{"id":24215,"date":"2020-11-18T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=24215"},"modified":"2025-04-21T14:38:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T18:38:03","slug":"looking-back-and-looking-ahead-library-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2020\/11\/looking-back-and-looking-ahead-library-style\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking back and looking ahead&#8230;library-style."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I saw a social media post about a yard decorated for Halloween with simply the numbers 2020; the homeowners said that was the scariest thing they could imagine. 2020 has been a year&#8230;.sometimes feeling like a century!  For this reason and so many, many others, I&#8217;m looking ahead to 2021. The coming year also holds the promise of some great Coming Soon titles. However, I couldn&#8217;t resist looking back and sharing a few favorites from this year as well. The bright spotlight they deserve may have been dimmed by this year&#8217;s events. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-2020-spotlight-shines-on\">2020 spotlight shines on&#8230;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>Class Act <\/em>by Jerry Craft. I couldn&#8217;t imagine loving a graphic novel more than <em>New Kid. <\/em>And then I read its sequel.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Stamped:  Racism, Antiracism, and You<\/em> by Jason Reynolds and Dr. Ibram X. Kendi. Two brilliant minds; one powerful book.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Button Book<\/em> by Sally Nicholls and Bethann Woollvin. A perfect storytime book:  colors, shapes, humor, interaction&#8230;yes, please!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li> <em>Honeybee:  The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera <\/em>by Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann. I was crying at the end of this book. About a bee. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-looking-ahead-to\">Looking ahead to&#8230;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>The Comeback<\/em> by E.L. Shen and <em>The Sea in Winter<\/em> by Christine Day. Both were sooooo good and featured strong female characters in different competitive fields (figure skating and ballet, respectively), facing and overcoming struggles (racism and injury, respectively).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Legacy: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance<\/em> by Nikki Grimes. <em>One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance<\/em> is an incredible body of work, so I was thrilled to read this latest masterpiece from Grimes. I am fascinated by the Golden Shovel form of poetry and wowed by Grimes&#8217; mastery of it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Ancestor Approved:  Intertribal Stories for Kids<\/em>, edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith.  In the introduction, Smith writes that this anthology is a fulfillment of her wish that books would feature more characters like the real kids she encountered at a powwow. We are the lucky recipients of that wish, and that work, come true. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>With the February, 2021 landing of the newest Mars rover, Perseverance, <em>The Lion of Mars<\/em> by Jennifer L. Holms is sure to grab the attention of any reader craving timely sci-fi&#8230;or just a compelling middle grade novel.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My lists, of course, are not at all complete. There are and will be so many more good books! Looking back, what titles have you loved this year? Looking ahead, what can&#8217;t you wait to read? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This post addresses the following ALSC Core Competency:  I. Commitment to Client Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I saw a social media post about a yard decorated for Halloween with simply the numbers 2020; the homeowners said that was the scariest thing they could imagine. 2020 has been a year&#8230;.sometimes feeling like a century! For this reason and so many, many others, I&#8217;m looking ahead to 2021. The coming year also holds the promise of some great Coming Soon titles. However, I couldn&#8217;t resist looking back and sharing a few favorites from this year as well. The bright spotlight they deserve may have been dimmed by this year&#8217;s events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[2058,210,22,1605,1972],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-kary-henry","category-books-2","category-childrens-literature","category-commitment-to-client-group","category-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}