Same me but now with more ink!

Every summer around this time I have a nightmare where the school has moved the library to some room I’ve never seen and I have to quickly reorganize EVERYTHING but the kids show up and they’re all loud and mean and no matter what I do nothing helps so I wind up questioning my career choices.

Fourth of July? Nah, we went all in on Summerween this year. #summerween

🌟 Pop! Goes The Reader's 42 Most-Anticipated Middle Grade Books: July-September 2025 🌟 popgoesthereader.com/42-most-anti... #BookSky #MGLit #KidLit

I’m attempting to turn this into a cat-friendly sanctuary for our ferals. This is the before and after (so far). When I say I had a brush with death trying to get rid of all that poison ivy, I mean it. It’s trying to kill me y’all.

I can’t help but hear Meryl Streep’s voice any time Donut speaks in the Dungeon Crawler Carl books. @mattdinniman.bsky.social, thank you for such a fun series!

I just realized the manuscript I’m working on right now would do very well with a map. WHICH MEANS I GET TO MAKE A MAP FOR MY STORY!!!! Which also means I’ll be obsessing over that for the next several weeks. Good times, good times. #writesky #writingcommunity #author #scifi

Wild question, but is there anyone out there who is fluent enough in Russian who could help me out with some phrases (mainly some not-so-nice ones) for a manuscript? #writingcommunity #writing #author #authors #writinghelp #russian

Human noses on cats y’all. #cat #cats #art #artist #artcommunity #catparents #sketchbook

I feel like we’re all Season 2 Player 456 going into 2025. #squidgame #squidgame2 #art

Started reading We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer and immediately picked up on the House of Leaves vibes only to be validated by this fun Easter egg a bit later on:

The only thing more dangerous than a rich egomaniac in charge is a stupid rich egomaniac in charge and I fear we've got about a baker's dozen of them at this point.

hello, is anyone from saturday night live on here? and would you like to see a fan-drawn commercial bumper with many drawings of Mr Martin Short in santa hats??

Depression: Do you have it? Or are you just a Pisces? A question I ask myself on the daily 😂

Felt cute, might delete later.

This makes me sound way cooler than I actually am, but I’ll take it.

Went to work out today and saw a former student at the gym. Him: Hey, Mr. B! Me: Hey, K! Him: I didn’t know librarians lifted weights. Me: Yeah, it’s how we train to shelve books. Him: Nice. Me: Also bigger muscles means more space for tattoos.

This is giving I’m going to start a restaurant where I steal scraps off people’s tables in other restaurants and repackage them with some extra salt and charge them because why not?

They could use both! Also, I’m not sure what kind of outreach publishing has with librarians, but something tells me there’s a bit of a disconnect between the two.

Seriously, though, thrillers. April Henry IS my thriller section, so If anyone has more recommendations for middle-school-appropriate thrillers, I’m all ears!

Since we’ve been talking trends, I figured I’d share some more I’m seeing in my middle school library: 1) thrillers 2) scary (like real scary and not spoopy scary) 3) books students see excerpts of on iReady 4) books like certain video games (Fortnite, Red Dead, CoD especially)

Another thing I’m trying to teach teachers I work with? Shorter chapters and short books don’t have to be stepping stories to long books with big chapters. Some readers simply prefer shorter stories. Others like longer ones. We need both types of books and both are totally valid.

Graphic novels get devoured at our school and I’ve heard the same from librarians everywhere. NIV are sleeper hits for my students once I convince them it’s less short form nature poetry and more epic album you read the lyrics to.

Oooh, I bet there’s a correlation there that would make some publishers and bookstores cry! And when we think of the effect having a lack of these books carries over to when these readers are adults? That’s make everyone else cry too.

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

Awesome! That one year difference makes it so much easier to “sell” a book to 7th graders! Now if we can start getting some more 14 and 15 year old MCs…

100% There’s a gap that I know publishing is so desperately trying to fill, but since it all comes down to $ it feels like nothing more than a catch-22 right now.

Same! If they do exist I haven’t found them. Anyone know of any good books that fit this mold?

Yes! I don’t know how many books talks I’ve given where students immediately perk up if I mention the book is a quick read or has short chapters. That stuff is just as important as story is to some younger (and heck, older) readers!

So true! I’ve even had a few students ask me for books where the action starts in chapter one. I totally get that. Students nowadays have so much pressure put on them (testing AND social media? No thanks) so maybe a quick enjoyable read is exactly what they need.

Ditto!

Absolutely this! So many of my readers are asking for 1) thrillers, scary, dark 2) funny This makes total since to me since so many adults I know are wanting the same types of stories right now.

This, too! This is one of the many reasons I love #BookTok because it has some amazing tween and teen reviewers. I get so many good recommendations that way.

This! My 8th grade readers (and even the majority of my 7th graders) are looking for that step in the reading ladder between MG and upper YA. Edgy, but safe. As their ms librarian, I’m desperately looking for that too!

I’m learning that MG publishing is in a slump. As a middle school librarian, this baffles me because kids are reading more than they have in years past. Do we need to change *how* kids and teens are getting access to these books? Do we need to rethink MC ages? Does MG need to evolve?

My Life Plans: the 2024 election:

If I said he was going to appoint Diddy as the Head of the Party Planning Committee, you’d still probably look it up to make sure I was joking. I swear we’re living in our own parody.

If anyone would like to help out my amazing wife’s first grade class and purchase some books ‘n plushies for Christmas, I know she (and the kids) would love it! www.kohls.com/babyregistry...

Officially deactivated my Twitter account. I’ll be here all week.

I think I’ve finally figured out what the creature/man/entity in the Sinister franchise is supposed to symbolize: Artificial intelligence bastardizing art. In essence, both do the same thing—they make monsters out of our babies. Thoughts? #movies #Sinister #ai

For years my students have been telling me I should voice act for cartoons. Today I submitted my very first audition.

A Quiet Place: Day One Two strangers and a cat embark on a quest to find the best pizza in NYC during the monster apocalypse. 10/10 would watch again #aquietplacedayone #aquietplace #describeamoviebadly #moviereviews

Highlight of my week in the library: Reading the first chapter of SOME KIND OF COURAGE by Dan Gemeinhart and having half a dozen middle schoolers put it on hold when I told them it had serious Red Dead Redemption vibes.

Audrey, our cat, loves her toys, but she loves the packaging her toys come in even more. My theory? Audrey is anti-capitalist and pro-recycling. I’m so proud of her. #cats #pets #rescueanimals

Literally drove back to school stuck behind a funeral procession. Looking forward to a good year y’all! 🙃 #teaching #librarian #school

More and more cats are starting to hang out around our house. It's taken 45 years, but I finally feel popular.

If you see this, post something fantasy/DnD from your portfolio. #TTRPG #Art #Illustration #DnD #KidLitArt

Explain your book/WIP in one short sentence badly: Boy is trouble, rents out fists for cash.

Do you think maybe the reason shoulder pads went out of style is because the population got so high we just didn’t have the room anymore?