My team met again for Reading Wildly and this month we discussed fantasy books. We have some lovers of fantasy and some for whom fantasy is a chore. One thing we discussed is that even books we pick up, read a little bit of, and put down can still be helpful for reader's advisory. When Becky Spratford (RA for All) visited us to present our staff day, we practiced speed reading and learned that you don't have to read an entire book to get enough information for reader's advisory.
One of my staff members mentioned that she tried several books that she just couldn't get into before she finally fell back on a favorite author for our book discussion. Well, if you are familiarizing yourself with your collection and reading parts of books, that can be helpful, too. When that fantasy fan comes up to the desk, you'll be familiar with a few more books than you were before! We're not all going to love every book we pick up for Reading Wildly because the purpose is to stretch ourselves beyond what we normally gravitate to reading.
Here's what we read this month:
- Alison Dare Little Miss Adventures by J. Torres
- Cloaked in Red by Vivian Vande Velde
- The Evil Wizard Smallbone by Delia Sherman
- Frostborn (Thrones & Bones) by Lou Anders
- George's Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl
- The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
- The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz
- Mighty Jack by Ben Hatke
- Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
- Serpentine by Cindy Pon
- Silence and Stone (The Faerie's Promise #1) by Kathleen Duey
- A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling
We also spent some time brainstorming and deciding on genres and topics for next year. I tried to give us a good blend of genres that were real stretches (the ones everyone groaned at) and genres that my staff didn't mind so much. We've got manga on the list for next year, which will be a stretch for all of us, I think. I'm also very excited to read and share #OwnVoices titles one month.
January will be a Reader's Choice month to ease us into the new year and I hope to have a 2017 schedule up soon.
In 2017, we're doing something a little new: we're partnering with GreenBean TeenQueen Sarah Bean-Thompson of the Springfield-Greene County Library District in Missouri to share our book discussions each month. Sarah and I will both be blogging about it along the way and I'm excited to expand our network of librarians and share even more titles!