Skip to main content

YA Literature

The following (or previous, depending on how you look at it) 25 posts are book reviews with trailers and links to other books that I completed for my Young Adult Literature course this fall. The books were chosen from ALA lists and were read over the course of the semester.

I really really enjoy reading YA lit. It is probably my favorite genre. One of the things I discovered while working on this assignment was the sheer volume of really great YA literature that is being published now. A few years ago, I was pretty up to date on all the most recent YA offerings, but this assignment had me reading many books that I have never heard of. I was able to sneak a few oldies but goodies in as well, since some of the lists included older books like The Hobbit and Ella Enchanted, but most of the assignment was one of discovery for me.

While reflecting on this assignment and my coursework for my MLS during my daily walk today, I was thinking about what drew me to pursue this degree. I think its the idea of it. As I've gotten older, my college, idealistic self is sometimes put aside for the reality of adult life. However, librarians are really keepers of that flame of idealism. Librarians provide snippets of information, they are veritable walking collections of annotations. I used to be sad about the fact that I know a little bit about a lot of things but am not an expert at really anything. A jack of all trades but a master of none. But this is exactly what a librarian should be. How else can we start the conversations that open minds and fill them? My coursework continues to expose me to different books in every genre, to databases and web 2.0 tools and ways to incorporate social media. As I continue to absorb information, it will only serve me better when I decide to switch careers and become a full time librarian.

As a girl, I wanted to be a librarian so that I could be surrounded by books. Now I see what it is that I really want out of this. I want to be a concierge of knowledge. I want to help people seek and know and stretch themselves. 

Anyway, enough of my late night ramblings. Enjoy the rest of your evening and don't forget to curl up with a great book. I've only put 25 of them on here for your perusal.

~Heather

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Library Communication and Social Media

When social media became a "thing", businesses were one of the first entities to jump on board. Many companies realized that social media created an essentially free way to advertise. As social media developed, targeted marketing using social media became an even more effective way to communicate and advertise with specific consumer bases. Educational entities eventually got on board as well. What does this have to do with your library? Plenty. Let's take a look at most popular social media platforms - Facebook and Twitter, and how they are being used by libraries to promote and communicate with their clients as well as help educate and connect library staff members worldwide. Stay tuned for a future post on the social media platform that is ahead of Twitter in teen use, Instagram. Facebook The brain child of Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard classmates, Facebook was created in 2004 as a way for college students to connect online. Myspace, a Facebook predecessor, had al...

Bloom's Taxonomy for a Digital Age

Bloom's Taxonomy. One of the things we are constantly hearing in our school is the push for increased rigor in our classroom, as a result of the STAAR tests and others like it becoming more rigorous. We are told to push for higher order thinking and questioning from our students. One of the tools we use to look at how we can increase rigor is Bloom's Taxonomy. But some things about Bloom's don't translate exactly when we are talking about the digital age and the classroom or library. For example, remembering is the lowest piece of the triangle for Bloom's, but remembering looks different when you have instant access to a powerful computer that can use essentially limitless online resources to find answers. I've mentioned to my husband just how much more this and future generations will know about the world around them simply because they no longer have to remember everything they're interested in knowing. If I pass a historical marker for a place I haven...

QR Codes, Animoto and Youtube

Many libraries are already doing great things with youtube for their students. I browsed several school library youtube channels and found some gems.  First, here are two videos from BBMSmedia's channel, which can be found here. The video I found most useful for students would be the tutorial on how to use Noodle to create a book citation.    A video I found that I think students would love from this channel is this one that is a parody of Let It Go from Frozen about returning library books.  Norman High School Library has a great library of youtube videos, including this really helpful tutorial for their students on how to access the library webpage and use the resources contained there.  And this hilarious Harry Potter Dark Lord Funk video is definitely going to be a hit with students! The Unquiet Library includes this really useful video of how to embed a Prezi presentation into a wikispaces page.  And the...