Ask a Librarian with Julie Chavez

Kim Michele Richardson loves Kentucky, and the author of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek and The Book Woman’s Daughter has written to share and honor the stories of courageous people from her home state. She joins Julie in this episode to talk about her first dates with her husband, her writing process, and the tremendous perseverance of the Pack Horse Librarians and other women throughout history (and Julie includes Kim Michele in that list, to be sure). 

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Over the years, Eva Jurczyk has noted women’s comments about becoming invisible at a certain age. She used her book, The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, to explore a piece of that theme: an invisible person, after all, makes a fantastic snoop. In this episode, she and Julie talk about how Eva fell in love with the world of rare books, the difference between a forgery and a facsimile (and whether there should be a difference), and the joy and energy she derives from working with students at the University of Toronto. 

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In the second episode of this series with Alan Gratz, Alan tells Julie about two of his upcoming titles. Captain America: The Ghost Army is his upcoming graphic novel, and Two Degrees is the latest in his series of social thrillers released with Scholastic, a middle-grade prose novel about climate change. Julie and Alan discuss the importance of Ban This Book, Alan’s title that came out in 2016 and has proved (unfortunately) somewhat prescient. To be a free and open society, argues Alan, we must have books on the shelves that we don’t like. 

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Alan Gratz has been putting fictional children in danger since 2006. In this episode, the first of two, Alan joins Julie to talk about the winding road he traveled to writing social thrillers – compelling page-turners that also say something about the world in which children are growing up – and why he’s convinced of the importance of directness, even when he’s presenting hard events and truths to middle-grade readers.

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Lydia Sigwarth is an author and children's librarian in Platteville, Wisconsin, and her debut picture book, Dear Librarian, is the less commonly told story of a portion of her childhood in which she and her family experienced homelessness. She joins Julie to talk about how that experience led her to become a librarian, about the books and musicals she loves (deep dive alert), and the things she loves about her job. She and Julie also discuss their recently -hatched plans for a multi-level marketing company and, naturally, world domination.  

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Matt & Melissa Hammersley are the founders of Novel Effect, an award-winning mobile app that follows along during story time with interactive music, sound effects, and character voices creating magical moments when you read aloud with your child. They join Julie in this episode to speak about the app’s origin story, its success, and the vision of connection that guides all they do. Matt & Melissa also get a chance to talk about what it’s like to mix work and family, and the most important lesson of a start-up: you can’t win if you quit. 

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.