I grew up loving to read. Reading turned into a lifelong habit after I stumbled upon and into Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. The story of a girl breaking out of her family's expectations of who she should be to go an adventure that would change her life inspired the wanderlust and curiosity that have guided my life's choices thus far.

After graduating from the University of Scranton with an English literature degree, I spent years out west teaching skiing in some glorious places but I wandered out of the ski industry and into academics when I realized that I wanted to give young folks the same gift of escapism and curiosity about the world that Avi gave to me all those years ago. I moved back to my native Boston to study for a Master's in Library and Information Science from Simmons University and was a school librarian in the area for 14 years. At the beginning of the pandemic, I decided to move to northern Vermont to have greater access to the outdoors.

It is such a joy to serve such talented, funny, and capable students at the Johnson Elementary School. It's my goal to instill a love of reading in all of my students and to prepare them as best I can to navigate with skill the vast amount of information available to them. Most of all, I hope they see the magic and beauty of libraries, both public and school, and that they know that free access to literature and information is their right as human beings.

"A library is a place that is a repository of information and gives every citizen equal access to it. That includes health information. And mental health information. It's a community space. It's a place of safety, a haven from the world. It's a place with librarians in it. What the libraries of the future will be like is something we should be imagining now.

Literacy is more important than ever it was, in this world of text and email, a world of written information. We need to read and write, we need global citizens who can read comfortably, comprehend what they are reading, understand nuance, and make themselves understood." ― Neil Gaiman

Children's, young adult, and adult author Neil Gaiman says much more in his thoughtful article about libraries but my philosophy is more or less wrapped up in the quote above. Students (and adults) are bombarded with information daily. Our library provides students with a safe place to take a break from it all by getting lost in a good book or sharing it with a friend. At the same time, I regularly ask students to interact with the internet and digital tools productively so that when they navigate it on their own, they will know how to understand and be understood. They will know how to present themselves as digital citizens of our connected world.

When I'm not lesson planning and finding great books for our students to read, I'm reading, hiking with my sidekick pup, traveling, skiing, ice skating, playing ice hockey, watching good (and let's face it, pretty bad but still delightful) TV and movies, and keeping my imagination as alive as possible.

“...Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?”  ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Citation: "Neil Gaiman: Why Our Future Depends on Libraries, Reading and Daydreaming." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 15 Oct. 2013. Web. 19 Jan. 2014.