Deborah says there is a trend of middle grade books with parents/adults having mental illness and kids having to keep secrets to keep siblings together. #aisl25

Looking at highly awarded, favorite authors and illustrators, variety of genres, cultural representation, and fan favorites. #aisl25

Starting off #aisl25 with Deborah Salyer talking about What’s New in Books for Children.

📚💬 “…surely ghosts will follow wherever there is bad record keeping.” Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places 👻

Today I’m attending my first Association of Independent School Librarians institute, Booked for the Day: Reading, Reflection, and Revitalization. I’m planning to live-blog. Posts should automatically appear on Bluesky & Mastodon.

📚💬 “Here, then, is a central paradox in the way that ghosts work: to turn the living into ghosts is to empty them out, rob them of something vital; to keep the dead alive as ghosts is to fill them up with memory and history, to keep alive a thing that would otherwise be lost.” Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, writing about the dissonance between Richmond’s history as the home of slave trade and torture and the fact that all Richmond’s ghosts are white 👻

Finished reading: Kiss the Girl by Zoraida Córdova 📚

This is such a perfect move of Disney’s The Little Mermaid to contemporary romance. There is so much perfection to be had here, such magic work taking movie moments and making them part of our world. If you’re an Ariel person, you should read it.

📚💬 “Romantic heroes are the greatest cryptids of all.” Zoraida Córdova, Kiss the Girl 🧜‍♀️