Di's Soapbox

Got to spend the morning at GMMS talking books with Suzanne, a enthusiastic new librarian who has been working on her library all summer. Some really cool things in there including a table covered with book jackets with a plexiglass cover over them. She's also come up with some nice display areas. Then it was on to Rocky Mountain Elementary to see how the redesign and new carpeting look. They also have a bunch of great Edward Gonzales posters that are gorgeous and inspiring. Then I stopped by Clifton Elementary and Fruitvale Elementary. Libraries are terrific places.

I visited the Volusia County Library in Daytona Beach last week and enjoyed talking with the staff. They had a great volunteer teen working in the teen area there so we had fun discussion various recent books including Ship Breaker .

Floridians also have an advantage when it comes to libraries. I hear that every public school has at least one certified librarian/ library media specialist. With that in place it will be so much easier to build a populace of life-long independent learners. One school for sure will have an extraordinary library program as Cappi Arroyo, an outstanding librarian has moved there and will be running the library and teaching library skills, aka information literacy, aka 21st century skills.

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I've been on Twitter for a while now and often find it usefull. I seem to use it and GoodReads the most. I also like Shelfari but LibraryThing has deleted my account again.

Genrefluent is your headquarters for information about Readers' Advisory and genre fiction for adults and teens.

Here you will find reviews on novels in a variety of genres including, crime, science fiction, adventure, thrillers, romance, fantasy, horror, paranormal, historical fiction, westerns, and romance.

Took off the Amazon widget because of their very weird censorship thing but all my reviews are still here or at GoodReads. Check the widget at the top right for Books of the Week

Click on the teen page for reviews written by teens of current novels . There you will also find links for teen reviews of books nominated for YALSA selected lists.

Don't forget to read the free Reader's Advisor Online Blog to keep up with what reader's advisors will want to know every week. And, if your library hasn't tried one of the free trials of Reader's Advisor Online, please do. I think it is the best electronic RA tool in existance. I particularly love how well it works for fiction reference which is often one of the steps required when performing reader's advisory.

Check out Good Reads to see some of my other recent reads. Lots and lots of wonderful books have been coming my way lately so expect to see more here in the next few weeks.

Remember there is a search box at the bottom of this page. If you click on Genrefluent it will search this site. Check for reviews and teen comments on your favorite books or for suggestions of good reads.

My latest book, Fluent in Fantasy: The Next Generation (co-written with fantasy diva Bonnie Kunzel) came out last January.

Some of the reviews written by "my" teens and some of my own reviews are included in The Ultimate Teen Book Guide. It's pretty thrilling to be in a book with so many of my heroes.

Happy reading.

Last week's note.