I am so so so excited to announce that the blood sweat and tears I’ve been giving to a book award committee has come to fruition! The LONGLIST of the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction is HERE. I read and read and read and read and now the best 45 titles…

As someone who completely devoured and loved the first My Lady Jane novel, I was enthralled to see The Plot to Kill the Queen by Deborah Hopkinson come across my desk. Part theatre, part history mystery, with remnants of My Lady Jane and the Midwife’s Apprentice, I was game! Emilia Bassano is a court girl,…

Q3…is over. My hopes and goals for the year…almost over as well. September 2023 was one of my WORST reading months of the year, because I felt like I didn’t have time to finish any of the books I started and didn’t absolutely enjoy, but I also went whole days without opening a novel because…

I really, really love being blown away by a graphic novel that isn’t necessarily the best thing in the world, but that I genuinely enjoyed reading, immediately want to recommend to young readers, and that I can’t stop thinking about. Two Tribes by Emily Bowen Cohen is my new “that book” and I can’t wait…

Another picture book round-up! This week, an assortment of things I read from Capitol Choices, some duds, a real winner from Corey Tabor, and more Amy Wu! Tadpoles by Matt James This is an interesting book–I picked it up because it was nominated for Capitol Choices, and I kind of assumed it would be about…

In January 2023, I watched the Youth Media Award with baited breath, and with my library hold list open. As per usual, I was ready to place holds on any of the winners that looked interesting or that I had somehow missed in 2022. As many of you know, my DREAM is to be on…

August really slipped away, didn’t it? Sure, I was in England for almost half of it, and then was sick, but wow….it WENT away really quickly! Luckily, I got a fair amount of reading done this month, so even though I’m already feeling overwhelmed by September, I can look back at August with some pride.…

September is always a killer publishing month! Literally and figuratively, haha. I could probably make a list of 100 books coming out this month that sound cool, but we all know I don’t have time to read them all, so I’ll focus on these six. What September 2023 books are you looking forward to? In…

I love a good easy reader series (mostly) and I love when really acclaimed authors get into writing for developing and early readers, so when I saw a new Kyle Lukoff easy reader series, I was ready to read! Unfortunately….I was let down. At least at my library, these are not the typical easy reader…