The Rest of Saturday at ALA

Stan Lee was definitely the highlight of Saturday at the conference.  I checked out a couple more sessions, but they weren't really what I was looking for.  I went to "Common Core State Standards and General Education: Information Literacy Connects the Dots."  I was hoping to learn more about the Common Core Standards, more details of the ins and outs and other states implementation stories, but that's not really what it was.  It was just going over the basics, which was probably helpful for many but just not what I was looking for. 

I then checked out a session called "Teens, Turntables, and Tater-tots: Lunchroom Outreach with CLP-BAM! (Books and More)."  I thought that sounded cool, doing library lunchroom outreach.  What I did not realize was that CLP-BAM! was an organization that comes into your school to do this outreach for you.  So it wasn't exactly the focus I was looking for.  I did really like the idea though, even if I don't use the actual program itself.  I think it's great for the librarian to get out of the library (which I know is not always possible, especially when you're the only one) and do some outreach.  Lunch time is a great time to do this.  Some of the suggestions BAM! had was bringing popular books to lunch and doing remote check-outs, and getting kids signed up for library cards.

A came back with a lot of books on Saturday.  Like, 25 of them.  Since I'm moving from high school to middle school, I was asking all the vendors for suggestions of middle grade reads that would be coming out that I should be aware of.  I got some great stuff that I'm looking forward to reading.  In particular:

Sisters by Rain Telgemeier, a companion graphic memoir to Smile.  I'm sure it will be just as popular as Smile and Drama.  That is to say, very popular.

Smek for President! by Adam Rex.  I had no idea there was a follow up to The True Meaning of Smekday!  That book was excellent.  Really looking forward to reading this.

Kazu Kibuishi has been seriously ill, so it was great to see he's doing better and continuing on with the fabulous Amulet series.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson.  I've been hearing wonderful things about this one, and it's Jacqueline Woodson, so how can you go wrong?