GreenBeanTeenQueen

About the Book: (From Goodreads) Sometimes one night can change everything. On this particular night, Wren and her three best friends are attending a black-tie party at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to celebrate the opening of a major exhibit curated by her father. An enormous wind blasts through the city, making everyone feel that something unexpected and perhaps wonderful will happen. And for Wren, that something wondering is Nolan. With his root-beer-brown Michelangelo eyes, Nolan changes the way Wren's heart beats. In Isabel Gillie's Starry Night, suddenly everything is different. Nothing makes sense except for this boy. What happens to your life when everything changes, even your heart? How much do you give up? How much do you keep?  What inspired you to write for teens? I ADORE teenagers! No joke. First of all, I loved being a teenager. It's so big. The highs and lows are clearly defined, but at the same time life is bewildering. All t

(Me and some of my fabulous librarian friends at the Little Brown dance party at ALA) I absolutely love to sing and dance! I take every chance I get to incorporate music into my storytimes and programming at the library. And I'm always on the lookout for new music. The more I've talked with other librarians who love to sing and dance, the more I've realized that we're always looking to share new ideas and favorite new songs. And so Tune In Tuesday was born!  Mark your calendars now. The first Tuesday of every month (which means next week, Tuesday, September 2!) is going to be the inaugural Tune In Tuesday post. GreenBeanTeenQueen will serve as the host, but if you'd like to host a month, chime in in the comments and let me know!  What should you post about? Any music (old or new) that you love to use in your library programming. Have you discovered a great new artist? Have you found the best new children's artist that you can't wait to  shar

Today I'm over at the ALSC Blog talking about the programming formula my staff came up with this summer to offer consistent programs for all ages. 

If there was one big trend in picture books this year, I would say it's birds. Last year I started noticing a trend in publishing across all ages about books being published featuring bird watching . Birds have always been a popular topic, yet this year it seems as though 2014 year of the bird in picture books. Take a look: Froodle by Antoinette Portis -A silly story about a bird who is tired of the same old song, only to be met with some opposition. A nice simple commentary on accepting change and adapting that's great for storytime. Peggy by Anna Walker -A sweet and funny story about a chicken who sets off on a big adventure to the city. Also, I love the illustrations. Bluebird by Lindsey Yankey -Another bird on an adventure story with gorgeous illustrations.  Henny by Elizabeth Rose Stanton -A chicken with arms? Odd but adorable! Another good choice for storytime and a sweet book about being different. Mama Built A Little Ne

I love to sing and dance so it's no surprise that Bibliobop is one of my favorite library programs! Play music and sing and dance with kids for about 45 minutes? Sign me up! Previously I've used a bunch of CDs and changed them out with each song but finally  I have a speaker and an iPad to use for this program, so I felt pretty high tech with my most recent Bibliobop! (Ha! It doesn't take much!) Although I originally advertised Bibliobop for ages 2-6, it's really open  to all ages and in the Fall I'm changing the description to say infants-age 6. I usually end up with babies and toddler anyway and really, why not include them? They can dance too! The set up for Bibliobop is pretty simple. I have a display of music themed books and I have all my items I need up front. I put out a few chairs for the adults in the back (but I encourage them to dance too!) and I clear the floor. I always read a book to start and take a book break in the middle of dancing (mostly bec

I knew from the first page of Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children's Literature that I was going to love this book. If you work in the world of children's and teen lit, you've most likely heard from others that they think children's lit is cute, sweet, and simple. But Betsy Bird, Julie Danielson, and Peter D. Sieruta are out to prove everyone wrong. They've uncovered some wild acts of mischief in children's literature and it's an absolute blast to join them on the ride. Want an example of some fun they discovered? Check out this crazy tidbit from Betsy and Jules: Courtney Love’s Unlikely Connection to the Newbery Award Winning Book The Slave Dancer I’ve been wracking my brain trying to remember how I first heard about this story.  Odds are SLJ reporter Rocco Staino is the one to credit.  You see, when Jules Danielson, Peter Sieruta, and I first started working on our book Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature, we wanted to

If you work with kids, you know what a phenomenon Frozen has become. So when I realized that I would be without a summer reading performer during the last week of our Summer Reading Program, I knew I had to plan something. Every Thursday at 1:00, we have a big performance (usually a hired performer but sometimes in house programs as well) and I knew that once our patrons got into the habit of coming to the library every Thursday during the summer, I couldn't skip the last week of July.  I decided to go with a Frozen Sing-A-Long since the movie was thankfully covered in our movie licensing at the library. I didn't really have many ideas of what to do exactly except sing to the songs in the movie while it played. But luckily my amazing friend Angie also hosted a sing-a-long and gave me a lot of great ideas. Since the program was planned after our programming booklet was published, we only advertised this event via fliers, word of mouth, and on the library website. I