Favorite Series!

Another great Nerdy Book Club post today all about favorite series. Hubby and I LOVE series so I had to put in my two cents...or three or four!

It’s as if I wrote this post…although I’m a retired librarian and have quite a few years on you. =) But Little House & Boxcar were my first series, too. Wrinkle in Time came in junior high but I’ve never read the rest of the series. My first series when I was a library assistant was The Golden Compass by Pullman, we visited Oxford because of it. A parent brought us the first book from his London trip about a boy named Harry. I sent it to cataloging but didn’t pick it up myself for a few years. I’ve always wondered if that library kept it…it could have been a first edition. Wow! When hubby retired & said he was bored, I handed him Victoria Hanley’s (a friend & fellow Coloradoan) Violet Wings, a wonderful world of fairies. He finished and was distraught that it seemed like it wasn’t finished. I informed him it was a series & said, “Welcome to my world.” That was eight years ago and we’ve devoured so many series that it would take quite a while to list them all. Because I was an elementary librarian who had a Young Adult section, hubby & I are HUGE ya fans. Maggie Stiefvater, Scott Westerfeld, Marissa Meyer,

Brandon Sanderson, Cassandra Clare, Cat Patrick (a teacher friend’s sister in law) Jennifer Albin. Not to mention middle grade books…the year Mr. Schu was on the Newbery committee we read ALL of the honor books besides Flora & Ulysses. Paperboy by Vince Vawter, in audio, was my favorite, although not a series. Charlie Fletcher’s Ironhand series, set in London! The Magyk series by Angie Sage…LOVE the audio versions.

My son in law took a LONG time finishing Mockingjay. I can’t even remember the author or title of a series I was reading when it just went sideways for me. I remember stopping & thinking, “Wait a minute….WHAT is happening here? Nope….I’m DONE!” My adult daughter had me read Twilight. I threw the second one across the room…will NEVER finish it! As a librarian, I read Donalyn Miller’s books on reading & introduced many, many books to my students but also told them that if it didn’t grab them, don’t read it. But maybe try it again at a later time…or not. 

Thank you for being a librarian! Enjoy the end of your year & have a great summer! KEEP READING!!

Favorite Books for Baby Showers

This is a comment I posted on the wonderful Nerdy Book Club blog. 

Being quite a bit older than you, Annie, I have favorites I give at baby showers, too. Your list is impressive, indeed. Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt, is one of the original "touchy-feely" baby books, copyright 1940. And the plush bunny can be found in stores to accompany the book. It's a bit politically incorrect...dad's scratchy beard, etc., but it is still beloved. But the books I make sure I give to new parents are Brad Meltzer's Heroes for My Son and Heroes for My Daughter. They are one page, often one paragraph, bios of famous people that are Brad's favorites. My daughter tells me that she often tears up during the reading. He also writes biographies of famous people for children. The illustrations of the famous person stays a child throughout the book. My grandloves, 7 & 4, LOVE all of these books. Another GREAT book for babies up to adults, especially if you love dogs, is Ball by Mary Sullivan. The only word in the whole book is "ball" but her hilarious illustrations perfectly show the life of a family's dog. If you have ever had a dog, you laugh at all the things the dog does...his dream sequence is a hoot! The next book she wrote is titled Treat...just as cute! Deborah Underwood's the Quiet Book and The Loud Book are great baby/toddler books, too. Being a former librarian and now a grandparent, I could go on and on and on.