Waldo, Seeking Self

My woke take, as someone who has worked in both a public library and a school library, is that we desperately need both more books that are at a higher reading level but a less mature subject matter, and more books that are at a lower reading level but a more mature subject matter, because 8 year olds who are advanced readers are still 8 year olds and don't want to read about graphic violence and torture, and teens and adults who have learning difficulties or who are just later readers for whatever reason are still teens and adults and don't want to read about Billy the Bunny going to school or whatever the hell.

Shoutout to people in the notes also mentioning people learning the language, I should've mentioned that really, given that I've been stuck reading German picture books myself while learning German.

i think we've done a great job expanding the view of what a child's favorite animal can be. kids these days can say they love axolotls or pangolins or coelecanths and their decision is respected. maybe their parents can even find them a stuffed animal of it if they know where to look. and i think that's beautiful

As someone who works in elementary education, kitties and puppies are still in high demand! But yes, things have definitely expanded since when I was in school, and I think part of that is adult conversations in animals trickling down to kids. Interest in protecting pollinators has given us a precious few bee-lovers (though most are still mostly worried about stings), while animals that adults find surprisingly intelligent like octopi, orcas, and crows are rising favorites. Even old favorite predators like wolves are celebrated for their friendliness within their packs rather than their ferocity to prey, probably a result of adults discussing wolf interdependency to debunk myths of alpha-omega dynamics to each other. Oddly, dinosaurs seem to have fallen in the rankings. Don't get me wrong, preschoolers still memorize seven-syllable names of prehistoric creatures that seem almost certainly made up but turn out to be real. But they don't have the dominance they used to, probably because of renewed appreciation for all the miraculous life still living on this planet!

The thing about anti-libby posts, because ebooks have to be paid for yearly while physical books only have to be paid for once, is that yes, physical books are cheaper for the library to acquire- but the library has a budget they chose to allocate, whether it's on software, subscriptions to digital encyclopedias, or ebook rentals. If they chose to rent ebooks, it was because they want you to read them, and using any of their services looks good for them. Check out physical books by all means, but don't feel guilty about checking out ebooks.

Dahling you simply must read this book! It’s all about this devious little caterpillar who simply gorges himself on all manner of divine things

Citations could be so awesome without copyright. Imagine just being able to click on a footnote and it takes you to the exact section of another book being quoted. Imagine how much that would do for stemming misinformation.

“Why don’t you use ai” idk man beyond the obvious environmental and “this machine causes psychosis and encourages people to kill themselves” thing I think asking the equivalent of a solid D student who is also a pathological liar if they can answer my question/do the work for me seems pretty fucking stupid

Everything I read about recovering from burnout is like “it takes months or even years to fully recover” and it’s like okay…. I have a weekend before I gotta clock in on Monday