I'm finished!

I enjoyed the work, the sessions definitely taught me a lot about Reader's Advisory. To be honest, I am not a fan of online learning or trainings; to me, it is at your own pace and becomes lax. With a interactive group discussion and training would be better.


I would recommend having a meeting halfway through to discuss the sessions face to face and a meeting for the last session as well and also to throw opinions and different insights of the trainings, and not just reading everyone's reviews online.


But it was great!

Book Trailers (week #9)

This is my first time hearing about book trailers actually being a thing so I had no expectations when looking for some YouTube, but I was presently surprised at how captivating they were. Some are done by libraries, while others are made by the book publishing media outlets. I honestly think they are an awesome way to promote books. The book trailers remind me of TV show trailers, adding to the drama of the book which hooks the reader, and also gives an example of the imagination by adding the visual of the book.

week #8 part 4: Recommending Non-fiction

Wild by Cheryl Strayed is a memoir of a woman who takes a 1100-mile solo hike who loses everything, and through her adventure, she becomes herself again. This book is pretty popular because it just became a movie last year. It has an inspiring tone and a descriptive and lyrical writing style which is relative to travel fiction.


The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is a well-told story of the events taken during the building and events of the Worlds Fair which took place in Chicago, circa1893. Larson depicts the true life events of Daniel H. Burham, who was the architect of the Worlds Fair, and of Dr. H. H. Holmes, a serial killer who used the Worlds Fair to lure victims. This book is very engaging and has a suspenseful and disturbing tone. It is very detailed and gritted. I would recommend this book to anyone that reads true crime or murder mystery fiction.

week #8 part 3: Nonfiction Genres

The four non-fiction genres that I find narrative styles in are History (940), Crime (364), Travel-Adventure (910-920) and Biographies. Not all bios with narrative styles are in the Biography sections; for example, Yes, Please by Amy Poehler is a American humor nonfiction but it is also an autobiography of American comedian Amy Poehler, and I would recommend to someone that usually reads humor fiction. The Devil in the White City (crime) and Dead Wake (history) are both by Erik Larson but are different genres of non-fiction. He is a great narrative non-fiction, able to tell a factual story with suspense that grabs the reader. For Travel-Adventure, the book that came to mind first was Wild by Cheryl Strayed.

Non-fiction isn't boring (week #8)

I'm not a person that rushes to read Non-Fiction to be honest because I have always felt them to be boring and boggled down by facts. However, there are some non-fiction that I have found to be beneficial. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, from reading the two articles about non-fiction, I have come to realize that I have treated non-fiction like a bad child. I never noticed until reading these that during a RA interview with a patron, I default to Fiction. But now, I will start to ask all the patrons' interests, and I might find a non-fiction option that suits their needs.


I think these articles have enlightened me to the fact: non-fiction can be just as enjoyable as fiction. Also, as Catherine Ross suggests in her article, "Reading Non-Fiction for Pleasure...," start thinking about non-fiction in terms of appeal factors which we talked about in week #3. Also, Ross gives the warning of being aware of the nonfiction counterparts of popular fiction genres.
From reading "Borderlands: Crossing between Fiction and Nonfiction in Reader's Advisory,"  Jennifer Brannen stresses that non-fiction and fiction are very interchangeable, and that the appeal factor crosses freely between them.

John Green (week #7 part 3)

So being a part of the Tumblr community myself, I chose to follow John Green's tumblr page. I have not read any of his books, even though he has definitely grown a popular author over the years, especially with A Fault in Our Stars book-turned-movie and Paper Towns soon coming out as a movie.  His tumblr page is for those who like John Green, not just as an author but also as an individual. I think he tries to not only post things that have to do or relate to his books or subjects he covers, he also makes it fun for his viewers. And yes, I do think his tumblr blog is successful!

Trends among YA novels (week #7 part 4)

I think I mentioned this before in my first week #7 post, but by looking at the teen imprint sites, LB Teen and Teens at Random, the trend I see or the trend I see forthcoming is a focus on Science Fiction and Fantasy genre-related books. I am honestly not surprised because as I said before, this whole post-apocalyptic/dystopia (Sci-Fi) craze among YA novels and readers has taken off since the Hunger Games was published. So most books that have anything to deal with after the end of the world or post end of the world societies, those books will be popular. As far as fantasy is concerned, it has always been a reoccurring trend among YA novels.

Also, the YA novels have been pretty dark these past few years, touching on heavy subjects which isn't a bad thing. Teens and Young Adults are exposed and experience a lot more and they are a group that is constantly investigated by older adults.