The Daring Librarian

Our Middle School Library in Laurel, Maryland has been a loud and proud Safe Space and Ally for ALL of our  LGBTQIA and Neurodivergent students for years. We have purchased every well reviewed, requested, intriguing, and middle school approved fiction and non-fiction book on these topics. I daresay we have one of the largest collections around! We have Safe Space signs around, a rainbow narwhal (pictured above) and groupings of books on display all the time. I have also blogged about our support of our diverse communities. Dear Queer Teen - It Gets Better! - 2012  Create a Safe Space - 2018 BUT... I have strong opinions about putting a Genre label on these books. I am really cognizant that some of my Middle Schoolers are curious or questioning to learn more about but aren't ready to out themselves. To their peers and to their parents. This is yet another reason I'm against Genrefication. I know, among some of my other Future Ready Librarians this is a controversial topic....

Lately, I've grown fascinated with the Instagram #BookChallenge and the #BookBento photo technique.  So, here's my rendition, see above graphic or make a copy of my GoogleDoc . Feel free to take, use, share, & make it yours! (With attribution please) Confession: I'm kinda lazy, some book challenges are 30 or 31 days...I chose 10 pictures just to make it doable and easy.  Have you heard of these? Have you ever participated in one? For the past 6 months, I've been working on a new presentation for a keynote appearance in Ohio and it's making me more thoughtful about the potential of Instagram. More clever ways to interact with Libraries, literacy, books, reading, kids, and our community. UPDATE : October 5. I changed number 5 in the graphic & challenge above to #BookSelfie.  I have an announcement [taps mic] I am an idiot. Here's why. I've always LOVED the term #Shelfie cause it's fun to say, where kids & people hold up a...

  Creativity in all it's engaging guises but presented with a new technology and social media twist! I really can't remember how I stumbled across this idea of writing super short Tweet size stories.  I certainly didn't originate it - yet when I searched the hashtag I found an assortment of fits and starts with a challenge to write a short story in the form of a Tweet - and I was intrigued! I guess it's sorta related to the Tweet Me a Book Review idea I had and blogged about a few years ago with it's accompanying Wikispaces lesson page. The activity is below is copied from my Wikispaces page where, at the bottom of the page, I uploaded for you the doublesided paper PDF version for practice or when you want that social media engagement but you can't get to or have the machines. The Wikispaces version of the lesson features a java script character counter widget and a Google form to submit the story. A good portion of my kiddos are under 13 and I wou...