Really need to find time to write about quite a few books in more details. But here are quick notes: Dracula was good, for the most part, but I got annoyed by the over-emphasis on the GOODNESS of the purity and resourcefulness of the women (who then had to be so protected because, after all, they are the WEAKER ones.) March (John Lewis graphic narrative memoir) is really powerful and the art style matches the tone of the narrative well (although not my favorite kind of images.) The Grimm Conclusion (Adam Gidwitz) was a “sit down and finish it in one shot” kind of exciting book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought Adam did a fantastic job – and his prose got even smoother! Excited about the official release of Africa Is My Home (by my friend Monica Edinger) and will definitely write in more details about the book soon! Loved The Thing About Luck. Enjoyed Steelheart (Brandon Sanderson.) Impressed by Hereville #2: How Mirka Met a Meteorite. They each deserves a separate entry but I simply haven’t had time to give them the attention needed. Argh…
National Book Awards announced the finalists for young…
National Book Awards announced the finalists for young people’s literature: Kathi Appelt for “The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp” (Atheneum); Cynthia Kadohata for “The Thing About Luck” (Atheneum); Tom McNeal for “Far Far Away” (Knopf); Meg Rosoff for “Picture Me Gone” (Putnam); and Gene Luen Yang for “Boxers & Saints” (First Second). I am almost done with The Thing About Luck and loving it. Will definitely read both the McNeal and the Rosoff!
Reading House of Hades by Rick Riordan listening…
Reading House of Hades by Rick Riordan; listening to Dracula by Bram Stoker; Finished Chew #4: Flambé and moving on to #5: Major League.
The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp
by Kathi Appelt
(narrated by Lyle Lovett for Audible)
This is what outstanding, distinguished, and thoroughly enjoyable children’s books should be! And of course, I had the additional pleasure of listening to Appelt’s narrative voice brought to live by Lyle Lovett: folky, hilarious, tender, with just the right amount of controlled drama. This environmental tall tale set in the swamp land, featuring anthropomorphized critters, caricatured villains, down home, real but also realer than life characters, and mythical beings is perfect for a family and classroom read aloud! One of my favorite 2013 books for sure!
Filed under Book Notes
My 4th New York ComicCon – October 9 to 12, 2013
Some thoughts on how to Take ComicCon as me, after no longer feeling so overwhelmed or clueless as I did the first couple of times going to the Con. Taking the time to go over the listing for all the panels and screenings and planning the days in advance definitely reduces the stress. And attending one event every 2 or 3 hours is more realistic than back-to-back, especially when the events are super popular and there is just not a chance to get in to see the panel. I “lost” my chance to see Felicia Day and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. because I didn’t leave enough lead time (about 1 hour at the minimum) to wait in line for each. At this point, I do not seek out panels that are too closely related to print materials or how to promote Graphic Novels in Libraries/Schools — I got a lot of that in the past couple of years. This year, I was really looking to broaden my knowledge base — so I went to a presentation on a new online multi player game that has some new elements that really excite me: more chances to meet up with friends or compatible strangers on the same world (since the players do not choose the mini-worlds but being grouped organically); more opportunities to customize one’s virtual surroundings and items; NPCs that interact wie players more intelligently — and quests that utilize various abilities and virtues. I’m really rooting for this game! Shroud of the Avatar (a new incarnation of Ultima games.) The game creator also crowd sourced everything: from funding (almost 2 million dollars in 30 days on Kickstarter) to artwork, music composition, and even codes (such as a code to make the cloaks float artistically in the wind…) 
The Designer Toys panelists, the NY Indie Game Designers, and the Voice Actors shared so much of their expertise with the audience that I felt enlightened in their respective areas and wanted to find out more about those crafts. 
My favorite event has to be the talented writer/illustrator duo John Layman and Rob Guillory, talking about Chew, the crazy, sick, hilarious, dark, and always surprising graphic novel series that has been gaining fan base and is going strong still! They have published 37 of the planned 60 issues and we simply can’t wait for the plot to get wackier and more twisted! This was what made me most excited in the line-up and they totally delivered — with a highly competent and effective moderator from Images Comics. The hour went by too fast and we really could have stayed and listened and laughed more. You could tell how genuinely these two collaborators admire and enjoy each other, and how important that relationship shaped the tone of the story. Here are some things I learned:
Layman always knows how a story begins and how it will end. He often writes the first and last parts of an arc first, and then fills in the middle to bridge the two points.- Layman loves linguistics and enjoys making up all the food-related names for the series.
- Guillory thinks of his characters as actors and the humor often comes from his making them overact, as if they were on stage for a large audience.
- 95% of the background easter eggs are Guillory’s inventions — Layman does not always see them until the finished issue!
- Guillory does not draw from photo references for his characters — all the body positions, movements, perspectives come straight from his observations and memories. He told me (when I had him sign my Chew volumes) that he is a keen observer for people’s expressions and actions and it is really hard for him to have a phone conversation because he cannot see the other person’s face.
- And I learned that the whole series might end with everyone dead… or it might not…
It was refreshing to hear the writers and artists for Dark Horse comics stress the value of “text” novels and how much they respect the power of words that can create mental images within the readers’ minds. They shared some of their personal “must reads”: Philip K Dick shorts, Snow Crash by Stephenson, A Wrinkle in Time, the Foundation Series, and books by Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian and others.) Glad to see quite a bit of overlapping of my own “must reads.” And it was entertaining to learn about the TV show King of the Nerds and the preparation of the second season. Also gald to find out some upcoming projects from Image, Dark Horse, Marvel, DC, and Funimation. Today was the last day of the 2013 NYCC — Sunday, October 12th. 
The two panels: one about Adventure Time and the other about a few new YA sci-fi books were both mediocre. The lack of excitement or insights for the first event was largely the moderator’s responsibility and the second, the lack of depth of thought by the panelists. I thought about what made some of the events work better than others and came up with a few ideas about moderators and panelists: To be a good moderator, these are some Do’s
- Do know and respect the materials and the panelists.
- Do be relaxed and follow up the panelists’ answers if there are extra sparks that can deepen the conversation.
- Since it is ComicCon, do give the fans ample time to ask questions … What they have to ask and say tend to be relevant and of interest to other fans.
- Do show the audience that it is fun to be on stage, having a thoughtful or funny conversation.
And here are a few Don’ts
- Don’t be nervous.
- Try not to “fan girl” the panelists to a point where you ask all the questions that you prepared without actually listening to the answers or following up with organic questions.
- Don’t try to stump your panelists with questions that they are not prepared to answer.
- Don’t ask questions that your audience members are smart enough to answer without being the experts on stage.
- Don’t force every panelist to answer every one of your prepared questions. It gets tedious!
As for panelists: do not sign up to be a presenter if you can only talk narrowly about your product and have nothing else to offer: it makes you look and sound shallow and it does not instill confidence in your potential customers to try out your products: be they books, toys, movies, games, art, or other merchandize.
Oh, I also visited publishers’ booths to read 2013 graphic novels nominated for the long list of the CYBILS G/N categories. So far, I enjoyed everyone of them and will write something up for each soon!
A long summary but since I attended the Con for four days, it seems appropriate.
Filed under Uncategorized
Finished and loved Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson Now…
Finished and loved Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson. Now reading and listening to Lyle Lovett reading True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt.
The Kingkiller Chronicle, vol. 1 and vol. 2
Vol. 1 (Day1) : The Name of the Wind and
Vol. 2 (Day 2): The Wise Man’s Fear
by Patrick Rothfuss
Altogether, these two volumes are more than 1,500 pages long and the audio book versions took about 61 hours to finish. I mostly enjoyed the listening experience: the first volume is definitely tighter and since everything is new and the world is un-encountered before, I had a little more patience in all the details that Rothfuss put into the tale: colors of people’s clothing, the types of foods, some basic societal rules, etc. And there are definitely a lot of thrilling moments and some good passages.
The Wise Man’s Fear, though, suffered from being too detailed at moments, too many similes thrown into the passages (that really could and should have been edited OUT of the tale,) and just too long. I am really annoyed by authors who decided to use a particular narrative “device” and could not keep to the simplest or fundamental rules of that device. Here, each volume is supposed to be tales told to the scribe within the duration of ONE SINGLE DAY (where people do go to sleep, where the current day contains events such as robbery, lunch, fighting, etc.) So, almost 1000 pages of words (no matter how FAST one might be able to speak or write down the words) simply don’t compute.
One learns in writing classes that in order to create convincing and lifelike characters, one must know all the background stories (what colors they like, who was their first crush, when was their first experiences of fear and when and why and how, etc.) of the major characters. But so much of these details should remain in the mind of the author. Once in a while, perhaps, something can be drawn out and fill in a missing piece of a character’s traits. But, the Wise Man’s Fear is full of such details breaking through the backstage door and cavorting on the main stage. It just didn’t work for me.
I also got quite bothered by Rothfuss’ insistence of describing every single emotion or experience with a comparison to something else. It is OK, Patrick R, to sometimes just say that you feel soothed by someone’s voice without having to compare the soothing feeling to a mother’s gentle touch to a child’s cheeks and the voice is just like a lover’s breathy whisper by your ears. Some figure of speech enhances a narrative, but overindulgence in such narrative tool becomes tedious eventually.
All that said, did I love a LOT of what went into the books? Absolutely. I loved the world building, the mystery, the tentative romantic relationships, the exploration of language, means of communication, and how world history can be shaped and reshaped. And I will definitely read (or listen to) the final installment when it is published next year. Still a series worth recommending.
Filed under Book Notes
Rose Under Fire
by Elizabeth Wein
I have only read three books by Elizabeth Wein. Years ago, The Winter Prince, last year, Code Name Verity, and now Rose Under Fire. But, I now know, unwaveringly, that this is an author who can steal people’s hearts and cleanse their souls with her storytelling wizardry.
Elizabeth Wein, my friends, has a creative mind that goes forever deepr and her stories always take you to unexpected but exciting places — no matter their subject matters. Her mind is so incredibly nimble that she can organize very complex threads into easily followed paths through intricate mazes she has devised for her readers. And, oh, the hearts and souls of her characters and the epic scale of their sufferings and triumphs! They linger on and sustain you like the LIFT under the wing of an airplane and a soaring kite! Read this book NOW and tell everyone else to read it.
I know that young teen readers will take to Rose’s story more readily than they with Verity and can’t wait to recommend this to them all!
Filed under Book Notes
Avatar The Last Airbender: The Promise – (3 Volumes)
(originally posted on 9/20/2013 on just vol. 1 — updated to include all three)
The story of two “nations” occupying the same land where one is now being demanded to remove itself mirrors eerily contemporary conditions in our current world. I’m delighted that almost all the important characters make their appearances here and their personalities consistent with the show. The artwork is definitely true to the show as well — for the most part. Of course, the fight scenes are slightly less epic or thrilling presented in still frames and not movements, but fans of the show can probably fill in the sounds and sequences. I know I read it with the actors’ voices in my head!
The story arc is convincing and the ending is satisfying. My biggest complaint might be that Zuko (the new Fire Kingdom King) is not quite what he looked like on the show — his features in the books are less defined and with less angsty charm that I so enjoyed from the show.
Filed under Uncategorized
CYBILS 2013 Announced its panels of blogger judges!
Yup.. it is official. And I am on the Graphics judging panel for Round 1.
I served on the first CYBILS (Children and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards) Fantasy and Science Fiction final round panel and we picked Jonathan Stroud’s Ptolomy’s Gate as the winner for the year. A highly entertaining and deserving conclusion to an ever-intriguing and powerful trilogy.
Can’t wait to see all the suggestions/nominations for this year’s Graphic Narratives and generate that long list for future judges! Excited!
This is the panelists for the Graphics sections:
http://www.cybils.com/2013/09/2013-graphics-judges.html
and the full list of blogger judges can be found on the current Cybils front page.
Filed under Uncategorized
Enjoying Rose Under Fire by a lot and…
Enjoying Rose Under Fire by a lot — and started The Wise’s Man’s Fear — second King Chronicle… a straight follow-up to The Name of the Wind and every bit as entertaining.
Started Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein a…
Started Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein, a companion volume to last year’s fantastic Code Name Verity.
Lockwood & Co #1: Screaming Staircase
by Jonathan Stroud
I truly enjoyed Stroud’s narrative tone, characters and world building in this first volume of a new fantasy/horror series. In Lucy we find a fresh, sharp-minded, slightly paranoid and self-doubting, but in the end completely lovable main character/narrator. Lockwood and George are also interesting and multi-faceted characters who maintain the flavorful exchanges between these young people. The premise also provides a new world for the author and the readers to venture into and explore — The Problem, consisting of ghosts, hauntings, and the solutions of using special child agents trained to deal with them, with all the life-threatening dangers that could befall anyone at any moment. I’m in awe of Stroud’s talent.
So why didn’t I absolutely love the book? Probably because I figured too many things out too early so the wait for the reveal seemed a bit long and drawn out? Or perhaps there were just a few repetitive descriptions/scenarios too many? (How many times do the readers need to be told how the first hints of haunting feel or look like?) Do I still want to see what unfolds in book 2? Yes. If the Bartimaeus trilogy is any indicator, the sequels will give us more layers and nuanced interactions. The story will only evolves into something grander and hopefully the ending will be as satisfying — and perhaps unexpected, too?
Filed under Uncategorized
Counting by 7s
by Holly Goldberg Sloan
My reactions to this book are quite mixed that I cannot sort them all out coherently. So, here we go, a list of what I liked and what I had some issues with:
Starting with the positive aspects of the book:
- I quite enjoyed the protagonist and her many interesting observations and thoughts. Especially when she was less “normal” and more stubbornly herself the first part of the book. I know that’s kind of the point of the book, that Willow “learned” how to interact with others and became more accepted and more accepting, but she definitely becomes less interesting a character as the story progresses.
- I appreciated the author’s effort in pulling together a cast of diverse ethnicities, and featuring mix-raced kids and adults.
- I definitely was curious and interested enough to know how things would pan out for Willow and the others, especially Dell.
- I liked how at first one couldn’t quite tell the age and gender of Willow.
- I thought that this is a thematically significant story.
- I also thought it totally fine for the author to switch POVs — I’d rather this than having the author trying to keep it all in Willow’s head and thus making the book either too claustrophobic or Willow too wise and and unconvincing in her insights.
Now, onto the things that troubled me or did not satisfy me as much:
- Vietnamese is presented as a language that one has to learn “verbal conjugations” for — when in reality, like many Asian languages, one uses only a few time stamps/phrases to indicate tenses while the original verbs remain the same. I know that the author consulted Vietnamese speaking friends so it is even more curious that this oversight is in the book. (I did read the online galley so don’t know exactly how the finished book handles this aspect exactly.)
- I cannot wrap my head around how Pattie has SO much money that she could buy the entire building complex from the bank at the end of the book because of Willow and her predicament, and yet would subject her own children to live squalidly in the garage where her teenaged son who obviously is VERY troubled by the fact that their living condition is shameful (and he didn’t even have normal underwear) and was acting out and doing poorly at school. Would an immigrant mother who suffered quite a bit of humiliation in her own youth, and who is presented as competent and caring for others, hide away all her wealth to this extend? This just doesn’t compute for me.
- There is quite a bit of rule and law breaking through the whole book, by almost every character, that I got slightly paranoid about recommending this to young readers. Dell got by in his job without ever following protocols or performing the minimum requirements. We hope that he has changed toward the end of the story… but that was not quite clear. The whole “using Dell’s address” and faking that they’re all living in that apartment works quite well, but from the get go was a giant and elaborate lie, which became a wonderful truth at the end of the tale… seems too convenient and pat and is that what the author tries to convey? As long as a lie comes from a good place, it will lead to a positive outcome? Even Mai tells lies to the school in order to go to the custody hearing. I am usually not one to worry about such things in children’s books, but for some reason, the accumulation of such behaviors as a way to make the story work got under my skin.
Filed under Book Notes, Views, WIWWAK
Rithmatist
by Brandon Sanderson
with illustration by Ben McSweeney
I have had the best time reading this book: discovering a completely new and fresh world that is a twist of our real world with alternative histories and a wonderfully naive yet sinister kind of magic: two dimensional chalk drawings turned to life battling creatures. Sanderson once again proves his skills in creating a compelling magical system completed with intricate and convincing rules that makes the reader wish to encounter such magic in the real world. The kind that will excite young readers to learn and master: drawing those Rithmatic defense circles and lines and dreaming up potential new designs and patterns. The kind that will inspire game makers to create a wonderful board or video game based on the world, characters, and strategies found within the story line. The kind that I am actually pleased to wait for the next installment in the series because I want to venture further with the characters to explore the unknown territories beyond the confine of the magical academy and the town. I hope the next book comes out soon! Can’t wait!
Oh, and the two teenaged protagonists are also authentic and their relationship often brings a smile to my face.
I also love the helpful and fun line drawings of the Rithmatic designs and chalklings, and the intriguing map of the United Isles with island names like Coronado, Zona Arida, Maineford, and DaKote.
Filed under Book Notes
A Girl or A Boy? Do you care?
(I posted this to the CCBC-Net discussion list as the current topic is on Gender Roles in Picture Books. Slightly off topic there but I want to share it with others here, too):
Recently, at a Simon and Schuster fall preview for librarians, we were introduced to a reading recommendation app on the Ready to Read site — that can be found here:
http://www.readytoread.com/recommendation-app
This is set up so that parents and teachers can find beginning readers that fit their specific, individual young readers’ needs — you can choose by interests, by reading levels, by age/grades, etc. At the preview, several of the attending librarians (including me) were aghast to find that the first question of identifying a young “Reading Star” is:
“Is your Reading Star a boy or a girl?” with the BINARY choices of BOY and GIRL.
And if you followed through with one of the two choices, the books recommended tend to be stereotypically for a specific gender — even if the choices of interests might not be stereotypical.
I did two quick searches:
Girl + Age 6 + Grade 1 + Sports (skipped reading level) got me:
Henry & Mudge and the Happy Cat, The Really Rotten Princess, and whole bunch of Annie and Snowball books, Katy Duck books, Eloise books, and also a few Childhood of Famous Americans (all males) books.
Boy + Age 6 + Grade 1 + Sports (skipped reading level) got me:
Henry and Mudge books, the same Childhood of Famous Americans, and Jon Sciezka’s Truck Town books, Robin Hill School books, Mike the Knight books, a book on Martin Luther King Jr. and another on Johnny Appleseed.
(What I didn’t quite understand is how the Robin Hill School books are pegged as “BOY” books and not gender-neutral to be picked up by both choices.)
After the first wave of shock subsided, I started considering: why did S&S think it so important to identify GENDER as the first and ultimately most defining question that split the recommendation path into two? Because, I imagine, market research must have shown that even in 2013, a child’s gender and his/her traditionally and socially assigned gender role remain the most common and most unconscious “invisible stamps” that we adults affix on any child.
One asks a new (or expectant) parent, always, if the baby is a girl or a boy. Going into a children’s clothing store is stepping into a Binary World where you only visit ONE side of the store if you are looking to buy an outfit for a specific child. One feels really bad and apologetic if one accidentally uses the wrong pronoun when addressing a child or if one mistakes a child’s gender due to presumptions based on outfits, hair styles, or mannerism. (Heck, we even do that with dogs and cats!)
So, I guess what I am trying to say, in a very round about way, is this: there is a huge societal and economic factor in what kind of books published for children. For each one of us who wishes to bust the traditional gender-role assignment, there are dozens (or hundreds?) of marketing and sales people who KNOW how traditionally gender-assigned merchandise (and yes, books ARE goods for sale) just do better on the mass market.
I do not blame the publishers to not regard exacting social changes as their number one mission. I just wish that there eventually will be enough demand from the parents, teachers, librarians, and the kids themselves to turn the tide. We will then see plenty of non-traditional gender roles in books for children as a matter of fact, not a social changing agent — but a reflection of the world around us.
However, I also don’t want to sit back and just take it passively. Educators and parents CAN help by making some waves in small ways. I wanted to do something about this Ready to Read App.
So, I emailed the marketing director and found that more than one person had expressed our dismay at the Binary Options on the App. The Ready to Read team listened to us and added another option on that page: SKIP. Which allows for parents and teachers to say, “I actually don’t care if the books are stereotypically assigned to girls or boys — just give me stuff at the right level and addressing the kid’s interests… ” I applaud this clever solution!!!
I did another search today:
Skipping gender + Age 6 + Grade 1 + Sports got me:
(curiously) not MORE books and not ALL the books that were assigned to BOTH girls and boys — there are Annie and Snowball and Henry and Mudge — but Robin Hill School and Truck Town are completely missing and no more Childhood of Famous Americans…) I guess the team still needs to work on their algorithm but at least this is a start!
Filed under Uncategorized
Doll Bones
by Holly Black
I was pleased that Holly Black decided to maintain the mystery and the suspense over the paranormal scenario of the story all the way to the very very end. To me, that’s the best part of the whole book. Some other aspects, however, did not speak to me that much. I was told the three main characters’ personalities, a bit of their back stories, and about the fact that they had been best friends with such amazing bonds as telling those fantastical stories…. but, as a reader, I never quite “felt” any of these facts. Partly because on their “quest,” most I saw was their bickering and distrust of each other.
For example, when Zach worried about the two girls’ talking about him behind his back, his thoughts are whether they talked about he smelled bad or that he’s stupid. I would hope, that after being close friends with each other for years, there might have been some darker, deeper secrets or concerns that made Zach squirm.
There are also just so many details that do not advance the plot or our understanding of the characters. A list of 27 flavors of donuts that do not carry overt or hidden meanings baffled me.
I was also puzzled by each character’s ability to succinctly explain why have been acting in such a way toward their friends, sounding like what a therapist might present, after listening to 12/13 year olds relating the events and their feelings. Alice revealed that the reason why she couldn’t believe in Eleanor’s ghost was that “There can’t be a ghost, a real ghost. Because if there is, then some random dead girl wants to haunt Poppy, but my own dead parents can’t be bothered to come back and haunt me.” And Poppy’s confession, “I thought that we could do this thing, and when it was over we’d have something that no one else had — an experience that would keep us together.” Even Zach’s father confessed, “But I’ve been thinking that protecting somebody by hurting them before someone else gets the chance isn’t the kind of protecting that anyone wants.”
Don’t get me wrong — I believe in the validity of all of these statements and those are at the heart of this story — that we act certain ways because there are some additional, underlying emotional reasons which are seldom on the surface for others to interpret quickly or easily. I just have a bit of trouble with how all of these ideas are delivered as “statements” by these characters. I wish that readers had chances to perhaps sort some of these out by ourselves. For example, perhaps in one of the shouting matches, Alice could have said something like, “There are NO GHOSTS! If there are, WHY WOULDN’T MY PARENTS TALK O ME???!!!” (haha.. much exaggerated)
I also was not creeped out enough by the book — and I wish I had been — the cover gave me so much hope!
Filed under Uncategorized
With the help of NPR’s endeavor I now…
With the help of NPR’s endeavor, I now have my own Must Reads for my students! (Coincidentally, my students are exact 9 to 14!) The list contains about 140 titles. Since in my opinion, most of the books on the list are for 4-6 grade students, I consider this a 4-year reading list. This means that a child reader will read about 30 – 35 books to finish “my list” — about 2.5 to 3 books a month. I think of it as a reasonable pace — wonder how it compares in other people’s libraries. [If we go with 100 books over 6 years (9-14) — that will be about 1.5 books a month.]
And of course, there are so many other books that I “hand sell” to kids and are as fun and deserving — The Secret series, Benedict Society, Big Nate, 39 Clues, Warrior, Agatha Christie, Daran Shan, Lupica, Alex Rider, Beacon Street Girls, Abby Haze, Just Grace, Kiki Strike, The New Policeman, David Edding, Tamora Pierce, Peter and the Starcatcher… on and on and on… pretty much impossible to list. And then there are the specific books for specific readers: Amy’s Eyes, Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party, The Witch’s Boy, Elijah of Buxton, Ways to Live Forever, Sunrise Over Falujah, Up on Cloud Nine, The Long Season of Rain, A Banquet of Hungry Ghosts, Half-Minute Horrors, Tulip Touch, Illustrated Mum, Moonbird, Lego, Star Wars Special Effects, Weapons of Lord of the Rings… again… impossible to predict.
Not to mention all the NEWLY PUBLISHED books that are coming at us continuously.
This only proves one thing: a Librarian’s job is never stagnant and we should never rely on only one prescribed list. But, it’s still great to be reminded of titles that I should keep promoting day in and day out. School starts in a month — can’t wait to share books again with the young readers!
