There's a day, a week, a month for everything. October happens to be National Book Club Month, or Group Reading Month. While I've always enjoyed reading as a strictly solo activity (I've only just joined Good Reads in the last couple of months at my boss's encouragement), expanding it to be a social event can... Continue Reading →
Today concludes National Library Week, a weeklong celebration and observance of the important work that libraries do for communities. The 2018 theme for National Library Week was “Libraries Lead” which prompted me to reflect on the role libraries have played in my parenting, particularly during the hard parts. After my first child -- Blossom --... Continue Reading →
I have a reluctant reader. After reading early (age 3) and reading well, my daughter Blossom seems to have hit a second-grade slump. Life gets more social in second grade, I suppose. She has athletic commitments and friends to giggle with and Minecraft to play. Books have become boring and reading has become a chore.... Continue Reading →
Note: My pregnancy had been awful up to this point. Truly awful. And unhealthy, thanks to cholestasis, gastroparesis, iron-deficient anemia, weight loss, and a mess of other complications. Because of the cholestasis in particular, though, I needed to be induced at 37 weeks or else we risked losing the baby. I couldn't have been more... Continue Reading →
I wrote this piece for CMST 301: Digital Media and Society at UMUC. Students were asked to write about a piece of new technology in digital media and what impact it will have on society. I received an A on this paper. The constant breakneck pace of tech development has made keeping up with digital... Continue Reading →
My youngest is a diehard princess fan. We've watched Frozen more times than I can count, she wants everything in her life to be purple because of Sophia the First, and she insists on wearing a dress almost every single day no matter the weather. "No pants, Mama," she says. "Pants are dumb." (True story, kiddo.)... Continue Reading →
Category: Middle Grade I read The Secret of Nightingale Wood a few months ago after it was recommended to me by the most excellent staffers at the Curious Iguana bookstore in downtown Frederick, MD. I expected a fun and easy read given the genre, but it was compelling and evocative and deeply moving; it caught me off... Continue Reading →
[A book is] a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles.
The following is an essay on the correlation between eBooks and youth literacy rates. This essay was written for my Digital Media & Society class at UMUC and I received an A. Excerpt: The statistics linking literacy to various indicators of success in adulthood (such as employment, financial status, and even level of civic engagement)... Continue Reading →
