Category: Youth Services Summit

The Best Recent Titles

10/13/2021

You May Have Missed

Librarian, author, and editor Angie Manfredi wowed Youth Services Summit participants with her lightning-fast book talking skills during her “2020 in Books ICYMI” presentation. Covering a range of titles for readers birth to eighteen, Manfredi strategically highlighted books outside the obvious award-winners and bestsellers. Books that are worth librarians’ money and should be in collections everywhere. Manfredi’s reminder: your collection matters. Your collection “tells the story to your community about who is welcome and who is seen.”

I encourage you to check out the whole presentation, as Manfredi’s enthusiasm is infectious and had me placing all sorts of holds and orders. Covering it all would be a very long blog post, so here are some highlights. See her entire presentation and her slide deck at the end of this blog post.

Board & Picture Book

According to Manfredi, “nobody does board books better than poets,” which makes Curls by Ruth Forman, illus. Geneva Bowers (Little Simon) and the rest in the 4-book series must-buys. Another must-buy that is perfect for a storytime refresh is Bedtime for Sweet Creatures by Nikki Grimes, illus. Elizabeth Zunon (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky).

Noting that holiday collections should include “all holidays for all children,” Manfredi recommends Binny’s Diwali by Thrity Umrigar, illus. Nidhi Chanani (Scholastic) and Alex’s Good Fortune by Benson Shum (Penguin Workshop) as two that might help fill gaps in collections.

“It’s okay to acknowledge scary things and collective trauma,” reminded Manfredi as she talked about All of a Sudden and Forever: Help and Healing After the Oklahoma City Bombing by Chris Barton, illus. Nicole Xu (Carolrhoda Books). This nuanced and careful introduction to one of history’s worst tragedies shows how sometimes bad things happen but healing can come from that.

Here is a bibliocommons list of board books and picture books that Manfredi recommended in her presentation.

Readers & Chapter Book

Manfredi shared tons of great comics suggestions, including highlighting the recent trend in early reader comics. For those looking for the next Gerald & Piggie, try the Fox & Rabbit series by Beth Ferry, illus. Gergely Dudás (Amulet Books) or the Bunbun and Bonbon series by Jess Keating (Graphix). Raina Telgemeier fans should dive right on into Twins by Varian Johnson, illus. Shannon Wright (Graphix), Stepping Stones by Lucy Knisley (RH Graphic), and the Shirley and Jamila series by Gillian Goerz (Dial).

Another publishing trend Manfredi shared was the boom in 80-112 page, highly-illustrated chapter books. She specifically called out three publishing imprints: Aladdin QUIX (Simon & Schuster), Acorn (Scholastic), and Harper Chapters (HarperCollins). Smaller publishers like Capstone are getting in the game as well, with series like Astrid and Apollo by V.T. Bidania, illus. Dara Lashia Lee (Picture Window) and Sadiq by Siman Nuurali, illus. Anjan Sarkar (Picture Window).

For older readers, Manfredi’s seeing a lot more horror and science-fiction. Two highlights: Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon (Scholastic) and Cleo Porter and the Body Electric by Jake Burt (Feiwel & Friends).

Young Adult

Take Manfredi’s word for it: vampires are back in YA publishing and anthologies are coming in hot. For both, Manfredi recommends Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite edited by Zoraida Córdova & Natalie C Parker (Imprint). But the two books from 2020 Manfredi says she was thinking about all year were Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles (HarperTeen) and Parachutes by Kelly Yang (Katherine Tegen Books), both realistic fiction. Manfredi’s highest praise, though, went to The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen (RH Graphic), a graphic novel she calls “one of the best YA books ever.” (I 100% agree with her on that assessment!)

Watch the session from 9/25/2021

Manfredi's Slide Deck

Click here to see Manfredi's slide deck. You will need to log into Google in order to view it.

For More Information

To wrap it all up, Manfredi shared some tips & tricks for keeping up with publishing:

Read Children’s Book Council Hot Off the Presses (free)
Read PW Children’s Bookshelf Newsletter & on sale calendar (free)
Let publishers market to you (if you want, how you want) by reaching out to them

If you liked Manfredi’s presentation and want more, her series of similar talks for the State Library of Iowa can be found here: Check It Out! (2021) and Check It Out! (2019). You can also find her on Twitter @misskubelik, her blog Fat Girl Reading, or connect with her via email.

Author

Alec Chunn
Eugene Public Library
CSD Secretary

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Summer Reading: What's Next?

10/12/2021

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This year’s CSD Youth Services Summit provided much needed collaboration and motivation! Greta Berquist, our SLO Youth Services Consultant for Oregon library workers, lead the Summer Reading: What’s Next for Summer workshop. Greta began the workshop with Judy Brown’s poem called Fire. Take a moment to read an excerpt:

For the complete poem, click here.

The poem enabled workshop participants to take some much needed time to reflect on our previous past two years of summer reading endeavors. Greta asked, "What will we keep for upcoming summer reading programming, and what will we stop?" The workshop gave participants the space to not only reflect, but to problem solve and most importantly to be reminded of our why for summer reading:

Every kid in our community can access reading materials they enjoy.
Every family member feels like the library matters to them and that they matter to the library.

Youth services staff were up against many challenges during the pandemic. We consistently tried to provide the best summer reading experience to our youth patrons and their families. Much of what we provided was successful. However, there were still challenges. During our workshop we had time to reflect and evaluate what worked well for summer reading and what did not. Some examples of the many challenges included:

My teens don’t have transportation to the library
We have a lot of new parents and babies in our neighborhood. We don’t see them accessing our services.
The nonprofit down the street wants to combine forces to support families next summer. I have no idea what to do.
Some of our families don’t see themselves reflected in our library spaces and services. They don’t feel that the library is their library.
Our summer lunch site coordinator says they want to work together to keep kids reading, but they never communicate with us.

Greta lead us through a few meaningful activities that enabled us to reflect, evaluate and collaborate with other youth service staff. We discussed significant summer reading challenges and had the opportunity to create tools and techniques to address these challenges. If you were unable to attend the workshop, try the following activities for yourself and with other youth services staff in your library. See what tools and techniques you come up with that could solve your key summer reading challenges.

Activity 1: Storytime Share Time

Think of a story about the last activity you tried for the very first time.

Was it exciting or scary?
How did being a beginner help you?
Share and discuss your answers or journal about them.

Activity 2: Why do we do summer reading? What is the purpose of it all?

Does what we do, and the events we offer meet the needs and requirements of our youth patrons and their families?
Does what we collect, track, report provide a clear snapshot of what we provide?
What might we keep and what might we try differently to address the following: Doing things in our specific community to help kids access reading, and to help families feel like they matter to the library and the library matters to them.
Re-read poem excerpt from Judy Brown. Are we focusing on what matters? Are we remembering the big picture and reminding our colleagues that the mission is what matters. Are we doing too much, not enough, are we helping kids access reading in the summer? Are we helping families feel like they matter to the library and does the library matter to them?

Activity 3: Brainstorm Interview Groups

Choose a person to present and share one summer reading challenge that your library needs to address.
Ask the presenter to shift the challenge into an ACTION question. Ask: "How might we...(say challenge here.) For example, "How might we transport teens to the library next summer?" Then read the action question to the group. Discuss with group.
Other participants in group now interviews the presenter. Ask questions about the challenge. What does your presenter wish were different, what makes the challenge unique, continue to ask why, why, why, dive deeper.
Interviewers offer brainstorming ideas/solutions for that challenge. Sketch out 4-6 ideas that could be solutions to the challenge.
Make a prototype of the solution that your presenter agrees would be the best solution to the challenge.
Remember to share your solution with others outside of your activity group. Share with other staff for their input, share with library users, community members, etc for their input.

Taking the time to complete the above activities could provide some very helpful insight on your summer reading plans for next year. Are you giving your fire enough space to burn? Is your library focused on the summer reading mission? Are you doing too much, not enough, or just the right amount for summer reading programming? We hope that these activities provided you with some much needed breathing space to reflect and evaluate and to keep your summer reading fires burning!

Your Summer Reading Representatives

Greta Bergquist is our State Youth Services consultant. The Summer Reading Chairs are Dena Chaffin (CSD) and Lisa Elliott (OYAN). Feel free to contact them with your summer reading questions.

Please look out for Zoom links to the Summer Reading office hours:

Wed, Nov 3rd at 1pm
Tues, Dec 7th at 1pm
Wed, Jan 5th at 1pm
Tues, Feb 1st at 1pm
Wed, March 2nd at 1pm
Tues, April 5th at 1pm
Wed, May 4th at 1pm

Author

Emily West
North Plains Public Library
CSD Incoming Co-Chair

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CSD Blog

The Best Recent Titles

You May Have Missed

Board & Picture Book

Readers & Chapter Book

Young Adult

Watch the session from 9/25/2021

Manfredi's Slide Deck

For More Information

Author

Summer Reading: What's Next?

Activity 1: Storytime Share Time

Activity 2: Why do we do summer reading? What is the purpose of it all?

Activity 3: Brainstorm Interview Groups

Your Summer Reading Representatives

Author

OLA Home

Archives

Categories

CSD Blog

The Best Recent Titles

You May Have Missed

Board & Picture Book

Readers & Chapter Book

Young Adult

Watch the session from 9/25/2021

Manfredi's Slide Deck

For More Information

Author

Summer Reading: What's Next?

Activity 1: Storytime Share Time

Activity 2: Why do we do summer reading? What is the purpose of it all?

Activity 3: Brainstorm Interview Groups

Your Summer Reading Representatives

Author

OLA Home ​

Archives

Categories

OLA Home