the Stay At Home Librarian

Thanks for visiting!

The idea for this site was planted in my head a couple years ago, when I first became a parent.  I had joined a mom’s group, and some of my new mama friends started coming to me for children’s book suggestions.

The idea continued to grow every time a new study came out about tv, or plastic (or whatever else!) being harmful for children, and I found myself doing hours of research into the issue.

And it became fully grown when I finally sat down and compiled some of that research.  I had some ready-made posts.  Now I just needed to share them.

I have many hopes for this site.

First and foremost, I hope to help parents and caregivers answer questions they may have about raising, caring for and interacting with their children.  Now, I am not an expert on parenting.  I’m a librarian.  I have my masters degree in library and information science; and I focused my studies (and jobs and internships) on working with youth. So what I AM an expert on is finding and presenting people with relevant and accurate information about children and parenting in a nonjudgmental, (relatively) unbiased way.  This is part of a librarian’s job, and something that I believe all parents need — someone to help answer those questions without telling them what is right or wrong.  Of course, being a mama myself, I certainly have my own opinions, and I am raising my daughter in the way that works best for me.  But the books and websites that I go to when looking for answers to my parenting questions are probably the same places that most of you would also visit.  I am just here to find those places, and share them with you.  From there, it’s up to every family to figure out how to use the info.  My motto: do your research, then always do what works best for you and your family.  I am just here to assist with that research and give you ideas.

Next, I love children’s books (and, not-so-secretly, can’t get enough of young adult fiction), so I also hope to give book suggestions for different age groups.  And, I want to share some story time ideas and activities with you.  As a former children’s librarian, I ran story times at my library, and I love to give parents ideas for rhymes, songs or fun crafts that relate to books and reading.  Reading with your kids is one of the most important things anyone can do with a child, so I hope to create a culture of reading with my friends and followers.

I hope I can be helpful.  I hope you can find something here that is useful to you.  I hope that we can share resources with one another that we find invaluable.  And I hope that you come to me to me with your questions… because I love finding answers.