• Activities

    Storytime Theme: Peacocks

    peacock feather

    Peacocks are my second favorite bird (my favorite is flamingoes). I just absolutely love the expansive tail feathers with all the beautiful jewel tones. So, inspired by my second-favorite bird, I decided to create a lesson plan for a peacock-themed storytime. Not surprising, there aren’t as many peacock books out…

  • Lists

    February Read Alouds

    lantern festival header

    January’s read alouds received a number of reviews and even a comment (which doesn’t happen often!), so I’m back with a list of February read alouds filled with 29 picture books to celebrate important, wacky, sentimental, and silly holidays every day of the month! I’m not taking all the credit,…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Baby Animals

    baby turtle header

    Probably one of the sweetest storytimes I’ve ever created, this adorable theme will have the entire audience saying, “awwwwwww!” With both illustrations and photographs, the books below share what it’s like to be all sorts of baby animals! The craft ideas have multiple options and there’s a great matching printable…

  • Lists

    Top Ten Tuesday: Quick Kids’ Nonfiction

    Top Ten Tuesday

    Today’s theme was quick reads or books to read when time is short and I’ve done a similar book list for middle grade titles, so I wanted to take some time to try something a little different. Today I focused on quick nonfiction reads that I think are not only…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Crows

    crow header

    I am fascinated by these animals. We have a murder of crows that live in our neighborhood that I see most days that I walk my dog and they absolutely fascinate me. Crows and other birds in the Corvus genus are some of the most intelligent animals in the world…

  • Lists

    16 Read Alikes for Diary of a Wimpy Kid Fans

    wimpy kid header

    The first Diary of a Wimpy Kid book was published way back in 2007 and since then there have been 17 other Wimpy Kid books released. To this day, they are still the most popular juvenile fiction chapter books in my library. I just ran some statistics for last year…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Cinderella

    While this one might not be as interesting to everyone, I think it would be a fun program to run as a series as you introduce kids to different versions of the same story. You could easily make this a typical storytime for toddlers or preschoolers. But, you could go…

  • Lists

    Top Ten Tuesday: New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2023

    Top Ten Tuesday

    I spent a lot of time reading contemporary romance titles in 2023 and discovered a bunch of new-to-me authors this past year. I love how easy contemporary romances are to read, you always know the general format and what’s going to happen, but I love discovering new characters and settings.…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Rainbows

    rainbow header

    Celebrate colors with this storytime theme that’s perfect for preschoolers – rainbows! Whether you’re going all out with unicorns or taking a more STEM approach, this storytime lesson plan has a little bit of everything. With nonfiction books and stories alike, use these books as a jumping off point for…

  • Lists

    2024 Debut Young Adult Authors

    writing header

    It’s my favorite time of the year when my TBR list grows exponentially with all the amazing new books being published this year. For the past few years, I’ve made it a goal of mine to share debut authors’ and illustrators’ works. It is extremely difficult to get published and…