Oklahoma Librarian

I am on a quest to Read and Reduce my TBR list! I will pick out a few books at a time to give my attention to and decide if my passion for the book burns bright or has fizzled out. I will share my decisions and hopefully inspire others to add or cull it from your lists. The last post I did had me at 557 books, and I've been reading a lot recently!  I'm starting with  546 books  on my list.  I. The Dead of Summer by Ryan La Sala Horror, Young Adult, Queer - 400 pages - Published in 2025 Two days before... Ollie Veltman is finally coming home to the quaint island of Anchor's Mercy after a year away while his mom battled cancer. It should be a celebration -- his mom is cancer free, and she's determined to have the best summer ever -- but Ollie's (now ex) best friends think he abandoned them, and he's returning with a lot questions. Because for a place that's perfect on the outside, a secret rots inside. A secret that could explain his mom's illness, and th...

   A Girl Scout helped us make a kindness rock garden in front of our library to get her bronze medal last year. I did an event over the summer of 2025 to have new rocks added to the garden. I didn't take any pictures, but I'll tell you how it went down! I purchased (and found) rocks, fresh paint pens, acrylic paint, paper plates, paint brushes, and clear spray paint to seal the rocks. The rocks are the most expensive part, and I have to get some new ones every time. I asked my coworkers to bring me good painting rocks for future events to help lower the cost of them.  I did this event on a Tuesday at 4:30 pm. Not my normal day, but it turned out great! Before I started the event, I made a few paper plate pallets with a small amount of every paint color I had for them to use. The last time I did a rock painting event, we wasted a lot of paint. The rocks are small, so they only need a little bit, and we can always get more. I let everyone pick out two rocks to start with, ...

Kid Librarian is an event I started over the summer that has gone really well. I have one kid with their parents come in between the ages of 7 and 12 years old. We work together to make an 11 x 17 sign that says what their book display is about and pull 15 to 20 titles.  I started this because I wanted to give kids a sense of ownership of the library and the children's area. I love working one-on-one with people and getting to know the kids that come to my events as well. Our Easy book collection has a flat top where we have other items on display. The book display faces our Tween collection, so it's perfect for this. This space allows us to have a 11 x 17 poster, 5 face out books, and 2 bookends to hold extra titles.  I created the form below for kids to fill out if they are interested in making a display. I first tested out this idea with a kid that has been coming to many of my events for months. We already had a good relationship, so she was an easy first kid to test my pr...

I am on a quest to Read and Reduce my TBR list! I will pick out a few books at a time to give my attention to and decide if my passion for the book burns bright or has fizzled out. I will share my decisions and hopefully inspire others to add or cull it from your lists. The last post I did had me at 552 books, and I've added a few books since then, but not many! I'm starting with  558 books  on my list.  I. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi Fantasy, Magical Realism, Contemporary - 213 pages - Published in 2015 What would you change if you could go back in time? In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time. In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them...

This is the second part of my reading over the summer. Hip hip hooray for the end of summer! Reading Stats for July This month had some really good books for me.  Books Read in July 2025   The Survivor Wants to Die at the End  by Adam Silvera ★★★★★ This was a good addition to the story so far. I wish that the book they kept referring to was real!    Dear Hero  by Hope Bolinger ★★★☆☆ This story was told through text messages. It was fascinating that they kept texting different group chats and creating new ones constantly. Cute story.    The New Recruit Vol. 01  by Moscareto ★★★★☆ I love a good manhwa. I'll eat it up every time.   The Infinity Courts  by Akemi Bowman ★★★☆☆ Interesting concepts but the internal struggles in Nami got old real quick.   When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Kelley ★★★★★ I want to read this again for the first time. Historical, romance, and fantasy all in one....

Working during the summer at a public library can be hectic. The past two summers seemed like a breeze compaired to this one! There was one week where I had 4 events that I had to plan or host on top of the things I need to do everyday. I decided to take an impromptu break from writing for this blog. I'm back now and I have a lot to write about! I'll start with the books I read. May TBR Revisited Fearless  by Lauren Roberts - Finish the trilogy For Whom the Belle Tolls  by Jaysea Lynn - almost 700 pages A Man and His Cat Vol. 13  by Umi Sakurai Lord Hades's Ruthless Marriage Vol.1  - 3 by Yuho Ueji How I Met My Soulmate, Vol 2  by Anashin Children of the Whales, Vol 2  by Abi Umeda Otaku vampire's love bite Vol. 1  by Julietta Suzuki The Midnight Library  by Matt Haig  A Fate Forged in Fire  by Hazel McBride - 400 pages Caught Up  by Navessa Allen To get that last Goodreads bookmark, I'm going to read one or more of the followi...