See what makes me facepalm -- #librarylife

I'm blogging for the Association for Library Service to Children today, 

and I've got summer reading on my mind.

See what makes me facepalm in another of my ongoing series

 "You know you're a children's librarian when ..."

Click on over and check it out.

 [http://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2016/08/you-know-youre-a-childrens-librarian-when-10/]

Miscellany on stuffed animals and audiobooks

I'm over at the ALSC Blog today - complaining about stuffed animals.  

Max Braun CC BY-SA 2.0 *

Feel free to join me if you're so inclined. 

In other news, I hope you've been downloading your free books from SYNC.  Two free books are available each week beginning on Thursday.  The books for that week are available for one week only.  Books are yours - forever - no strings attached.

"SYNC is a free summer audiobook program for teens. Starting May 5th 2016, SYNC will give away two complete audiobook downloads a week - pairs of high interest titles, based on weekly themes. Sign up for email or text alerts and be first to know when new titles are available to download at www.audiobooksync.com."

Today is the last day to get Zac & Mia by A.J. Betts, and I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson.  Tomorrow, it's How it Went Down by Kekla Magoon (with a full cast narration!) and The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson.

Below are the titles for the next few weeks (there are more to come after these!):

* Photo credit:  Max Braun – 60 Jahre Allgemeine Erklärung der Menschenrechte, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37203687

How May I Help You? #librarylife

 I can't count the number of times that people have made comments to me similar to these:

• "It must be nice to be able to read all day."
• "Are you a volunteer?"
• "You need a master's degree for your job?"
• "I could read to kids for a living."
• "A librarian? Oh, you must know the Dewey Decimal System."

No one ever makes these comments to be rude, they just don't know what it is to be a librarian.  In fact, I am consistently amazed that, considering the training we have, how little people expect of us. It occurred to me that we (as a profession) don't do a good enough job of explaining the many ways that we can, we will, and we do help people every day.  To that end, I wrote an article for the online magazine, BonBon Break, titled, "5 Things You Didn't Know about Librarians."  It's been on social media for about a month now, but if you haven't seen it, I hope you'll give it a look.  Here's the link:

5 Things You Didn't Know About Librarians

[http://www.bonbonbreak.com/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-librarians/]

Some library humor at the ALSC Blog

You can find me over at the ALSC Blog today with a little bit of library humor.  Please stop by and read about one of my favorite library patrons.  [http://wp.me/p5Z0QG-32Q]

And if you know of a good, new, middle-grade book trailer, please tell me about it in the comments.  My book club is meeting this afternoon.  Thanks!