How to use this Page

We have each experienced a time professionally during which we didn’t feel educated enough, engaged enough, cool enough for our duties as professionals who serve young adults.  For some of us, our training in YA services has only be on-the-job training (and “training” might be an overstatement!)  YALSA is committed, as demonstrated in its Strategic Plan, to continuous learning and professional development.  But to successfully engage its members, we need your input — your Great Ideas – as to how YALSA can connect members with current information, deliver continuing education, provide more training at local and regional levels with regard to YA services and issues, and increase overall the number of library workers competent in teen and YA services.

Here’s how to help YALSA members and potentially win $250:

1. Review Goal #3 of YALSA’s strategic plan.

2. Review guidelines of YALSA’s Great Ideas Contest.

3. Submit your Great Idea by March 16, 2012

You know you’ve found yourself, at one time or another, thinking, “I wish YALSA would…”  Well, here’s your chance to propose your wish to YALSA, by giving the organization a practical how-to on the topic of continuing education and professional development.

If you have any questions about the application or the process, please feel free to direct them to Priscille Dando, Strategic Planning Committee Chair, at [email protected].

Today’s bits may not be news for some of you anymore, but here they go, in true December-mode (i.e. scrambling to get things done and running behind on almost everything there’s to run behind on):

Lights have shined on Kashmira Sheth’s Keeping Corner, which got a starred review from Kirkus, and Linda Sue Park’s Tap Dancing on The Roof: Sijo Poems, which made the Hornbook Fanfare list in the Poetry category. In this year’s Fanfare we find Tap Dancing on the Roof in the very good company of the likes of National Book Award winner The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (YA fiction) and The Arrival (Picture Book), to mention just two of the many great books that made the prestigious list.

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On a “coming up soon” note, Mitali Perkin’s First Daughter: White House Rules, the follow-up novel to First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover is coming out in Jan 24 from Dutton/Penguin. Hurray for Sameera! It will be nice to catch up with her, as she continues to learn to march to the beat of her own drum. A review will be posted to the PaperTigers website soon (and, no, Mitali, the fact that we haven’t reviewed it yet is not a matter of sequel review syndrome, but most likely of “end of the year chaos” syndrome!)

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And last but not least on today’s set of “sparklers”… Happy second anniversary to Jen Robinson’s Book Page! May her blog continue to inform and enlighten us all for many years to come!