GreenBeanTeenQueen

Today is The Very Hungry Caterpillar Day! I can't say enough good things about the beloved book by Eric Carle. I loved it as a child, I loved it again as a librarian, and I love it even more as a parent.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar  is such a great storytime book. There are so many ways to use it! Of course, I love reading it and even adding music and singing as the caterpillar munches his way across the pages. But my most favorite way of telling this story is through our Very Hungry Caterpillar sock puppet.  I'm not sure where the sock puppet idea came from originally at my library as it was made before I started there, but you can see an example of one at Busy Crafting Mama who shared one for Flannel Friday a few years ago. The idea of the storytelling puppet is that you wear the caterpillar sock on your arm and add the various foods as you tell the story and move the food up your arm and then end with a beautiful butterfly! It doesn't matter what age...

Well, I finally have time to sit down and type up all my thoughts about LibraryCon Year 2, or as I lovingly called it, Revenge of the Con!!! LibraryCon 2015 was such a huge success we knew we had to repeat it.  (You can check my posts about our first year here: Part One , Part Two , Part Three) Yet even with that success (400+ in attendance, great feedback from attendees and participants), we realized after the fact that we forgot all about marketing and promoting the Library itself. We figured people would walk into the Library, but with nothing to draw them there and with the entire event being held in our main concourse and meeting rooms, no one actually entered the Library. So the first item up on our planning agenda was to figure out how to promote ourselves. The first suggestion was for us to have a table ourselves. We collected various swag from conferences (with multiple staff attending ALA Annual, we were able to talk to comic publishers there and pick up lots of pos...

Today I'm over at the ALSC blog talking about my new favorite winter themed storytime books. Please join me!

Genre: Mystery/Contemporary Release Date: 10/25/2016 Add to Goodreads About the Book: Nolie is spending the summer in Scotland in a small village with her scientist dad. He's there researching the Boundary-the mysterious fog at the edge of Journey's End. The fog seems to be moving closer but the town can't take any warnings of danger too seriously-the fog is their livelihood and tourism depends on it. Especially for Bel's family who runs a tour boat out to the Boundary. When Nolie and Bel strike up a friendship the two become entangled in the mystery of Journey's End the fog that may be making it's way to devour the town. When Albert appears, a boy who went into the fog in 1918 to light the legendary lighthouse, Bel and Nolie know something strange is happening in Journey's End it's up to them to save the town and stop the fog from claiming more lives.  GreenBeanTeenQueen Says:    Journey's End  is a bit mystery, a bit of a friend...

For those of you that attended the Missouri Library Association Conference last week (or for those that missed it!) here is the booklist of titles I talked about. I'd love to hear your thoughts on them and if you have any favorites of 2016! Trends : Origin Stories & Retellings (fairy tales, classics, history retold, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland) Sequels and Series Contemporary Fiction continues to rise Creative formats ( Replica by Lauren Oliver, Between Worlds by Skip Brittenham) Middle Grade/Young YA: Ghost by Jason Reynolds Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz It Ain't So Awful, Falafel  by Firoozeh Dumas Pax by Sara Pennypacker Save Me a Seat by Sarah Weeks & Gita Varadarajan Shadow Magic by Joshua Kahn Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo Some Writer! by Melissa Sweet Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk Young Adult: And I Darken by Kiersten White Exit, Pursued by ...

2016 is the 100th birthday of Roald Dahl. The publisher of his books, Penguin Random House, has set up a special blog tour to celebrate the occasion.   When I was in fourth grade, we read James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. I had always been a reader but something about this book made me really fall in love with it. I loved it so much that I  wrote a letter to Mr. Dahl telling him how much I enjoyed the book and probably other fourth grade things like about what I liked to do, that I loved to read, and all that kid letter writing stuff. I didn't realize that Roald Dahl had passed away just a year before and I'm not sure my teacher did either. She sent my letter along to the publisher. Several weeks later I received a package at school that was full of Roald Dahl goodies-bookmarks, posters, a mobile (I think for James and the Giant Peach but I don't remember!) and other book swag. The publisher wrote me back and said they were sorry to let me know that Roald Dah...

Alcatraz Series by Brandon Sanderson Genre: Contemporary Fantasy/Adventure Release Date: 9/6/2016 To Purchase Add to Goodreads About the Book: (from publisher)  The Dark Talent is the fifth action-packed fantasy  adventure in the Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series for young readers by the #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson. This never-before-published, fast-paced, and funny novel is now available in a deluxe hardcover edition, illustrated by Hayley Lazo. Alcatraz  Smedry has successfully defeated the army of Evil Librarians and saved the kingdom of Mokia. Too bad he managed to break the Smedry Talents in the process. Even worse, his father is trying to enact a scheme that could ruin the world, and his friend, Bastille, is in a coma. To revive her, Alcatraz must infiltrate the Highbrary—known as The Library of Congress to Hushlanders—the seat of Evil Librarian power. Without his Talent to draw upon, can Alcatraz figu...