GreenBeanTeenQueen

There's nothing like girl power mixed with graphic novels to kickstart a return to blogging!  First Second has long been one of my favorite graphic novel publishers, so when they asked if I wanted to be part of a special tour highlighting girl power graphic novels, I couldn't say no. They have some great new releases and some older favorites that you must add to your collection if you have graphic novel fans at your library-or at home. I first read Giants Beware! when it came out a few years ago and I loved it!  My original review from 2012: About the Book:  Claudette dreams of being a giant slayer. But her village has no threats from giants since a giant slayer years ago. Claudette doesn't believe the stories though and she believes it's her duty to find and slay the giant that lives beyond her city. Along with her best friend Marie (an aspiring princess) and her brother Gaston (a pastry chef in the making), Claudette sets out on a fantastica...

With LibraryCon 3 only two months away, it's about time I wrote about last year's event! Sheesh! But I'm back with lots of LibraryCon notes! You can read about planning LibraryCon Year 2 here . I thought I would devote an entire post to Geeky Storytime at LibraryCon since it's one of the things I get asked most about.  Toddler GreenBean as Batman I have tried hosting Geeky Storytimes as a special evening storytime before (I wrote about those here , here  and the LibraryCon 1 edition here ) For year 2, we decided to utilize our StoryHour Room as a tabletop gaming room, which meant we needed a new spot for Geeky Storytime to kick off LibraryCon. We opted to host it just outside the children's department, as we have an open area there, we could fit more people, and we hoped we could draw more attendees this way. All of that worked out perfectly and just as we had hoped! I started off the storytime with welcoming everyone to LibraryCon and Geeky Storytim...

Today is The Very Hungry Caterpillar Day! I can't say enough good things about the beloved book by Eric Carle. I loved it as a child, I loved it again as a librarian, and I love it even more as a parent.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar  is such a great storytime book. There are so many ways to use it! Of course, I love reading it and even adding music and singing as the caterpillar munches his way across the pages. But my most favorite way of telling this story is through our Very Hungry Caterpillar sock puppet.  I'm not sure where the sock puppet idea came from originally at my library as it was made before I started there, but you can see an example of one at Busy Crafting Mama who shared one for Flannel Friday a few years ago. The idea of the storytelling puppet is that you wear the caterpillar sock on your arm and add the various foods as you tell the story and move the food up your arm and then end with a beautiful butterfly! It doesn't matter what age...

Well, I finally have time to sit down and type up all my thoughts about LibraryCon Year 2, or as I lovingly called it, Revenge of the Con!!! LibraryCon 2015 was such a huge success we knew we had to repeat it.  (You can check my posts about our first year here: Part One , Part Two , Part Three) Yet even with that success (400+ in attendance, great feedback from attendees and participants), we realized after the fact that we forgot all about marketing and promoting the Library itself. We figured people would walk into the Library, but with nothing to draw them there and with the entire event being held in our main concourse and meeting rooms, no one actually entered the Library. So the first item up on our planning agenda was to figure out how to promote ourselves. The first suggestion was for us to have a table ourselves. We collected various swag from conferences (with multiple staff attending ALA Annual, we were able to talk to comic publishers there and pick up lots of pos...

Today I'm over at the ALSC blog talking about my new favorite winter themed storytime books. Please join me!

Genre: Mystery/Contemporary Release Date: 10/25/2016 Add to Goodreads About the Book: Nolie is spending the summer in Scotland in a small village with her scientist dad. He's there researching the Boundary-the mysterious fog at the edge of Journey's End. The fog seems to be moving closer but the town can't take any warnings of danger too seriously-the fog is their livelihood and tourism depends on it. Especially for Bel's family who runs a tour boat out to the Boundary. When Nolie and Bel strike up a friendship the two become entangled in the mystery of Journey's End the fog that may be making it's way to devour the town. When Albert appears, a boy who went into the fog in 1918 to light the legendary lighthouse, Bel and Nolie know something strange is happening in Journey's End it's up to them to save the town and stop the fog from claiming more lives.  GreenBeanTeenQueen Says:    Journey's End  is a bit mystery, a bit of a friend...