Growing up, my mother and I had a few shared mantras, and one was about mistakes. “If you can’t make a mistake, you can’t make anything,” she’d say. It’s funny how words said to you as a young person stay with you the rest of your life. In this post, I have chosen three books that talk about taking chances. When you take a chance, if you’re doing it right, you make a lot of mistakes. A mistake can be missing a full week of an online class you’re taking. A mistake can be trusting someone and learning that they might not be so trustworthy. A mistake might be letting a fall dictate how you manage heights.
Author: Suzi Wackerbarth
Programming: Best Practices for Children’s Librarians
Best Practices for working with firefighters: be ready for anything. These are fire professionals you are working with, not Taylor Swift. They have jobs like you and me and their job is based on customer calls and, well, fires. The fire engine may not come at exactly 11:00 a.m. Do not be upset.
“My name is Yoon:” a study, examining diversity
In this post, I examine My name is Yoon (2003), written by Helen Recorvits and illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska, and look at it through a diversity lens. This book tells the story of an elementary school girl who has emigrated from Korea and does not like the way her name looks written in English, Y-O-O-N, all the letters “standing alone.” In Korean, “the symbols dance together.” So instead of signing her name Y-O-O-N, she tries out words that she hears the teacher use, or that she sees on the playground. One day she signs her name C-A-T, another day C-U-P-C-A-K-E. On a double page spread, Yoon imagines that everyone will like her if her name is CUPCAKE.
Middle Grade Books: Don’t Miss These!
There’s no bad time for a middle grade book. Summer reading, back to school, winter reading, these books for third to sixth grade readers “slap.” Here are three I’ve been reading lately. I discovered Good Different on the shelf, read the description on the fly-leaf, and then it sat on my desk for weeks. The book features Selah, a girl who discovers she is on the autism spectrum, while not knowing what the autism spectrum actually is.
Back to school: we’re all nervous
The other day, the pick list was five pages long. No comparisons needed here: I know some of you have lists that are ten pages long every day. But at my current branch, five pages is what happens when I “forget” to do the pick list the day before.
Ablaze with Artists: Mack, Haring, and Thomas
Picture book biographies about artists are a-plenty. And so far I haven’t come across a bad one. Generally, when people choose to write about art for kids, it is because they care deeply about art and kids. (Isn’t that one of the reasons we work in libraries under the auspices of “children’s services”?) You can’t get around the fact that kids want paper and more paper or boxes and more boxes, to make things, to draw things, to color in or outside the lines.
Ashley Bryan: wonder, artist, author
Have you ever been somewhere with Ashley Bryan? He started every presentation by first saying, “My name is Ashley Bryan” and then recites “My People” by Langston Hughes: “The night is beautiful, so the faces of my people!”
Picture Books: the life blood of our vocation
Like most Children’s Librarians, I love picture books. You might know by now, that if it’s a post from Suzi, chances are, it’s about picture books. Let me give you a quick view into my day as a Children’s librarian. One of my daily jobs is to pick books off the shelves that have been put on hold by patrons the prior day. It’s a great way to see what books are being requested all around the city. Every once in a while, I get to do the pick list downstairs, THE GROWNUP BOOKS.