Are you 'the best' at anything?

Introducing the ASLA Teacher Librarian of the Year

May 04, 2023

When he was about eight years old, my youngest son Book Boy Jr (now 16 and enormous) had one goal in life: he wanted to be ‘the best’ at something. Anything. To the point where he would ask me every day to make suggestions for new things he could be ‘the best’ at.

(Sadly, being ‘the best’ at cleaning your bedroom didn’t seem to take…)

We talked endlessly about how doing your best was more important than being the best at something you hadn’t even found yet. But still he persisted. He’s competitive like that.

He got good at all manner of sports in his quest, perfected his somersault by rolling all over the house (don’t ask) and came close to finding his niche with ‘number of backflips performed in succession on a trampoline’ before the springs on the old tramp broke from overuse.

In the way of most kids, his drive to be ‘the best’ got mislaid somewhere around year nine, but the drip-drip-drip repetition of ‘do your best’ combined with that innate persistence (personally, I think he’s a podium finisher in that area) has brought focus and determination in year 11 – right when he needs it.

Why am I telling you this?

Because recently YKNR’s very own Megan Daley was awarded the title of Teacher Librarian of the Year at the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) conference, for her passion, advocacy, focus, determination and ‘outstanding contribution to the profession of school librarianship’.

We hope you’ll join us in congratulating Megan. Allison Rushby and I have always known Megan is The Best, and we’re absolutely chuffed for her! You can read more about how Megan felt about winning the award in her update later in the newsletter.

Find out more

UPDATES FROM TEAM YKNR

The Your Kid’s Next Read Facebook community is celebrating its SIXTH anniversary this month. This pic was taken in 2018, just after our first anniversary, on one our rare opportunities to get together as a team. Look how young and fresh-faced we all are (l-r: Allison Rushby, Megan Daley, Allison Tait)! (Or perhaps that’s just the dodgy pixellation…)

Thanks to all our community members for sticking with us!

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HELLO FROM ALLISON RUSHBY

The award-winning, bestselling author of many, many books for children and adults, Allison Rushby’s novels are firm favourites in the Your Kid’s Next Read community. Her latest illustrated junior fiction series, The Wish Sisters, is fast gaining fans. More about Allison R here.

It’s been BICHOK around here (in case you don’t speak writer, that’s Butt In Chair Hands On Keyboard) as it’s a perfect storm of edits, copyedits, first pages, books being released (hello Miss Penny Dreadful and the Malicious Maze!) and upcoming events.

Someone please remind me why I agreed to release seven books this year (can’t complain, will complain)? Also, soccer season is in full swing and the cat is sick.

FUN TIMES!

Despite all this, we have been running some GLORIOUS giveaways at YKNR. I was beyond thrilled to get to message Rachel Burke (she of the tinsel jacket!) for our Craft Roach giveaway. I will never look at cockroaches the same way again. I mean, they could be creating fabulous craft when they’re not running over my kitchen bench!

Keep an eye out for another great Mother’s Day giveaway starting soon courtesy of HarperCollins.

THREAD OF THE MONTH

From Allison R: I’m constantly surprised at the amazing recommendations YKNReaders receive when posting that they are looking for a particular sort of book. Recently, we’ve had people asking for recommendations on all sorts of topics, from books set in Venice to the best translations of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Without fail, our members tend to receive not a few, but quite a few suggestions. Go you guys!

MORE RECOMMENDATIONS

HELLO FROM MEGAN DALEY

Megan is an award-winning teacher-librarian working in Brisbane, the author of Raising Readers: How to nurture a child’s love of books, and co-host of the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast. She is also a sought after public speaker, literary judge, creator of the popular website Children's Books Daily and the 2023 curator for Word Play for Brisbane Writers Festival. More about Megan here.

It's been a huge month in the Daley Arkadieff household. On the family front we've done a roadtrip (great) and a beach camping trip (I survived...just) and we're now into term two sporting and music chaos. With four kids across three sports and four instruments, there is a lot of early morning drop offs and late evening pick ups and the logistics of it all is spreadsheet worthy!

Work wise, I was incredibly honoured to receive the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) Australian Teacher Librarian of the Year Award sponsored by SCIS. ASLA has been such a support to me throughout my career, so to receive this award really was an honour.

Of course, this award could go to many other teacher librarians. All I do differently to any of the other quality teacher librarians I know is squawk a little louder (which my family will attest to) about the importance of introducing young people and their parents and carers to the wonder of children’s literature and the joy of libraries.

MEGAN’S BOOKMARK REVIEWS

Each month, I share full reviews of two outstanding books that have crossed my desk. Bookmark these for your young readers.

Poppy, The Queen and The Seat by Vikki Marmaras. Illustrated by Caterina Metti

Poppy is a princess and she wants to sit.

Of course, she deserves the best, and the queen goes to extraordinary lengths to soothe her daughter's tantrum. Even giving up her throne!

But, alas, that is not the best seat in the palace.

This is a gorgeous story celebrating the best seat in any family being the lap of a loved adult. In typical Red Paper Kite fashion, this book offers so much more as a teaching resource, with illustrator sketchbooks on the endpapers and a note from the author about the editing process.

Stay for Dinner by Sandhya Parappukkaran. Illustrated by Michelle Pereira

Stay for Dinner is a powerful story that celebrates culture and connection through food, from the creators of The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name, winner of the 2022 Children's Book Council of Australia's Award for New Illustrator.

Reshma loves dinnertime with her family. Her family eat with their hands – not just finger food type–eating, but hands-on squishy eating. When she’s invited to stay for dinner at her friends’ places, she finds out that they all eat in different ways. Some go ting ting with their cutlery, and others go click clack with their chopsticks. So what will her friends say when they see her family eat with their hands?

A glorious celebration of how we eat around the world and the joy of meals shared with those you love.

HELLO FROM ALLISON TAIT

Writing as A. L. Tait, Allison is the internationally published, bestselling author of eight novels for middle-grade readers across three series: The Mapmaker Chronicles, The Ateban Cipher and the Maven & Reeve Mysteries. She is an in-demand speaker for author visits and literary festivals, a writing teacher for kids and adults, co-host of the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast and former co-host of the So You Want To Be A Writer podcast. More about Allison here.

Like Allison R, I have also been in BICHOK mode, working through the editing process for THE FIRST SUMMER OF CALLIE MCGEE, my new middle-grade novel, coming on 1 August 2023 (pre-orders now available here!).

It’s an exciting time, but also one filled with trepidation. I don’t think it matters how many books you write and publish, it always feels like the first time. I thought it would get easier but… nope. Each book is an individual and brings its own challenges.

And, of course, you want every book to be The Best… (I wonder if that’s where Book Boy Jr gets it …)

In other news, my eldest son Book Boy is now winging his way overseas on his own epic adventure and I’m equal parts excited for him, anxious and envious.

Fortunately for me, I have his EP to listen to when I’m missing him (or maybe that will just reduce me to a puddle…) – and, as I told him, he can listen to the podcast any time he wants to hear my voice.

Strangely*, he didn’t seem as excited about this idea as I thought he would be...
*not strangely at all

AUTHOR GUEST POSTS

I’m lucky enough to have a new author guest post on my blog this week. It always gives me great pleasure to open up my established blog (13+ years) to the author members of our Facebook community – giving them space to talk about their books and areas of interest and not break the strict ‘no self-promo’ rule that helps to keep YKNR such an engaged and healthy community.

This week, I’m welcoming author and journalist Catherine Bauer into my world to share her thoughts on the importance of continuing to teach young Australians about history in general, and the Holocaust in particular. Catherine’s new book Tulips For Breakfast is the extensively researched story of Adelina, who is living in hiding in Amsterdam during the Second World War.

You can read the post here.

Other popular author guest posts include:

7 books about consent for kids under 10 by Charlotte Barkla

5 picture books that explore cultural diversity with grandparents by Inda Ahmad Zahri

15 amazing Australian novels for readers 10+ (on their way to YA) by Emily Gale and Nova Weetman

21 books for kids who like science (and those who don’t know they like science yet) by Cristy Burne

Why class read-aloud novels are important (and how to choose one) by Sue Whiting

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ON THE PODCAST

Oh boy, it’s been an exciting couple of weeks for the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast as we sailed past the 100 EPISODES milestone!

We under-celebrated (of course), but Megan and I are so delighted we’ve made it this far – and even more delighted that so many listeners have come with us for the journey.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with us (and our #qualitywaffle) – we look forward to bringing you more of what we love about everything kids’ books and reading!

And thank you especially to everyone who has left us the gift of a review. We love to hear from you!

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MAY BOOKMAIL WINNER

Each month, we’re giving away a prize pack consisting of some of the brilliant bookmail sent to us for the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast. One winner* is chosen from our subscriber list by random draw and announced here!

There are TEN books in the May prize pack.

The MAY bookmail giveaway winner is …

Abbey Copeland

Congrats! We’ll be in touch by email.

*Australian mailing addresses only. Prize consists of one copy of each book pictured, sent as a pack to the winner by Australia Post. Winner will be contacted by email and prize must be claimed within 14 days or a redraw will take place. You must be subscribed to the YKNR newsletter by midnight (AEDST) the night before publication each month to be eligible to win. No correspondence will be entered into.