Beginning my journey to become a school librarian . . .

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So it's been a while since my last 'life' post. In my 'What now' post I wrote about feeling as though I was in a state of flux, and to be honest I really was. I felt like I was heading into a bit of a crisis, I had no idea what was coming next.

Teaching was the career path that seemed to be appealing to me at that moment in time. If I'm honest I think teaching was something I was considering because a lot of people expected that of me and it seemed like an obvious choice. I decided, however, that teaching wasn't something I was passionate enough about to spend another year studying; taking up a place on a course that could have gone to someone who truly wanted it. 

Librarianship, specifically school librarianship, on the other hand, was a constant in the back of my mind. I had been set on following the path into librarianship for sometime but in my near crisis I panicked and thought it would be too difficult. 

I can happily announce that I changed my mind and am currently three weeks into a graduate traineeship at a really good school. Having only been there for three weeks I am still finding my feet but I already know that working in a school library is the path I want/need to take. 

I am pulled towards work as a school librarian because I want to instill a love of reading in young people. I think there is nothing more rewarding than seeing students excited about reading. The correlation between the development of literacy skills and reading for pleasure is something I am keenly interested in and I believe that working in a school library will allow me to turn that interest into a vocation.


Geek Girl by Holly Smale

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"My name is Harriet Manners, and I am a geek." Harriet Manners knows that a cat has 32 muscles in each ear, a "jiffy" lasts 1/100th of a second, and the average person laughs 15 times per day. She knows that bats always turn left when exiting a cave and that peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite. But she doesn't know why nobody at school seems to like her. So when Harriet is spotted by a top model agent, she grabs the chance to reinvent herself. Even if it means stealing her best friend's dream, incurring the wrath of her arch enemy Alexa, and repeatedly humiliating herself in front of impossibly handsome model Nick. Even if it means lying to the people she loves. Veering from one couture disaster to the next with the help of her overly enthusiastic father and her uber-geeky stalker, Toby, Harriet begins to realise that the world of fashion doesn't seem to like her any more than the real world did. As her old life starts to fall apart, will Harriet be able to transform herself before she ruins everything? The award-winning debut by bestselling author Holly Smale.
(waterstones.com synopsis)


After hearing that Holly Smale has written a Geek Girl story especially for World Book Day 2015 I decided that it would be a good idea to pick up the first book in the Geek Girl series. I'm about to start a new job in a Secondary School library and with Geek Girl being in the YA category for World Book Day, it is a likely that I will be involved in promoting the event and the two YA books involved. 

As I spend a lot of my time on the internet, immersing myself in the online book community, I had heard a lot about the Geek Girl series before I picked it up. The reviews I had seen were all raving about how good the series was, how refreshing it was to have a character like Harriet Manners for young girls to read about. 

And after having finished Geek Girl last week, I have to say that I agree.