For years I've valued your contributions to library discourse as a children's librarian. I expect I will also value your contributions as a collection development librarian. ;-) Life's a journey, and all that.

Hang in there, Abby. Transitional times are always the hardest, and summer makes it almost impossible to process it all. Wishing you some peace of mind as you make your way forward... one step at a time.

My recurring library stress dream is that I go into storytime, and I'm 10 minutes late, and all my books are totally inappropriate and boring, and people keep entering and leaving the room. Or that I'm hosting a computer-based class for middle schoolers, but only toddlers show up.

I really appreciated this post, Abby. I'd add that if a book you loved didn't win an award, take this opportunity to send a note to the author/illustrator letting them know you love it! Of course we can always do this anyway, but authors love to know their books have touched readers. This is a good time to bring the love.

I feel this. I know I've hit a wall when not only am I reluctant to pick up a book -- any book, for any reason -- but when I do, I don't enjoy it. I DNF'ed a couple of books in the past few weeks that have gotten rave reviews and are likely Newbery contenders, and I just couldn't engage! So, when this happens, yes: I back off. I don't force it. I watch more TV. Or I read grownup comics. Whatever. I do what I need to do a decent job at work, and cut myself some slack in my personal time. My most intensive reading experience was serving as a judge on the Society of Midland Authors Children's Fiction panel last year, and it was so much work I knew immediately I'd never be able (or want) to judge for an even bigger award!

What a beautiful space!

I like it! Especially, I confess, the "walking s'mores." I've thought periodically that I'd like to do a campfire-style sing-along, but no campfire's complete without s'mores, right? I love the "fire," too.

I've been updating my department's list of elementary school and middle school science fiction suggestions, and I've observed that the gender balance *is* skewed. Among books for younger kids (early chapter books, lower middle grade), books with boy protagonists vastly outnumber the books with girl protagonists.

This has made it difficult to update our elementary school list with fresh material while retaining even a semblance of balance. My list from 3 years ago is boys:girls :: 2:1 -- as good as I could get it at the time. When I looked at what has been published in the past three years, the ratio is even more skewed toward boy protagonists.

In my observation, gender representation is much more balanced in upper middle grade and YA. Why the difference? It seems to be correlated with subgenre. Those younger science fiction books largely focus on wacky alien encounters and mad scientists -- lots of humor. Over all the books get more serious as you get older, delving into dystopian societies and thoughtful ponderings about the future. Makes sense. So my sense is that the gender imbalance in the younger books is a product of the usual assumptions about gender and humor -- that boys want funny books to a greater degree than girls do; that boys won't read about girls; therefore... tons of wacky sci fi adventures about boys, and only a handful about girls.

Admittedly, my library draws its line between the elementary and middle school collections fairly young. Even so, the pattern stands. Interestingly/fortunately, graphic novels -- I'm thinking Zita the Spacegirl and Cleopatra in Space -- are working against the grain in this regard. But I'd like to see more young sci fi chapter books starring girls show up on the shelves.

Sorry, Abby, your post set me off on a crazy-long train of thought there... :-)

Thanks for the refresher, Abby! Can you say more about how the committee decides whether to award Honors and how many? Like, does that come directly from the vote that decides the winner, or are there subsequent rounds of voting? Is it based on number of votes, or is there some other kind of consensus that happens?

Nice! We are continuing our version of the program at my library. This month's theme is... dun dun DUN... animal fiction! We're doing both fantasy and realistic, though. I love how it continues to get me out of my own "reading box" (I *finally* read an Erin Hunter book!) and expose me to my coworkers' choices, too. And my coworkers continue to be good sports about participating. :-)