Post #6: Blog Share - Down the Rabbit Hole


Over the past year, several people - a librarian, a colleague, and an MLIS classmate - have recommended The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller to me. Three recommendations for the same book? I added it to my Amazon order.  As I was awaiting delivery, I decided to Google the author and thus began the trip down the proverbial rabbit hole that became this blog post. Otherwise known as….Why is Jennifer awake at midnight listening to a podcast and crying over the passing of author Gary Paulsen?

When I Googled Donalyn Miller, I found her website.

In all honesty, Miller's website leaves a bit to be desired. It’s dated, but then again Miller's The Book Whisperer was published in 2009. The most recent blog post on the website is from 2016. My guess was that Miller had probably moved on to other forms of social media, perhaps Twitter or Instagram. When I clicked on the website section titled Books, I noticed that Miller has a more recent publication co-authored with a teacher, Colby Sharp.

And so, I traveled a little further down the rabbit hole and Googled Colby Sharp.   


Sharp’s website is more current. His latest blog post is from last spring, but there’s so much more. 

He is very social on all the platforms. Sharp's videos on his YouTube channel are engaging.

He LOVES his classroom library and ALL the BOOKS! Sharp is definitely worth checking out!  



One of the side trips I took on this journey took me to Colby Sharp’s group blog titled Nerdy Book Club.


However, the true treasure at the bottom of this rabbit hole was the discovery of the podcast The Yarn: The Inside Story of Children’s Books. This podcast is produced by Colby Sharp and Travis Jonker, a school librarian, and sponsored by the School Library Journal. The latest episode of The Yarn features an interview with Wes Allen, Gary Paulsen's editor, and concludes with a replay of Sharps’ interview with Paulsen in February of 2021. 


Here is the book trailer for Paulsen's most recent book, a memoir, Gone to the Woods.


There are numerous gems and a wealth of information available through the links I shared above, but for me hearing Gary Paulsen, a prolific and masterful author talk about taking refuge in the library when he was a cold, neglected young boy was enough to make me cry and warm my heart all at the same time. Then hearing that it was the librarian who also inspired him to write his first stories was the pinnacle. Creating a library that serves as a welcoming refuge and haven of information is at the heart of my reason for becoming a librarian. 


Resources


Miller, D. (2009). The book whisperer. Jossey-Bass.


Miller, D. & Sharp, C. (2018). Game Changer. Scholastic Professional.


Paulsen, G. (2021). Gone to the Woods. Farrah, Straus, and Giroux.

Comments

  1. Christine BetchmanNovember 14, 2021 at 11:01 AM

    Gary Paulsen has always been a favorite author of mine and one of the things I admired about him is that he incorporated some of his real life experiences into his writing. I always felt like that is why his writing was so detailed and so powerful. Since he had actually experienced some of those things, he could really explain it to the reader. I love your last paragraph and find so many connections to what you said. When you hear stories time and time again about children who found refuge in a library and were inspired by the librarians in their lives, it really does make me excited for the next half of my teaching career.
    ~Christine Betchman

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