These colors hold a personal significance for me and I'm grateful to work in a field where I can celebrate our community through meaningful collections and programming.

At Booked, we take reader's advisory seriously, ensuring that each and every one of our customers goes home with their perfect read. We ask questions like "What's the last book you loved?" "Do you like a book that makes you laugh?" and even "What's your favorite TV show?". Important questions like these help us get to the bottom of the story and find the perfect book for anyone and everyone.

Have you ever wanted to be a window dresser? As a librarian as well as a bookseller, one of my favorite parts of the job is creating displays. Here's the jungle window display, Grace and I made for Booked. It's a great way to learn to sew using a machine and would make a crafty library STEM program.

My good news is I'm putting my library experience and love of community together as a book seller at Booked, a wonderful youth-oriented bookstore in Evanston, just a hop, skip and a jump from my new home (so also - NO COMMUTE!)  I'm part of a tiny but mighty team of conscientious women that value diversity in literature as well as business and have a lot of ideas, which is completely infectious...

One of the things I miss most during Shelter in Place is performing weekly storytimes at the library. So, for my tiniest patrons, I've recorded these videos of some favorite storytime songs. There's some special originals in there, too. Send me an email if you have a special request.

I miss performing weekly storytimes so I've decided to record some favorites and will be posting them soon in my new Storytime section.

I am so excited to be co-chairing the 2020 Institute for the Association of Children's Librarians. This day-long event will feature authors writing inclusive, informative literature for youth as well as innovative presenters speaking about issues that impact library service to youth. Organizing this event has been an expansive experience and I am so lucky to have had the opportunity.

This week, in my school library, third graders got messy with collage. The project is a culmination of a month-long illustrator study in which we poured over the work of collage artists like Ed Young, Javaka Steptoe, and Christian Robinson. For weeks, students donated scraps and ephemera to our growing collage library, with a focus on recycling. As you can see, they were ready when it was finally time to dig in. Creative experiences like this build on students' natural and diverse talents and open a gateway for those who don't connect with the traditional concept of library as 'just a place to read'. Libraries are about stories and people and experiences. This project brings all of this to life.