Tales from a Loud Librarian

There are only a few hours left of summer break for 2016. I start back to work on Monday, and our students will start on Thursday. Am I ready to go back? Yes and no. This has been a wonderful summer of rest and relaxation. I did not attend any conferences this summer nor did I spend hours making preparations for the new year. However, when I do reflect on the summer, I realize that my mind was never very far from the library.  I read. I am always reading something and though I don't like reading two print books at one time, I usually have one print book going and one audio book. I review books for both School Library Journal and School Library Connection . This means that I don't always get to choose what I read, but I didn't review much this summer, though I have 5 books by my bed to review right now. I am on the committee for the state library that selects the books for Louisiana Teen Readers' Choice (LTRC). At the beginning of the summer, we narrowed our list ...

Enjoying my favorite garden by the marsh in Kennebunk, ME I grew up in New Orleans, where I live now, and my parents have always lived here, too, Until after Hurricane Katrina flooded my father's house in 2005, and he and his wife moved up to Kennebunk, ME to live permanently. We have visited the area many times over the years, and last summer we toured around Vermont before landing in Kennebunk at the end of vacation. This year we decided to head north of Portland in Maine to visit Camden, Rockland, and Acadia National Park which we had never seen before heading to Kennebunk.  Sand Beach in Acadia National Park The coast of Maine is beautiful with its rocks, water, and quaint towns. New England has an ambiance that is so different from New Orleans. It helps that the temperatures during the day were in the 70's while it was blistering hot at home. Though New Orleans is home to wonderful food, we are quite fond of the lobster, clams, and scallops that are so plent...

Finally, off the plane and on the road Going away for a week during summer break is something that is sacred to my husband and me. We live in a city that is hot in the summer so we try to find somewhere cooler and in a rural area where we can spend our time being outside and enjoying nature. This year we chose to drive through Vermont and New Hampshire so that we could end in Maine where my father lives.  Vermont is the land of covered bridges In years past, I would buy a guide book and visit the library to find more guides to where we would travel. My favorite publishers were Lonely Planet and Rough Guides. I loved reading about what we would see and looking for the most charming place to say. It was crucial to read a guidebook with a current copyright date because so much could change from year to year, especially prices. Now I don't even look at a guidebook. I use Trip Advisor (TA).  I love the app because I can save everything that I want to see ahead of ti...

When summer time hits, it is time for teachers and students to find a way to see the world. Maybe it is through books that they didn't have time to read during the school year or traveling to foreign places. I planned a trip for my husband and myself out west. To those of us living below sea level in southern Louisiana who deal with a humidity that hovers around 85-90% in the summer, going to the mountains is definitely foreign. We planned a trip that kept us outside on the hiking trails of the Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado and Utah and the Rocky Mountain National Park. I created the video you see below that tells the story of our adventure.