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2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
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@far-to-fall
Last night my husband mentioned that we might want to consider weeding some of our books (we hope to move across country this summer and books are cumbersome when moving). BUT I just got back from Mid-Winter and have at least 20 arcs that I can't wait to read. Solution: I have to read them all as soon as possible so that I can start passing them out to friends and students. I mean, I have the new Rebecca Stead novel. You don't just casually weed stuff like that.
Got a manicure today...
There was a girl, about 10, waiting on her mom. Knitting while she waited for her mom. I talked to her for a moment and encouraged her to keep it up. Spaced and didn’t tell her that the shirt I was wearing was hand knit by me.
Love seeing kids do stuff like knitting.
I allowed kids to knit and crochet in my elementary makerspace, and then I showed them the things I have knit. So kids started coming up to me and showing me their amazing creations.
So many kids were excited about this stuff in the library, that I started a weekly yarn crafts club. It's exploded. Yesterday I spent the entire 4th and 5th grade recess teaching kids how to knit. And students who haven't even been involved in the club are coming in to the library to show me the crochet hooks that their moms bought them or something new they have created.
Boys and girls are showing up to the club, at least 20 a week. Although I did have to convince one of the teachers that if her son came, he wouldn't be the only boy. 😣
I have created a school of crafters.
12 invaluable life lessons we learned from children’s books
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Sometimes picking the right book for a middle grade reader can be a challenge. The best place to start is by looking for a book that matches what they get excited about outside of the pages.
That’s why we’ve cooked up this reading recommendation flowchart for middle grade readers:
...
19 incredible photos of nature winning the battle against civilization
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These are begging to be stories.
A quote from Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White!
Image via bookibookibooki
On Keeping a Notebook by Joan Didion - A great essay about making notes that gets to the very core of the writing process Write Like a Motherfucker by Cheryl Strayed - Raw, emotional advice on the role of humility and surrender in the often tortured world of the writer Thoughts on Writing by Elizabeth Gilbert - On disicpline, hard work, rejection and why it’s never too late to start Write Till You Drop by Annie Dillard - “Do you think I could be a writer?” “I don’t know… . Do you like sentences?”
Everything you Need to Know About Writing Successfully - in Ten Minutes by Stephen King - Short, sharp advice on everything from talent and self-criticism to having fun and entertaining your audience Why I Write by George Orwell - On egoism, a love of beauty, the quest for truth and the desire to change the world — Orwell’s ‘four great motive for writing’. Despite Tough Guys, Life Is Not the Only School for Real Novelists by Kurt Vonnegut - A beautifully argued defence of the role of teaching in developing writers. That Crafty Feeling by Zadie Smith - A lecture by a great essayist and novelist on the craft of writing. A Place You All Know Well by Michael Chabon - On the central role of exporation in writing. The Nature of Fun by David Foster Wallace (excerpt) - DFW on what drives writers to write Uncanny the Singing That Comes from Certain Husks by Joy Williams - “Who cares if the writer is not whole? Of course the writer is not whole, or even particularly well…”
Where Do You Get Your Ideas? by Neil Gaiman - A meditation on inspriation Those Words That Echo…Echo…Echo Through Life by Jamaica Kincaid - Another great essay from the the New York Times Writers on Writing series
How Long Does It Take to Read Popular Books?
Going by the average reading rate of most adults (300 words per minute), Personal Creations mocked up this infographic to put some of literature’s most popular works into perspective.
Via Electric Lit.
I need to save this on my phone for future reference and planning purposes.
"This is why we shouldn’t take seriously the claims of those like Open Carry Texas and others who tell us that they need guns to protect themselves from a tyrannical government and the freedom to openly display their weapons. If they really believed in that, they would be standing between the unarmed crowds in Ferguson and the heavily armed police, because that is an actual example of tyrannical government played out on a local level. The silence is very telling, and totally not unexpected."
This is disturbing.
Let me be clear: Unarmed college hopefuls don’t deserve to be shot. Unarmed kids heading to work or trade school don’t deserve to be shot. Unarmed kids floundering aimlessly through life don’t deserve to be shot. Unarmed kids who have been in trouble—even those who have been nothing but trouble—don’t deserve to be shot. The act of pinning the tragedy of a dead black teen to his potential future success, to his respectability, to his “good”-ness, is done with all the best intentions. But if you read between the lines, aren’t we really saying that had he not been on his way to college, there’d be less to mourn? That’s dead wrong.
Black Kids Don’t Have to Be College-Bound for Their Deaths to Be Tragic by Jasmine Banks (via dederants)
Lemony Snicket, the author responsible for A Series of Unfortunate Events, is now calling on all readers to submit sketches, portraits, illustrations, photographs, trailers, bookmarks, math notes and other art inspired by his newest book series All the Wrong Questions.
To enter this top secret contest, publicly post (or repost) your original All the Wrong Questions art by September 8, 2014 on tumblr, instagram or twitter, using the hashtag #ATWQFanArt. Participation is and should be limited to professional, nonprofessional and unprofessional artists, their associates and friends of friends.
Lemony Snicket will award 13 winners with a print of their work, a $50.00 gift certificate to their favorite bookstore, and signed copies of the All the Wrong Questions series, including the newest volume "Shouldn’t You Be in School?".
Please help keep the #ATWQFanArt contest restricted by sharing this post only with members of our organization and other people.
Questions? Ask here.
so being a reader is basically a constant struggle between deciding on reading what you bought recently, what you bought ages ago and should stop ignoring, and what you really ought to reread.
pretty much.
When the library is made to be seen as a business, rather than the heart of a community or a fundamental service made possible through citizen-approved tax dollars, it makes the library expendable. That expendability then moves down the chain: staff salaries get cut, then staff withers, then more programs and projects that benefit the community — books and movies and CDs and magazines and newspapers and wifi and computer access and database subscriptions and programs for all shapes, colors, and sizes of people — disappear, too. It detracts from the unique aspects that make a library what it is: a place for all, rather than a place for some. Libraries reach out where Netflix reaches in.
Libraries Are Not a “Netflix” for Books | BOOK RIOT (via sdiaz101)
This is why "customers" terminology makes me uncomfortable.
I really want to be a writer, but I'm not sure if I'm talented enough. I was thinking of writing a story for NaNoWriMo and having people review it to see if I had what it takes. Is that a good idea? Do you know of any places I might put it up for review?
I can already tell you what will happen if an inexperienced writer writes their first full length novel in 30 days and puts it up for review. You will get negative feedback.
You’re going to get negative feedback because as an inexperienced writer who attempted to finish a novel in 30 days, your writing will show your inexperience. Not only that, but nearly everyone has a terrible first draft. Even established authors write terrible first drafts. When you get this feedback, you’re going to get discouraged and you might think that you’re not a writer. This is not true.
Writing takes practice. Talent can only go so far. You need to constantly read, write, and edit to be a better writer. Go ahead and do NaNoWriMo if you want to (don’t feel discouraged if you can’t win; there’s nothing wrong with writing at a slow pace), but don’t think that the feedback you get on the first draft of your first novel is what will determine if you’re right for writing. Practice and don’t be afraid to fail.
Here are places to post writing for review.
It seems to me that NaNoWriMo is a great time to encourage writing and practicing your style.
One book in 30 days would be tough for anyone (no matter the length).
I've not actually participated (to be fair), but if in this time frame I was able to finish something that I considered to be a very rough FIRST draft of many, I would be proud.
I feel honored every time someone asks me for a book recommendation because they actually trust my opinion
There is nothing more sacred than a book recommendation.
My absolute favorite is when teachers text me over the summer to ask for book advice for the kids.
Two weeks ago a mom stopped me at Target just to tell me her girls loved a book I suggested, and then asked for another recommendation. She apologized for bothering me, but it made my day.
Can’t wait until September? Read chapter one of Lemony Snicket’s All the Wrong Questions #3: “Shouldn’t You Be in School?” here.
