• Activities,  Lifestyle

    Scouts and Libraries

    I’m not exactly sure what happened, but we had three different scout troops visit the library this weekend and I must say – we should be reaching out to these groups more often!  On Monday, a group of 2nd grade Brownies came in, on Thursday – a group of 4th…

  • Reviews

    The Real Boy

    There’s been a lot of chatter about The Real Boy by Anne Ursu in the past few months and I was curious myself to find out what the story was all about.  A glittering city called Asteri was saved from the plague by the magic of the island and the…

  • Lifestyle

    Conference Take-Aways

    Yesterday our library hosted the SEPLA Annual Conference with the keynote address given by Becky Spratford, author of the popular Reader’s Advisory Blog – RA For All.  Becky gave a great speech filled with some amazing ideas about how to bridge the divide between the physical and virtual library worlds. …

  • Activities

    National Origami Day

    Yesterday was National Origami Day and we were able to provide a program for 20 children in grades 2 – 4 for an hour in the evening. I first shared the story, The Origami Master written by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer and illustrated by Aki Sogabe.  It’s a relatively short story about…

  • Activities

    Enchanted Library 2013

    Rub-a-Dub, Dub Our 5th Annual Enchanted Library program took place on Friday, and I’m happy to report that everything went very well!  A quick overview of the program for those who haven’t read previous blog posts about it… The Enchanted Library is a two-fold program.  The first is a program…

  • Activities

    Story Time Theme: Mo Willems

    This week was probably one of my favorites – Mo Willems Week for story time!  Willems is an amazing author/illustrator in the children’s literature world and his books are geared perfectly to my crowd of 2 – 3.5 year olds.  We shared Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus with…

  • Reviews

    Little Red Writing

    Joan Holub and Melissa Sweet are paired together in this beautifully executed story about writing a story.  This is such a fun way to introduce children to writing stories.  Little Red Writing takes a familiar story and remakes it to include tried and true rules for writing a story.  Our…

  • Reviews

    Boxers & Saints

    As I’ve said in the past, graphic novels are not my favorite format for reading, but the companion stories Boxers and Saints is a really interesting take on a historical event, that I did not know much about.  Gene Luen Yang, author of American Born Chinese, wrote about the Boxer…

  • Reviews

    Fangirl

    I very easily fell into the world of Cath, Wren, Levi and the rest of the characters in Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell.  Rowell created a very realistic world filled with characters with real life issues that many teens can relate to.  Cath and Wren’s mom left when they were very…

  • Reviews

    Tea Party Rules

    Ame Dyckman has done it again, Tea Party Rules is an adorable story of friendship in the most unlikely place. Cub smells something delicious and before he knows it, he has found a tea party…complete with cookies! When the little girl shows up, she teaches Cub the (many) rules one…