What I'm Doing These Days

The next few days will be slightly out of the ordinary here on the blog. I'll be in Indianapolis through Saturday for the 2012 ALSC National Institute--three days of all sorts of sessions aimed at those of us who serve children in our libraries, plus plenty of networking and author excitement. I'll be one of several attendees live-blogging all the great things going on at the Institute, so make sure you check out the ALSC Blog to stay on top of all that's happening in Indy. You can also follow #ALSC12 on Twitter to keep up with the chatter. I'll try to post some highlights here, too, but time and internet access will factor into whether that happens.

And now for some reading updates! You may have noticed that there haven't been many chapter book reviews on the blog lately. That absence is not due to lack of reading, I assure you--on the contrary, it's due to large amounts of reading due to two committee appointments:

• I was named a Round I panelist for the Cybils Awards in the middle grade fiction category! Reading hasn't yet begun for this appointment--book nominations don't even begin until Oct. 1 (start thinking of what titles you want to recommend!)--but I'm gearing up for what will surely be a very large stack of to-read books on my kitchen table.
• I've been working my way through the 2013-2014 Mark Twain Award Preliminary Nominees as part of my reader/selector duties. That's 25 novels aimed at 4th-6th graders, and I'm happy to say that the genres and appeal factors run the gamut. I've really been enjoying reading these middle grade novels.

That's what I'm doing these days in addition to all the fun programming and collection management at my branch. Stay tuned to the blog in the next few weeks for some exciting program ideas as well as a celebration of one of my favorite weeks of the year: Banned Books Week! I may even have a surprise up my sleeve to help celebrate the freedom to read...

I hope to see many of you in Indy!