At Home Librarian Podcast

The final (and very late!) episode of season one of the podcast. In it we cover the development of the children's publishing industry during the 20th century alongside the development of the understanding of child development theory. We also share a little bit about what to expect in the coming season.

We had a little technical difficulty with our latest episode so we took the opportunity to address some comments we heard recently that are part of a larger narrative. 

There can be a lot of fear mongering in parenting, and in particular when it comes to children's learning and development. Today we listen to some comments made during a couple local City Council meetings and talk you through why we find them harmful and scary for parents and why they aren't necessarily what they seem. 

Also, my birds make several appearances screming in the background. It was too hot to put them outside while we recorded like we normally do. If you hear something shouty in the back, that's who it is.

Finding books for your kids can be hard, especially if you're relying on Amazon to suggest anything beyond the handful of top sellers. In this episode we'll give you some places to look to get a little deeper into all the great children's literature that is out there. We also talk about decolonizing and diversifying our bookshelves. 

We celebrate reading rubbish and talk about why high-brow literature is not the end all and be all of a reading life. Then we dive into a variety of less traditional formats including graphic novels, audiobooks, and magazines. Lots of recommendations as well as reassurance that if your kid would rather read a comic book, they are still a reader and you're doing great. 

Today we're discussing reading aloud to children and we start with a little debunking. Then we talk about troubleshooting some common issues in reading aloud to your kids and also reassure you that if you just can't with reading aloud, it's okay. Then we discuss a couple options for how to approach reading aloud if you need some pointers. 

We take a break from regularly scheduled content to give you recommendations in the book categories we shared in episode 2. 

Don't forget you can ask us a question using the voice message function on Anchor. We will use these in a bonus episode between season one and our next season. 

In which we wax poetic about picture books and charts. We talk about why picture books are good reading at any age and how to deepen reading aloud to the children in your life. We also discuss a few data collections that look at diversity in children's publishing and how that impacts the types of books that are available to parents and educators. 

In which we break down the issues with common tips for raising a reader and offer you solutions and hopefully peace of mind that you don't need to do anything special or expensive to insure your child or students enjoy reading. 

In which we give you the stages of learning to read and the types of books your child might enjoy at each stage. 

Where we introduce ourselves and explain what we are hoping to cover in season one.