Guest Post: The Influence of Books in Early Childhood

Over the weekend, I had a guest post published over at Pages and Margins all about the influence of books on Little Miss Muffet, age two-and-a-half. Click to read The Influence of Books in Early Childhood.

Now Available: Story Time Success: A Practical Guide for Librarians

It's here! My book, Story Time Success: A Practical Guide for Librarians, is now available. This is a comprehensive handbook for new and veteran story time performers that addresses planning, promoting, performing, evaluating and troubleshooting story times. Included are annotated book lists, original rhymes and piggyback songs, sample plans and set lists, an evaluation checklist, and a Q&A section focused on common story time problems.

Preview the book below:


For more information, visit the publisher's website or Amazon.com.

Reading and Blogging Goals 2016: Mid-Year Check-In (plus, a short blogging vacation!)

Yesterday marked the halfway point in 2016: six months down, and six months to go. Since I set myself quite a few goals at the start of the year, I thought it would be a good idea to check in and see how and whether I have been progressing. 

Goal #1 Fumble Through Fantasy

I am fumbling just as much as I thought I would, and my original reading list has changed quite a bit already, but I am sticking with it, and I have every reason to believe I will have finished 25 fantasy novels by the end of the year. Here are the titles I've done so far:

• The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
• Savvy by Ingrid Law
• The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit
• The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud
• Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
• Skellig by David Almond
• Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall
• Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
• The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

Goal #2: Organize my social media content. 

When I made this goal, I had the idea that I would start keeping track of where and when I posted things, and try to schedule my Facebook and Twitter posts more regularly. For a while, I even designated Sunday night as the time when I would schedule out all my social media posts for the week. Interestingly, though, others have started sharing my content very efficiently on Twitter so I haven't felt that it was necessary for me to do more than have the links automatically posted there each time something new is published. And I post enough to Facebook to feel like I am giving people a reason to visit the page, so I haven't done anything more to formalize this process. And I have figured out Instagram, and I will keep working on improving that, but that's more because I enjoy it than because I'm trying to promote the blog. I would still like to look for ways to find new readers, but I think I have to work on figuring out my blog's true identity and focus before I do anything else major in the way of promoting it. 

Goal #3: Participate in more read-a-thons and challenges.

So far this year, I have done Bout of Books twice and joined in Armchair BEA. I'm also reading a book a month for Newbery Through the Decades, which has been a lot of fun and has helped me fill in a lot of gaps in my reading. I was disappointed to learn there wouldn't be a 48 Hour Book Challenge this year, since that's one of the few events that really involved a lot of children's book bloggers, but even when I'm one of the few kidlit readers, it's still fun to join other challenges. I also did the A to Z Blogging Challenge in April, which was a great way for me to take a break from my  regular blogging style and try something new. (I read 26 picture book biographies. You can read about them here.)

Goal #4: Write a page of fiction five days a week. 

Less than a week after I gave myself this goal, I had already crossed it off the list. Either I don't enjoy writing fiction anymore, or I just have too many other things going on to really focus on it, but the idea was to write for fun, and there was nothing fun about it. My new goal is to write some shorter children's poems and see about submitting them to magazines like Highlights Hello, Highlights High Five and Babybug, but this is more of a long-term goal and not something I plan to focus on very heavily during the rest of 2016. 

Goal #5: Relocate, rebrand and rename the blog. 

I have lots of ideas in the works for this, but this will not be the year for putting them into action. I think I know what I want to do, but it's going to require more work than I can accomplish in the remaining six months of 2016. This may be a goal that comes to fruition in 2018 instead. 

In over five years of blogging, I have never really taken a formal break, but that is about to change. Today's post is one of only a handful I will be publishing during the month of July. Old School Sunday will continue throughout the month, with a couple of Fumbling Through Fantasy reviews thrown into the mix, but otherwise, it will be mostly quiet here until August. See you then! 

Review Round-Up: Books for Beginning Readers, June 2016

Easy Readers

I was thrilled to see reviews of some favorite vintage easy readers this month! Liz's Book Snuggery featured Little Bear, while Becky's Book Reviews highlighted the Frog and Toad books: Days with Frog and Toad, Frog and Toad All Year, and Frog and Toad Together.

Jean Little Library reviewed two nonfiction titles: Ellis Island and Weird But Cute: Barn Owl. 

Other easy readers reviewed this month were We Dig Worms (Prose and Kahn), The Real Poop About Pigeons (Flying Off My Bookshelf), Duck Duck Porcupine (Kids Book a Day), The Long Dog (Waking Brain Cells), and the Bradford Street Buddies series (here at Story Time Secrets.)

Chapter Books

There was lots of variety in the chapter book reviews this month!

I reviewed a whole bunch here at Story Time Secrets. In my Recent Library Reads post, I featured Amy Namey in Ace Reporter and Triple Pet Trouble from the Judy Moody and Friends series, Mouse Scouts, Race the Wild: Savanna Showdown, and Misty Inn: Welcome Home! and in my Summer 2016 edition of a new feature called Chapter Book Check-In, I reviewed these new and soon-to-be-published titles: Angel Wings: New Friends, Cody Harmon, King of Pets, Meet the Bobs and Tweets, Pearl's Ocean Magic, Backyard Witch: Jess's Story, The Toad, Slingshot and Burp, Where Are You Going, Baby Lincoln?, Piper Green and the Fairy Tree: The Sea Pony, and Chime Travelers: The Strangers at the Manger.

Jean Little Library had three chapter book reviews: Stella and the Night Sprites: Knit-Knotters, Silver Pony Ranch: Sparkling Jewel and Stick Cat 

Other chapter book reviews included Bea Garcia: My Life in Pictures (Ms. Yingling Reads), My Weird School Fast Facts series (Mom Read It), Little Dee and the Penguin (Waking Brain Cells), MVP: The Gold Medal Mess (Kids Book a Day), The Great Mouse Detective: Basil of Baker Street (Geo Librarian), Bucky and Stu Vs. the Mikanikal Man (Prose and Kahn), and Lighthouse Family: The Otter (Flying Off My Bookshelf)