It’s Time for Storytime

I was recently zooming with another writer who asked me about my blog and so I screen-shared to give him a look at it. I was surprised to see entries going back all the way to 2011. I was blogging way back then? And then there’s the link to Faces in the Street in the right hand corner that takes you to our old 2007-08 website, so I was blogging even earlier than that!

Definitely a blog-worthy moment in London!

Over the years I’ve primarily used the blog as a place to keep people posted when “big” things have been going on in our life. The Big Trip we took around the world, our attempts to adopt, the year Rebeka lived with us, and the story of Her Own Two Feet, the book I co-wrote with Rebeka that was published in 2019. More recently, the blog was added to an updated website with great resources for the book, and then I added a “bookshelf” to the blog and website so I could start talking about some of the favorite books on my shelves.

Since then some pretty huge things have happened in the Davis household that I haven’t blogged about. Beyond Covid, which has impacted all of our worlds, we’ve acquired a puppy who is now a year old, and we moved downtown.

We also sent our youngest off to college . . .

married off our oldest . . .

credit to Courtney Cope Media for picture

and waved goodbye to the newlyweds as they set off to travel the US in the van they spent six month renovating. You can follow their adventures at: http://alongwego.com/

Thank you Courtney Cope for one of my all time favorite family pictures ever!

I don’t know why I didn’t blog about any of that. Maybe I’m still processing it all and it will spill out over the next year, sort of a storytime in retrospect. I’m writing this post to introduce a new series of posts about Storytime with a capital “S” because I am back in the saddle and getting to do Storytimes with little kids again, and it is filling me with great joy and also a new idea.

Each week I’m pulling a stack of read-alouds and grouping them in themes that I read over zoom to the sweetest group of kids you ever did see, and it started me thinking. I should share them online so other storytellers could use the lists as a resource. I reached out to  Miss Anastasia who does storytimes for The Twig in San Antonio. She once worked with me at Toad Hall, and we reconnected during a book signing for Her Own Two Feet last year when The Twig supplied the books.

She shares her lists on her instagram account and there’s lots more out there, too. I hope to be a hub and share links to storytime resources for everyone, young and old. I am a firm believer that you are never too old for storytime. Just ask my kids, who are often corralled so I can read them a picture book. I just read one to Nate today. He’s twenty-two, and I read him Can I Be Your Dog by Troy Cummings.

I first heard it being read online during Bookpeople’s live storytime on instagram, and it’s a great story for anyone on a job search, or submitting manuscripts, basically anyone who’s heard some “no’s” and is waiting to hear a “yes.” It’s about a dog named Alfie that just wants a home. He sends letters to a bunch of likely prospects but gets no after no until it looks like all is lost. But all is never lost in the world of picture books. Maybe that’s why I like them so much. Maybe that’s why I like storytime so much. It is a happy place.

So this post is a catch up, and an introduction. I’ll still blog about the big things that come along in the Davis family, but I’ll post on the bookshelf and soon on the new storytime page, too. They feel like conversations about books, one of my most favorite conversations to have.