A First Time for Everything, by Dan Santat, is a perfect tween book. It's funny, sweet, honest, sometimes poignant but not sad. It's a gentle comfort for every kid who…
A First Time for Everything, by Dan Santat, is a perfect tween book. It’s funny, sweet, honest, sometimes poignant but not sad. It’s a gentle comfort for every kid who…
This post started as a standard "what i'm reading" post. But as I thought about it, I realized that it touches on several other themes that are important to me:…
This post started as a standard “what i’m reading” post. But as I thought about it, I realized that it touches on several other themes that are important to me:…
Gods of the Upper Air, by Charles King, which I recently wrote about, highlights several books that were highly influential in their time, for good and for ill. In The…
It starts with a trip to the dentist. Ruth Keller swears she brushes her teeth and flosses daily, yet the cavities are piling up. The dentist lectures, her mom scolds.…
Gary Paulsen wrote some of the best children’s literature, most famously Hatchet. The tale of a boy who must survive on his own in the woods until he is at…
Build Early Literacy with Storytimes – Every Day in Port Hardy In a year when we desperately needed good news, the Port Hardy branch of the Vancouver Island Regional Library…
When I was a child, my family had a book called In Henry’s Backyard. My siblings and I read it repeatedly. The book tells the story of a man who…
We reached out to the creators of the True Cost of Coal rhyming narrative & activity book to learn more about the beautiful book and why they decided to make…
Until very recently, I didn’t know anything about Louise Fitzhugh and had not thought about her at all. Of course, as a child I read and loved Harriet the Spy,…
Beverly Cleary, who died last week at the astounding age of 104, was a pivotal figure in the world of children’s literature. Her books are treasures; her influence can scarcely…
Kids BOGO At the Library September is Literacy Month in BC, and your library will be celebrating in a big way. During the month of September, we are offering “Kids…
I read Little House on the Prairie when I was very young, and eventually went on to read the whole Little House series. I didn’t know any other girls named…
It’s TIHATL, Summer Reading Club edition! Summer Reading Club is in full swing in Canadian libraries. In more than 2,100 libraries around Canada, kids are earning prizes and recognition for…
The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman, has been on my to-read list since it was first published in the mid-1990s. Although I generally don’t read fantasy fiction, after reading an…
In June of this year, Slate ran a now-infamous piece called “Against YA,” in which Ruth Graham argued that adults shouldn’t read young-adult fiction, and should be embarrassed if they…
A boy, maybe age 8, was confused about what he needed. He said he needed “chapter books about the human body,” which sounded to me like two things – books…
I thought readers’ advisory was the best part of my job, but that was before I began running our library’s teen book club. Once a month, I spend an evening…
Over the summer, I wrote about The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, a children’s book with a suspenseful, convoluted story, lavishly illustrated with Selznick’s beautiful pencil drawings. (I…
