reading" librarian field trip in San Jose's Japantown. We had lunch and tropical drinks at the Hukilau (mmmm... poke platter!) then enjoyed pedicures at Sakura Nail Bar, which is excellent because it smells like lavender instead of chemicals (no acrylics).



What colors do librarians choose, you might (not) be wondering: canary yellow, dark sparkly blue, deep violet, Barbie pink, and coral red. We were a veritable librarian rainbow!


Back at work: we'll take a little break (from storytimes and most programming) for a couple weeks before school starts again, then we'll hit the ground running hard. Starting in September, I'll have lots of Back to School nights out at the schools, as well as my own event at the library (a school supply drawing/resource fair), a new storytime schedule, Reading Readiness sessions in English and Spanish (teaches early literacy skills to parents and includes activities with the kids), a 16 de septiembre (Mexican Indpendence) program... then we move into October and crazy (but fun!) holiday programming season.

Will Arnett reads Are You There God, it's Me, Margaret

Can I request Goodnight Moon next??

How can you resist Yuyi Morales??

A video she made for this year's Pura Belpré Fiesta:



Who is Señor Calavera?




So talented!

One of my most popular school/class visit books is Just a Minute: a Trickster Tale a Counting Book. The kids love telling Señor Calavera "just a miiiiinnnuuuutttteee", counting in Spanish, and guessing what will happen at the end. One second grader wrote to me, "Señor Calavera es MUY chistoso! I told the story to my mom and she wants to get it from the libary."




Yuyi Morales gets bonus points from me because she's a fellow SF Carnaval dancer!

I always knew librarians were badass...

...but DUDE!

Clickity-Click: Woman survives plane crash, 2 mile fall, and 10 days alone in the Amazon!

Not precisely abandonment... just severe neglect.

Oh dear. Has it really been nearly 6 months since I last updated you, Blog?

It's funny how the longer you go without blogging, the harder it is to update, despite the fact that you have so many new things to say!



Since January, I have, in my professional life:

-Survived a long period of anxiety over potential (and narrowly missed) buget cuts that would have brutalized our library system.

-Switched from the ALSC Notable Children's Book Committee to the Carnegie Medal Committee (for best children's video). Short story: ALSC gave me a choice, and after much teeth grinding, I decided to switch. Notables was a two-year commitment, and I wasn't positive I'd have a job two years down the road. I'll very much miss working under the chairmanship (chairwomanship? chairpersonship?) of Eliza Dressang, but I'm quite looking forward to the new challenge of evaluating film. I've been doing my research, too-- more to come!

-Finished my two-year term on the ALSC Children & Technology Committee. It was a productive group of fun personalities-- a great first ALSC committee for me!

-Attended ALA Annual in Chicago and lloooovvveedd it. The conference AND the city. My week included many meetings (Emerging Leaders all day Friday, Carnegie on Saturday, C&T on Sunday), lovely publisher events (Candlewick's dinner at one sixtyblue especially rocked my world this time!), other ALSC-related things (e.g. Newbery/Carnegie/Wilder Banquet--Neil Gaiman!), and tourist-ing (omg, Chicago rules in the summer! Parks galore! Free stuff to do every day!). Next up: Boston for Midwinter Meeting in--gulp--January.

-Continuing to love my job and improve my skillz. =) A couple new things I've been doing:

Bilingual, participatory storytelling for large school assemblies and class visits. Making it work usually involves ad libbing, key accessories (e.g. dorky bunny ears), and making a connection between Spanish verbs and their physical actions. The more I do this, the more it seems like the old improv games I used to play as a theater nerd.

Reading Adventures: Not Your Grandma's Book Club-- a book group designed to attract reluctant readers and boys, involving lots of games and physical activity.

I plan to hold video screenings of some of the Carnegie contenders later on in the year. I can't wait to hear the opinions of my young friends.



Finally, can I just say: I think the key to a happy career is applause. If people could get applauded for writing code or filling cavities the way children's librarians get applauded at hammy kids events, the world would be a happier place indeed!

Midwinter Denver Wrap-up

Photo by Angie Miraflor


My last meeting was the ALSC Board Meeting on Monday afternoon from 2:00-5:30pm. I was asked to attend so that I could be introduced as the 2009 ALSC Emerging Leader. The thing is, I had already met most of the Board at other events!

Still, I'm glad I went. I learned more about how ALSC operates, had a chance to talk more in depth with some familiar faces, and listened to an interesting (and still pending) discussion about how "prestigious" book award committee appointments are made and the future of term limits on Notable Children's Books.

Since the Notables discussions were (still) taking place across the hall, I also observed a little more during Board Meeting breaks.

------------------

I had a snowy ride back to the airport, a happily uneventful flight back to San Jose (with an AR copy of Sarah Dessen's new book, Along for the Ride), and a late arrival at home. It was good to hug the husband and hit the hay. Huzzah!

ALSC Award Winners

I decided to skip the ALSC book award announcements early Monday morning because my body was begging me for sleep. But I was excited (and, quite frankly, surprised) to hear upon waking up that The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman had won the Newbery! I loved the story, despite the fact that it has, I feel, a somewhat fuzzy plot exposition. The supplementary illustrations were both terrifying and mesmerizing, and I also appreciate that the book will be (and has been) such an easy sell to the Vampire Generation.



(P.S. This Guardian article about Gaiman's win is unfair and uninformed. I'm happy that Graveyard won, but I don't agree that the win is--or that we need--a revolution in the way the Newbery is selected. Sometimes popular books are the most distinguished, and sometimes they're not. Also, it's obvious the writer didn't actually READ most of the books she's describing. After Tupac & D Foster an "examination of Tupac Shakur's music filtered through young women"? I don't think so.)

I was also especially happy to see that KT Horning was asked to give the 2010 Arbuthnot Lecture! She was a key figure at the Bill Morris Seminar, and she's been a mentor to so many people in the world of children's literature. I hope an institution from California fights to host her so that I can attend!

Finally, congratulations to my Palo Alto neighbor and Emerging Leader colleague, Cheryl Lee, a recipient of the 2009 Penguin Young Readers Group Award!

Congratulations to all the award winners!

More Midwintering

Midwinter indeed! It's snowing, which popular culture tells me sometimes happens in this season we call "winter". It's a little disconcerting... because the stuff is COLD, see, and falling from the sky... but it doesn't get me wet.

Still, I think an umbrella would be useful. Why don't people use umbrellas in the snow? Pile-up? (This very question probably betrays my California native-ness.)

Oh well.

Since my last post, I've been too busy to blog. I attended:

Saturday afternoon: Notable Children's Books Committee discussion of picture books. I sat in on the meeting for almost three hours to learn how the open discussions are run. Before attending, I felt rather intimidated by the prospect of having to speak eloquently before a sizeable audience. But my fears were somewhat relieved Saturday afternoon when I learned that committee members come well-prepared with book introductions and notes to back up their critical statements. Also, despite this level of preparation, the meeting has a mostly informal feel to it. I'm looking forward to starting my term!

Saturday evening: Nap! More recovery from altitude sickness. (Bleh...)

Saturday night: Penguin Young Readers Group dinner at the Hotel Monaco. I truly love these publisher dinners. Cocktail hours, seeing friends and meeting new people, free food, information about upcoming titles, goodie bags full of ARs. What more could a girl ask for?? (Also: I have a special place in my heart for Penguin having received the PYRG award last year.)

Sunday morning: Woke up bright and early to attend the HarperCollins/Greenwillow breakfast. More free food! More galleys to see! Yay! For some reason, Harper has been sending me its 2009 ARs, so I was already familiar with many of the materials they brought. Our names haven't been released to publishers for the Notables committee, so I must be on another list.

Sunday afternoon: Lunch with Amber, Lauren, and Bethany, Children & Technology friends! C&T kids are awesome! We went to a cute Cuban restaurant with an amusingly eager server and a mango mojito to die for!

Sunday later afternoon: More Notables observation. This time: Biography and a few Non-Fiction books. I met our 2010 Chair, "Wonder Woman" Eliza Dressang and two other continuing members. They gave me some great tips for how to survive a reading load of about 2,000 (you read that right: TWO-THOUSAND) books a year! But ultimately, it seems that everyone develops their own system for managing the load.

Sunday evening: Finish blog.

I have one more meeting tomorrow, and then I fly back to San Jose tomorrow night. I'll try to update again before I leave.

-Maddy

P.S. Three people have announced their pregnancies at Midwinter so far! That's a lot of baby librarian buns in the oven!

ALA Midwinter 2009

Greetings from Denver!

The last couple days have been a little rough (altitude sickness, a fever that I broke last night), but I seem to have adjusted to the thin air in the Mile High City, and things are looking up.

I attended the Emerging Leaders workshop all day yesterday and met my project group members (Group M, AKA the Candyland Winners!). We'll be helping ALSC strategize new ways to attract professional award applicants. My group members have a wide variety of talents, and everyone seems like a hard-worker, so it shouldn't be hard to come up with deliverables for Annual in July.

I also attended the Disney/Hyperion dinner at the Brown Palace Hotel last night. It was lovely-- thanks Hyperion! I saw some friends from the Morris Seminar (most of us, one year later, are now serving on book award committees!) and I met some awesome new people, including another incoming Notables colleague. Unfortunately, I was feeling pretty out of sorts last night, so I wasn't able to fully appreciate the food/beverages... I left a little early so I could get plenty of sleep.

This morning I represented the Children & Technology Committee (as Acting Chair) at the ALSC Division Leadership Meeting. Most of the meeting was spent discussing new ways to include ALSC members who cannot attend conferences (through virtual membership, etc.) and streamline current ALSC business. I know the economic situation has been tough on our committee--half of our group (our Chair included!) was unable to attend Midwinter.

I had lunch with a friend (and the Chair of the Penguin Committee when I won the award) and now I need to run to another meeting. Hopefully I'll have more time to write later!

Confession and Discovery

Confession: One of my favorite ways to decompress after work is to pop a cheesy chick flick (library copy, of course) into the ol' DVD player and let 'er whirl. I tend to enjoy all but the most terrible of this genre, yet I rarely list chick flicks among my top favorite movies. Still, if I could combine all romantic comedies into one giant love fest of a movie, it may very well come out on top.

Anyhow, I was engaging in this guilty pleasure tonight, and I came upon...

A Discovery: A 28 minute mini-documentary on young adult literature entitled "How to Deal with YA Literature". Experts discuss the history of YA lit, important titles, trends and writers in the genre, and teens/authors share their experiences as readers and consumers of YA books.

Where to find it: DVD Special Features section of "How to Deal", starring Mandy Moore and based on Sarah Dessen's books Someone Like You and That Summer. The feature pleased me, probably because it was so unexpected. I felt like the movie was offering me (and my professional interests) a major shout-out!

February 14, 2009

José Luis Orozco is coming to the Alum Rock Library for our Festival of Books this Valentine's Day!! He's such a rock star around here, we're going to pack the house!



For all of you children's librarians out there who are unfamiliar with his work, I HIGHLY recommend his CDs. He sings children's and folk songs in (mostly) Spanish that are simple, encourage movement, and develop early literacy.

You may recognize some of his album covers:

Job love: Reason 457

Today I rolled my cart into the Children's Area to find my storytime chair already set up, a bunch of kids sitting and whispering conspiratorially, and a dozen roses sitting on the chair waiting for me. One mom orchestrated it, but all the kids were excited to present the flowers. I love my Spanish storytime families so much!

Penguin Young Readers Group Award-- Application Due Dec. 1

Hi Youth Services Librarians,


If you’re interested in attending the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago this year, I strongly urge you to apply for this award.

I was a recipient of this award last year, and I highly recommend the experience. Not only did I receive the conference stipend, but Penguin Young Readers Group and ALSC treated its award winners VERY well.

There isn’t much time to apply, but I hope you’ll consider going for it!

-Maddy


Here is the information about the award:


The Penguin Young Readers Group Award enables up to four children’s librarians to attend their first ALA Annual Conference. Apply by December 1st.

Librarians must:
*have not previously attended an Annual conference
*work directly with children in elementary, middle school or public libraries
*be ALSC members
*have one to ten years of experience as a children’s librarian by the opening of the
Annual Conference

Each winner will each receive $600.

For more information or to apply, visit
http://ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/awardsgrants/profawards/penguinyoungreadersgroupaward/index.cfm

Applications must be emailed or postmarked by December 1st.

Please feel free to distribute to others who might be interested!

SLIS Fundraiser

On Saturday, I attended the SJSU School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) scholarship fundraiser at the San Jose Museum of Art. For a librarian event, it was pretty classy! =)



Librarians wandered through the art exhibits, consumed wine/hor d'oeuvres, listened to a string quartet, and proved that, actually, life imitates art.



Or... maybe that was just me.




(Photos, as usual, by Angie Miraflor)

More CLA

This morning I attended two CLA workshops led by my SJPL colleagues.

And dude... both sessions were great! I was attending in the "cheerleader" capacity, so I was surprised to actually learn some information that I can employ at my branch!


Mana Tominaga and Kaye Moore presented ESL Conversation Clubs @ Your Library. They offered great tips for how to get a conversation club started, games and activities to use, resources to consult, potential problems and how to manage them, and more. I have facilitated a conversation club a few times as a fill-in and will probably have to do so again in the future (almost every SJPL branch offers this program), so it was useful information.

They even have a blog o' resources: http://eslconversationclubs.blogspot.com/


Angie Miraflor and Ben Lundholm presented What Are They Thinking? Understanding Adolescent Brain Development and Effective Outreach to Your Teen Audience. They offered an informative (and funny!) analysis of the teenage brain, the 40 developmental assets, and how to engage teens and work with them "where they are" developmentally, but at the same time, maintain high expectations and show them respect.

A lot of their research came from PBS Frontline's "Inside the Teenage Brain": http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/view/

The "40 Developmental Assets": http://www.search-institute.org/assets/



I'm so proud of my friends/co-workers!

California Library Association Conference 2008

San Jose hosted CLA's 2008 conference this year. I hadn't planned to attend, since I'll already be out of the branch for ALA Midwinter and Annual for the next couple of years.

Then, a week ago, my friend Kat Buckles and I were asked to present on the future of libraries as part of a Sunday panel. So... I found myself at the McEnery Convention Center this weekend after all.


Kat and I spoke with Gordon Yusko (Supervising Librarian at King, SJPL's main library) and Ken Haycock (Director of SJSU SLIS). The presentations complemented each other pretty well-- Gordon discussed the problems libraries face looking to the future, Ken talked frankly about the library as a business model and the importance of customer-focused services, and Kat and I spoke about the "Future on the Frontlines."

The underlying theme in our 25 minute section of the presentation was the importance of flexible thinking and adaptability. We poked fun at librarians' obsession with "the future" and our tendency to drive ourselves mad fretting about our "place" in the world of super-gadgets and gizmos. But we argued that the discussion itself (as silly as it can get) is important because brainstorming can arm us for change and take the edge off fear.


If you'd like to see our Power Point (including our very own lolcat), you can check it out here: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=ddw2d6nq_1f2cn2rgr&invite=g2b2jv2

Our presentation is the third set. It doesn't have much text; it mostly illustrated our talking points.






(Photos by Angie Miraflor)

Alum Rock Photos

To see more photos from my library, visit the Alum Rock Flickr Page.

They always surprise you...

Remember painting portraits in elementary school? "Skin" usually ended up being paper white, brownbearbrownbear brown, sunshine yellow, or some other bold color from the poster paint 8-pack. I may be pale, but I'm not THAT pale, I used to think...

So, I was kinda excited when our branch received a set of skin colored paint from Lakeshore.

I put together a low-key portrait painting program for kids this Saturday. I made a sample palette of colors to help painters match their skin types, and waited to see what happened.

The results?



We saw faces in pink, blue, black outline, and even one described as "Power Ranger" colored. My skin colored paints made lovely pants and shoes, though! YES!!

Bebé y Yo

I received a $2,600 grant from Target to start a Spanish language lapsit at my library. I'm really happy to be able to provide this service for our community, but the task seems a bit daunting.

For one, I've never done a lapsit storytime in English! I've worked with my share of babies during Toddler Storytime and I've been doing Spanish storytimes for a couple years... but Bebé y Yo is a new beast for me!

I'm planning to work with my co-worker to provide 6 week sessions based on the ECRR pre-literacy skills--"las seis destrezas de prelectura". I'm imagining six week series followed by a short break (1-2 weeks) with a repeating, on-going pattern for as long as there is a demand for the program.

I want parent education to be an important part of the lapsit, but I don't want it to overshadow the fun of sharing a storytime with their babies and other local families. Maybe we'll do a short introduction about the theme (e.g. Print Motivation/Motivación por lo escrito) followed by a regular laptime storytime in mostly Spanish.

So far, I've spent $725 on 24 washable mats (so very young babies can be manipulated on the floor!) and a storage buggy to hold them. I'm planning to spend the rest of the funds on sets of bilingual board books that we can read together (parents sharing the experience directly with their babies), Spanish language pamphlets explaining early literacy skills, and a doll we can use as our "baby" during the program.

If anyone out there on the Interwebs has suggestions about Spanish language lapsits, lapsits in general, great board books, or anything else I haven't thought of, please share!!

I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful...

One of the best things about being a children's librarian: Thank you letters!!! Some teachers are really good about having their students write letters after class field trips to the library.

I save them to read in moments of self-doubt.

Exhibit #1

"Dear, Maddy

You are the best librarian. YOU are pretty. I like when you read to us. I like you your dress is pretty. YOU are funny and smart, you are a great reder with the greedy cat. I like when said gobble slop. I like you read to us, it was the best. I love your books. Thank you for showing us the library.

Love,
Second Grade Girl"


Exhibit #2

"Dear Maddy,

Thank you for teaching us rules. I like the book that we read the Greedy Cat and we got to explore the libary. We also could drink water in the fountain. I like to read some books in the libary. I would come back and get books and read them at home.

Love,
Second Grade Boy"


Exhibit #3

"Dear Maddy

Thank you for reading us a story. It was so nice meeting you in the library. It was nice in the library. The story was so funny. It was fun too. It was fun exploring in the library. The book was wonderful. Maddy you are very funny. I hop i see you agin.

Love,
Second Grade Boy"


Exhibit #4

"Dear Maddy,

You have read us gobble gobble slip slop story and the Greedy Cat. Your kind of funny Maddy and the story was funny and about gobble gobble slip slop.
See you letter Maddy.

love,
Second Grade Boy"