#jessie's library

[hier--soir]

I would love to know about books that changed your life…favorite books?

oh boy okay buckle up! let's talk books! [thank you so much for asking, i love talking about this stuff ilysm]

so i am currently reading decreation by anne carson which i am really loving, and i reckon that's instantly on the list so we'll start there.

lemme break it up by genre with everything i can think of off the top of my head [and see on my shelf right now] also YOU ASKED SORRY BUT IM BOUT TO RUN WILD ALSO IM DEFINITELY FORGETTING LIKE A HUNDRED GOOD BOOKS HERE

short-story/poetry collections [aka the main thing i read most these days]

brute by emily skaja

flèche by mary jean chan

deaf republic by ilya kaminsky

autobiography of red by anne carson

foreign soil by maxine beneba-clarke [changed me forever]

bluets by maggie nelson

her body and other parties by carmen maria machado [idk if this entire collection is on the favs list, but some of them? woof]

classics

an oresteia translated by anne carson

narcissus and echo [from metamorphoses] by ovid

the bacchae by euripides

old [and old-er] lit

macbeth by willy shakes [see: my blog description]

hamlet by willy shakes

a streetcar named desire by tennessee williams

the end of the affair by graham greene

contemporary lit

nightbitch by rachel yoder [who else out here turning into a dog when their husband is away for work?? just me?]

the secret history by donna tartt [duh]

milk fed by melissa broder

year of wonders by geraldine brooks [this book has everything: the plague, self-flaggelation, gore, fucking the local priest!]

call me by your name by andré aciman [lots of discourse around this one but you can't deny that the writing is beautiful]

a book that is not a favourite but certainly changed me as a person lmao

crash by j. g. ballard

fav series of all time!!!!

the skulduggery pleasant series by derek landy. idgaf! that irish man changed my life, go read it that shit is timeless. sorcery? friendship? vampires? violence? incredible stuff. the birth of my whimsy.

[ladyhinna]

[rustbeltjessie]

Support Your Local Librarians

(August 11 // Racine, WI)

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: February 16

“I Will Follow You Into The Dark” Death Cab for Cutie cover by Jayme Dee

[batgeance]

yes i will write here again soon

[christopherquinn1970]

[randimason]

From the Library of Congress exhibit Drawn to Purpose: Golden Age of Illustration.

Jessie Willcox Smith employed her keen ability to imagine and evoke the angst and innocent wonder of a child in this breathtaking underwater scene, one of twelve large, lavish drawings that she produced for The Water-Babies, a Victorian story of redemption.

The drawings belong among her most admired works and upon her death in 1935, she bequeathed them to the Library of Congress.

Over her long career, Smith illustrated many classics of children's literature.

[fromthestacks]

Miss Scarlet & the Duke season two

[starstruckwillows]

Right so, Library Date: I'm writing this series and this the first part, it's kinda irregular rn 'cause I have finals but here It worked!! lol

this looks so cool omg

📖

“You know better than to sneak up on me.”

this semi familiar greeting after so much time has passed? this guarded but non-violent response because he can't convince himself she's a stranger? yes.

He knew what you were trying to do. You were trying to irk him. To get under his skin, to get him to spill the truth. He didn’t want to give you the satisfaction, nor did he want to play along. Both were costly. So, he opted for silence.

cos the way this self restrained bastard can't even trust himself to open his mouth around her stop😭😭

And yet, his heart yearned for it. To look at you, to see your face. One of the few good things in the Bastard’s life. He couldn’t afford it. He always trusted his mind. Not his heart. Yet somehow, he turned.

a heart? bet he forgot he had one of those😫

“We were, before,” the hurt in your voice did something to him. It made him want to give in. But he couldn’t. He remembered waiting for you, hoping you would show up. He set his jaw. No. He wasn’t going to give in to a traitor. “Before,” he said, still not in complete control of the confidence in his voice. 

oh and now she can't control this either, cockiness gone and now they're both just hurt kids😭 i can't it's too beautiful

“I’ll uh- I’ll go. Just forget this ok? I thought it would go well, clearly it didn’t so, just ignore me.” You rushed with your words. 

so she's been living for six years not understanding his festering anger🥲🥲

“Then we better get going before you faint, because if you do, I’m not carrying you.”

liar<33

okay this is amazing, i'm going to read chapter two now🥰

[theknitpotato]

“I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting, and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.” —Roald Dahl

Illustration by Jessie Willcox Smith

[hier--soir]

i wanna ask 7, 9, and 22, but you can choose one if not all !!! 🌟✍🏻

ziggy!!!! i'll do all 3 for you, of course❤️‍🩹

7 - specific line that has stuck with you.

"For the better?"

"For the better?"

from part 10 of June by @atinylittlepain

can't explain this one, you'll just have to read it to understand.

9 - amazing title/chapter title.

the title starving season by @wannab-urs hits so good, as does every chapter name in this dave york series. i've only read the first part thus far, but it's fucking fantastic.

22 - fic(s) you could do a whole powerpoint presentation on.

okay there's a few!

sit around and miss you by @ohcaptains | this is one of my favourite frank fics on this whole god damn site. whenever i need a fix, this is where i go. can probably recite it word for word at this stage.

a stranger's heart without a home by @morning-star-joy | i've read this whole beast of a series twice and it hits so good, even on a reread. could wax lyrical about this in depth.

soft!dom joel series by @joelscruff | this is one of the first fics i found when i joined in april and i've read it maybe ten times. iconic. life changing. could talk about it for hours.

fic rec ask game

[travelinglibrariansdesk]

Words to Avoid When Talking About Children's Books

Two adults and two children's books today. I read Jessica Love's A Bed of Stars, a memoir of a camping trip the narrator took with her father. I'm going to have to be careful of my words in this blog, because it's much too easy to throw around words like cute and sweet. You won't hear me using "cute" or "nice" - they're words so vague as to have no definition. However, A Bed of Stars is sweet. It's a mellow memory, not a grand adventure, but remarkable for the narrator because of the enjoyment she felt sharing the night sky with her father from their place in the bed of his truck. (Another term you won't read here is "bonding experience" - years of editing high school yearbook sports pages spoilt those words for me - ugh.)

I also read Not Quite Narwhal, by Jessie Sima. This one just barely avoids nauseating cuteness - reasonable people may disagree. A unicorn is born under the ocean to a group of narwhals. He's not very good at swimming like a narwhal, but he tries valiantly. One day he discovers unicorns, and learns that he can be a very skilled land-based horn-bearing creature - but he misses his narwhal family. It's a clever juxtaposition and meditation on where we belong, and what happens when we belong to two places and neither at the same time. It's not a heavy-hitting message - as delicate as the artwork. There's a lot of gooey, treacly unicorn literature out there for younger readers, but this one is not that.

When Looking for Jane fell into my lap, I was a bit curious, but as soon as I opened the flap I wanted to read it. "Jane", as I was hoping, does not refer to a person but the widespread underground movement on college campuses in the late 1960s dedicated to helping desperate women end unwanted pregnancies. I watched an excellent documentary at the Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) last year. and at the same time as I was binge-watching the TV drama Cold Case this fall, I saw an episode ("Volunteers") that alluded to Jane's activities as well. The women of Jane are as impressive as the Freedom Riders - they risk incarceration to gather women, connect them with non-abusive medical doctors willing to perform the procedure, learn to perform it themselves, and set up cut-outs so that no one can identify each other, thus jeopardizing the system. According to their records, no woman ever died under Jane's care who had not arrived in serious trouble already. Anyway, really want to read this one!

Then there's this odd little item: What You Are Looking For Is In The Library. One of my co-workers told me she was reading it for an online book group she's in when she saw it on my pile of interests of the day. Since my card is still blocked, I gave it to her to check out. It's a smaller-sized book with a window and a cat on the cover - and it calls itself "a novel", title notwithstanding. Japanese author Michiko Aoyama tells a story about a librarian who can sense (as any good librarian should be able to) exactly which book each patron needs. What's not to like? I need to make a list of books about libraries, because they all sound enchanting, and as I believe in libraries as transformative places, this one would fit my worldview perfectly. Plus, I read so little Japanese literature - time to expand my horizons a bit!

[rustbeltjessie]

Today’s library haul: Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar by Cynthia Carr and Unspooled: How the Cassette Made Music Shareable by Rob Drew.

[professorbananacrew]

Jessie Walsh- Library Adventures- 8 Panel HW5 & Exercise20

[athena-xox]

Ever after high books + links

Link one (most books)

Link two (other books)

The Main Trilogy (& Other Shannon Hale Books)

The Storybook of Legends by Shannon Hale

The Unfairest of Them All by Shannon Hale

A Wonderlandiful World by Shannon Hale

Once Upon a Time by Shannon Hale

The Legend of Shadow High by Shannon Hale

Ever After High School Series

Next Top Villain by Suzanne Selfors

Kiss and Spell by Suzanne Selfors

A Semi Charming Kinda Life by Suzanne Selfors

Fairies Got Talent by Suzanne Selfors

Truth or Hair by Suzanne Selfors

Fairy Tail Ending by Suzanne Selfors

Destiny Do-Over Diary companion books to the school series

General Villainy by Suzanne Selfors

Science & Sorcery by Suzanne Selfors

Hero Training by Suzanne Selfors

Once Upon a Pet

A Princely Present by Suzanne Selfors

Candy Wish Fish by Suzanne Selfors

Trouble with Jackalopes by Suzanne Selfors

Next Top Bird by Suzanne Selfors

Hedgehog’s Hexcellent Adventures by Suzanne Selfors

Horse of a Different Colour by Suzanne Selfors

Once Upon a Twist

When the Clock Strikes Cupid by Lisa Shea

Cerise and the Beast by Lisa Shea

Rosabella and the Three Bears by Perdita Finn

Duchess Lets Down Her Hair by Perdita Finn

The Kitty Mermaid by Perdita Finn

The Secret Diary of

The Secret Diary of Apple White by Heather Alexander

The Secret Diary of Raven Queen by Heather Alexander

Diary of an Evil Queen by Stacia Deutsch

Junior Novels

Dragon Games Stacia Deutsch

Epic Winter by Perdita Finn

Activity books

Yearbook

Royals and Rebels

The Sleepover Spellebration Party Planner by Kirsten Mayer

The Totally Tea-RRIFIC Hat-Tastic Book About YOU

Madeline Hatter’s Guide to Riddlish! A Topsy-Turvy Write-In Book by Elizabelle Castle

The Hat-Tastic Tea Party Planner by Melissa Yu

A Spelltacular Year

Plan Your Destiny

Ever After High Activity Book

Spellbinding Activities

Write Fableous Fairytales

Picture books

Welcome, Baby Dragons by Margaret Green

Let the Dragon Games Begin by Margaret Green

Royally Cool Adventure by Perdita Finn

Meet Crystal Winter by Perdita Finn

Colouring/Sticker books

Thronecoming Reusable Sticker Book by Melissa Yu

A Wonderlandiful Doodle Book by Jeanine Henderson

Draw Dream Create Sketchbook

An Enchanted Pop-Up Sketchbook



Other books

Five Minute Stories by Robert Rudman & Ellie Rose

Class of Classics by Leigh Dragoon & Jessi Sheron

The books that don’t have a link are ones I know exist but I couldn’t find on internet archive/other searching.

If you have any links to these missing books, or books that I don’t have PLEASE lmk. Or if you have higher quality or pdf links (since some of the books are just screenshots of pages that I put together on a doc…)

The last two books in the once upon a twist series don’t exist.. they were cancelled or only a few copies were made (and those who have them aren’t saying anything). But I’m hoping to find them somehow if I have to message perdita finn myself. I believe there are a few chapters up somewhere so I’ll try to compile all that’s available

Any title that is coloured with a link means I don’t have a pdf or full copy yet but I have a preview

Because this is getting so much attention make sure to check my pinned post that has more eah resources!!

There are also diaries that went along with the dolls that you can find on @everafterhigharchive’s page who is also responsible for most of the links here

(Also one of my interconnect libraries has meet Crystal Winter so I’ll upload that onto internet archive + add it on here once it ships)

[kingsbridgelibraryteens]

Middle School Monday: Coming Back by Jessi Zabarsky 

Preet is magic. Valissa is not. They love each other, but sometimes it feels like love is not enough to make their relationship balanced. 

When a strange mist appears in the library where Valissa works, she volunteers to investigate it, even though it means leaving Preet behind. When Preet is alone, and decides to break one of the village’s laws, it’s just the beginning of her own journey. 

At the end of this book, the author’s note includes a reference to “making stories full of soft and difficult feelings,” and this is a good way to think about the emotional vibe of Coming Back. We spend a lot of time in the heads of Preet and Valissa, and much of that time is understanding their love for each other but also their heartache.

Give this book to older kids and younger teens who enjoy graphic novels (especially the aspect of visual storytelling), fantasy, magic, LGBQ romances, and characters who evolve over time.