Knowledge Quest (ASSL)

"I feel like I've stretched myself and grown so much through this collaborative. Your guidance and suggestions have been a huge part of that." - Jennifer Long, School Library Media Coordinator, Rockingham County Schools, NC This post is a companion to "Unshhh-ing Advocacy: How Your Everyday Work Is Already Making the Case," published in Knowledge Quest, Vol. 54, No. 5. The graphics you saw in that article have a story - and it belongs to Jennifer Long.

I am lucky enough to have two large digital display screens in my library. I run a set of library information slides on them when I'm not teaching a class. This slide deck includes what our month's book themes are, library rules, and other information about the library. This is on pretty much all the time, so students wandering through get information about the library all day long. I will always choose to run slides fullscreen when I have the option.

The Last Library Hurrah Comics and Color. Graphic novels and gadgets. This year's sixth annual Free Comic Book Day in my high school library added some literary fun to the end-of-school-year chaos. Students from all grades stopped by to browse. Manga. Star Wars. Godzilla. Archie. Each teen was drawn to different titles. As I watched them flip through the silky pages, I felt the same satisfaction I get when I see a student pick up a book and start reading.

I would love to say that I am a lifelong learner, especially here on this site where learning is celebrated. But I can't say this because that would not be true. Contrary to what you might think, it's not because I quit learning when I left school, quite the opposite really. In school, I begrudgingly learned the bare minimum to get by and then promptly forgot much of that knowledge. Look. I'm not blaming the adults. I had some lovely teachers and librarians. I just wasn't interested.

I have been an author for most of my life, but this is the story of how I became an artist. Back in fourth grade, I drew a horse on a big poster for a class project. I lay on the floor of our living room, spread out my colored pencils, and worked for hours. Then I got a "C" (or maybe a "B"), and concluded that I could never be an artist. Instead, I focused on words, and enjoyed them so much that I studied as far as I could go (a Ph.D. in English).

Since 2010, the Global Read Aloud has impacted readers through the project's mission: "one book to connect the world." Each year, project founder Pernille Ripp selects a list of books for all interest levels, kindergarten through high school. Participation is free and simple: educators can choose a book to read aloud to students during a set six-week period in the fall. During that time, they are encouraged to make connections with another classroom reading the same book.

As I write this, for many of us, our school year is coming into the wind down. The students are looking forward to summer, classroom educators are counting down, and you are mentally preparing for your first morning where you can slowly sip your cup of coffee and read a book on the back deck.

Well, the news has been grim lately. As school budgets get tighter than they have for years, more school library programs are being shuttered to "save money." More school librarians are being let go or reassigned to "improve budgetary outcomes." It is ironic on a scale I have trouble conceptualizing, as these library program cuts are coming at a time when headlines are trumpeting the "literacy crisis" affecting students of all grade levels. And now, a digression.

I once told a student I had never read Harry Potter, and their jaw just about hit the floor. "But you're the librarian!" they gasped. "How is that even possible?" Honestly, fair question. That small moment led to one of the most meaningful conversations I have ever had with a student about reading. It was not really about Harry Potter. It was about the idea that there are certain books every reader is "supposed" to love.

In May 2026, Mac Barnett, celebrated children’s book author and the current National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, published his first book for adults, Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children. The book was met with glowing reviews from Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and The New York Times. It was, by all accounts, a passionate love letter to children’s literature. And then a single line set the field on fire.