Monday, April 30, 2018

Your 2018 AASL Social Media Superstars....So Honored To Be Part Of This Group!

Today, was an awesome day! 

I had the honor of being awarded the 2018 Leadership Luminary Social Media Superstar Award from AASL as part of the celebration of School Library Month. 


AASL Social Media Superstars honors school library professionals who enrich the profession and its work on behalf of students by sharing information, expertise, ideas, encouragement, dialog and inspiration widely via a variety of social media channels. After reviewing all of the endorsements left by peers and the original nominations, the Social Media Recognition Committee is proud to announce the following 2018 Social Media Superstars!
As I watched the video announcement, 
I was thrilled to hear that I would join this amazing group of Social Media Superstars including my friends and colleagues Ashley Cooksey, Nikki D Robertson, Jennifer LaGarde, Heather Moorefield-Lang and Chelsea Sims. I am so inspired by each and every one of these amazing school librarians each and every day. 
I am also so proud of all of the finalists this year as each one of these wonderful school librarians are making an impact in their libraries, communities and throughout the world.  You can read about all of the finalists here and follow them too. 
I would also love to thank all of you who nominated and endorsed me for this award.  It truly means the world to me.  I was very happy to see this Wordle today and felt so loved reading all of the words from all of you.

Thank you. 
To be the 2018 Leadership Luminary AASL Social Media Superstar is one of the best honors I have ever received.  I am so passionate about being connected and using social media for not only ourselves, but to connect our libraries, librarians, educators and most of all, our students, to the world and opportunities like never before.  

Together, using social media and making amazing connections, we can all make a difference and be the change and leaders we wish to see in the world!  


Sunday, April 29, 2018

Sweet Revenge....A New Cookbook Of 50 Killer Recipes For Your Exes & Enemies!


Last week, I visited the Capstone office in Minnesota.  I always love going to the office and seeing lots and lots of wonderful new books from Capstone.  

While I was here, I finally got my hands on one that I have wanted to add to my....

shelf of cookbooks since it came out earlier this year. 
It is called Sweet Revenge by....

Heather Kim, who is a pastry chef, painter, tattoo artist and now the author of one amazing book!  
On the Capstone site, they share...

50+ killer cakes, cookies, and candies for your exes and enemies.  Dumped by your beefcake boyfriend? BFF steal your one-and-only? Lab partner a more-than-periodic no-show? Don't take these battles online (Seriously don't do that, okay?) Get out your heaviest rolling pins, sharpest cleavers, and most blistering torches, and kill your enemies and exes...with kindness.  
If that doesn't have you dying to read this book and cook up some of the awesome recipes, check out the Publisher Weekly starred review Sweet Revenge earned.  

Pastry chef and tattoo artist Kim serves up a fierce dessert book for readers seeking vengeance against exes or others who have wronged them. Pun-heavy recipe names include “I Couldn’t Carrot All Cake,” “You’ve Got a Latte Balls,” and “I Don’t Give a Fig About You,” and the adventurousness of the recipes (Cheeto ice cream sandwiches, anyone?) cleverly underscores the cookbook’s “out with the old” mentality. Photographs of the sticky, indulgent desserts are paired with heavy-metal-esque fonts and Kim’s irreverent commentary. There’s wisdom in Kim’s kitchen magic: “Sweet Revenge is about taking all your bittersweet memories, mixing in a little flour and sugar, and creating something delicious AF out of them,” she writes. Readers in postbreakup mode or stewing over a double-crossing bestie should find much-needed laughs in Kim’s no-holds-barred tone and will likely repurpose these recipes for sweeter occasions. Ages 14–up. 

Let me show you inside Sweet Revenge!  
From the moment you open it up and see the contents, you will be smiling and wanting to know more about Forgetting You Was A Piece Of Cake, Buh-Bye Sweet Stuff and more. 

Throughout the book, Heather includes so much fun from level of burn to be delivered or the degree of recipe difficulty to several inserts like Revenge, Servings, Bake Time and my favorite, 
Hacks. 

All of the recipes made me smile as I read...

and looked at all of the fun pictures that accompany each yummy recipe.  

You will find Sweet Revenge on the Capstone site here
And follow Heather on Facebook,
and Twitter at @missbuneluv to learn more about one of my favorite new cookbook authors!  I know you will LOVE this one too. 

Bringing India Back In Our Hearts and To Our Home

Hagan, Eric and I traveled to Chennai, India earlier this year.  We have so many special memories from our trip.  We met such kind people, 
 saw many beautiful and....
 historical sites,
 enjoyed the markets and temples,
learned a lot about the schools,
 and loved meeting and working with librarians, teachers and young people of all ages.
We even spent a day in Frankfurt, Germany on the way back home to Iowa. 
When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to find books and publishers from these places. While at the conference in India, we came across one that left such an impression on us.
Tara Books is right in Chennai.  They brought lots of their books to the school where the conference was being held.  During each break, I would go back to their booth to read and look through them again, finding another one I loved.
On the second day of the conference, they brought several prints that were illustrations from their books.

Eric, Hagan and I fell in love with the illustrations from Drawing From The City, which we bought the day before.

As we looked through the illustrations, they made the book come to life and best of all, they made all of the things we saw while in Chennai come to life too.  
 
We wanted to learn more about the story woven throughout the book.
As we read the back of the book, we learned about Tejubehan, also known as Teju, who is the artist.

It says, She is now a middle age woman, and in this book, she has drawn the story of her incredible journey from endemic poverty into the rich inner world of art.  
We turned to the back to read even more about Teju.  I loved reading about her journey and that Drawing from the City is a celebration and a tribute to her husband Ganeshbhai, who passed away at the time the book was complete.
You can read more about Teju and the book designed, Nia Thandopani here
We chose three of Teju's prints to bring back with us. 
This month we had them framed and added these prints and all of the memories of India to our home. 

As I stood back and looked at them today, I got out Drawing From The City .
 I thought about the people, 
and their beautifully colored clothes. 
I thought about all of the different homes, markets, 
 
and temples we saw.  I thought about the history of India and how proud they were to share it with us every chance they had. 
I thought about the sounds of the traffic and all the ways to travel in Chennai and India.
I thought about seeing cows walking down the streets, children riding in Tuk Tuk's home from school and Hagan smiling as he talked to all of the people we met.
When we were at the school in India, two young women who were art students in Chennai, added beautiful henna to my hands.  It stayed on my hands for over two weeks, fading away a little bit more each day. I was very sad when it was all gone and wished it could have stayed longer.

The memories the three of us had in India will stay with us forever.  And now every time I walk into our home, I will see the drawings from the city and remember a place we truly love. 

Thank you Teju and Tara Books for helping us bring back a piece of India to our home and forever in our hearts. 

Keep School Library Month 2018 With You All Year Long!

As we wrap up a wonderful School Library Month, we all look back at the amazing resources, events and ideas that were shared and celebrated in April.  

I learned so much all four weeks by following along and participating in lots of ways including conferences like TLA; the AASL School Library Month site; Knowledge Quest blog; during special AASL webinars; on Twitter and Instagram following #AASLslm and #SLM18; and from school librarians, educators and others each and every day.  

I gathered up these resources, events and ideas each week and shared them in four special Collections by Destiny.  These are public and will be available forever.  The four Collections include....
 Making Learner Connections Collection from Week 1,
 Making Educator Connections Collections from Week 2,
 Making Community Connections Collection from Week 3,

I will continue to add resources that fit into each as I come across them and please share things with me that fit too.  

I hope everyone had a very special School Library Month. I am inspired by all of the things that are happening in our libraries and schools.  You are making a difference for communities, teachers, families and most of all, the children that you work with everyday. Together during this month, and all throughout the year, we can make a difference together and show the importance of school libraries and librarians.  

Let's keep this celebration going all year long, friends.