(00:00-06:22)
KATE QUEALY-GAINER: 
And repeat information. If you did, I'm gonna share my screen. I just have, like a a small little slide show that I want to go over some general information and then I will hand it over to reviewers.
Alright! So you are at a presentation from the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. My name is Kate Quealy-Gainer, and I am the editor. 
We, if you don't know, I just I don't I'm not sure who's familiar with everything. I'm sure we have a different audience so we are a review journal of children's and YA lit. We are part of the Center for Children's Books at the University of Illinois.
If you want to know more, I would highly advise you to go to the Center for Children's Books' website.
They have a really lovely CCB digital exhibit, and you can see--It's a really nice kind of walk down memory lane. It talks a little bit about the Bulletin. It talks about the CCB.

And I'm gonna go a little bit over the Bulletin history here, but that one that one goes much more in depth. So basically, we are a review journal. We focus completely on children's and young adult books.
So that's your 0 to year 18 and we probably review about between 700 and 1000 children's and young adult books every year. Right now I think we're kind of on the lower level of that but I'm hoping to get us back up kind of higher.
As editor, so basically, what happens is, publishers send us books. We have an agreement with publishers that they send those books, and we review.
We don't review everything that they send us because they send us a lot. They send us over 5,000 books, if not more. I would have to do some serious math if you wanted to know that number. 
But I probably look at that amount, because, as editor, I do the assigning for the reviewers.So that means I choose the books. I sort of triage the books to get them to the reviewers.
And right now I have a staff about 8, which is nice, because that means I can sort of get a nice amount of representation and format in different genres, and what not. We are actually in our 76 volume year which is exciting. 
In the past-- so we actually began in 1945, and we were associated first with the University of Chicago up in Chicago and their library school. Over the years we have had Betsy Hearne was an editor for a while sort of like the Premier scholar of all things children's lit.
But Zena Sutherland was also-- she proceeded, so she was before Betsy. Roger Sutton, who just recently retired from the Horn Book, I believe and most recently was Deborah Stevenson, my boss, my former boss, and then I took over as editor in July of 2020.

So I obviously, produce the review journal with the help of my wonderful staff, who we will talk to a few of them, in just a little bit of a minute.
But I wanted to talk first about what I see is our audience, and I think you have those sort of like big publications. You've got your Horn Book, your School Library Journal, your Kirkus, and all those really sort of are what I would
call sort of more trade journals. We are at this really interesting intersection of academic and professional. So we produce reviews that kind of have a multiple purposes, right?
And I like to think that we have 3 serious audiences. One is the kid or the child who we are reviewing the book for, which is always sort of the primary thing that we're thinking about.
The other is the librarian or the teacher who is getting these books to the kids. In that manner. We have to think about the fact that they are going into a collection, and we also have to write our reviews in a way that a librarian who is looking 
through a whole ton of books because they are often expected to do collection development, which is a very large task. That we write our reviews in a way that are quick, understandable, and that they can use in the future either to continue to build 
their collection with a certain type of book or defend their collection and their choices against the what we are seeing.
The rise of challenges right now. So we write our reviews with sort of that in mind, and then our third audience is also sort of the scholars who might take our work, and what we review we are sort
of like on the cusp of things. We're a little bit on the edge of things, and those books will often go into future scholarship, and and what people and academic scholars might be focusing on through a more critical lens.
So just kind of an overview of what we what we produce. We every month we do a journal. In those journals we have the reviews which include summary and evaluation.
We do a Monthly Big Picture, which is sort of like a longer review of a book that we really want to highlight.We do stars, so much like what you would see in other review journals.
We also are currently in the process of doing our Annual Blue Ribbons coming up with our best of year. We sort of make a big list of. 
We do fiction, non-fiction and picture books, and that comes out in January. So you can be looking forward to that, because we are we have been doing a lot of work reading through those books and sort of honing down the skill-- honing down the list.
So that's been exciting and then in the past We have done a guidebook to gift books that would come out in November. It hasn't the last couple of years due to Covid staff stuff but
I'm really hoping in the next year to be able to do it again, because I know that was sort of a big valuable resource for lots of people.

So all that introduction to be said I'm going to hand it over to the reviewers, and then we can do a little bit of Q and A afterwards. I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about how I assign books in the
Q and A afterwards. But right now, I'm going to hand it over to our very wonderful April Spisak, who has been with us for quite a while.
April, you can take over.

(06:23-15:19)
APRIL SPISAK:
Alright So I've been reviewing since 2005, and I was a youth services librarian before that, and I thought I wanted to go back for my doctorate.
What I discovered mid process is that my favorite part of the whole process was reviewing, and that I really missed public libraries way more than I enjoyed academia, so good outcomes for on both sides. 

I was terrible at reviewing when I started. I remember my very first review was a book called Bonemender, by Holly Bennett. I will remember it for the rest of my life, because I wrote that review a dozen times or more.
I wrote it, re-wrote it so many times. It didn't even go into that month's issue it had to be delayed an issue. One review. I couldn't even get that one in. 
From there at my most prolific, I was doing 7 reviews a week pretty consistently for 3 or 4 years in a row. There was 1 point where I walked into a Barnes and Noble, and they had this giant paranormal display, 
and I had reviewed every single book in the display.

So in terms of what I'm assigned I'm really not very clever when it comes to writing about picture book art, and there have always been better people to do the non-fiction, and I'm way too jaded for contemporary realistic romance, or even realistic fiction.
So my skills, I'm a very fast reader, I remember details well, and I take really good notes. 
Tragically, I had a 17 year run of no corrections and just this month had my first correction that needed to be printed.
But i'm--I think, you know, it's not terribly marketable skill, but I think one of my most important skills is that i'm really good at taking something giant and like really distilling it down into under 300 words,
pulling out the you know the most important elements and really stripping it down to something tiny. So I review a lot of science fiction, fantasy, because those are long and people didn't want to read them. 
A lot of short story collections, and then a pretty healthy mix of graphic novels throughout the years, which has been great a nice sort of complement. 
I think, because I was a public librarian first, I have never lost sight of thinking about reviews in terms of the audience, the audience being, you know, a librarian who's dealing with various patrons.
And of course the you know the sort of academic side has always been a piece in terms of the quality of the reviews, the quality of the Bulletin. 
But for me it's always been okay, well, something is crummy like it's meh. Can I think of a better title to tie to it? Because that's what I would have loved as a professional.
If I know, like the exact weird audience, that might be the perfect fit, because I had that patron. Then I try and mention that, you know, like fantasy fans who don't mind a bit of sci-fi creeping in will likely...
I think about a summary that's sharp and clear and detailed without giving away spoilers. And then I think about an analysis that really captures as many of those readers advisory biggies as possible: characters, plot, writing, style, tone, pace, so those sorts of things.

When I was a grad student reviewing never came up. That was a long time ago, 2000-2001, no one talked about reviewing in any of my grad level classes.It really just wasn't brought up at all. When I taught youth services classes,
I always brought in reviewing as being something that's you know sort of equally important as professional development or conferences or association membership.
I think that I firmly believe that four walls librarianship is not sustainable for most people, and I think that the best way to sort of keep yourself challenged and engaged, and not feeling isolated and
defeated is by reaching out and I think reviewing is a is a great way to do that. So I think there's also this idea that practical librarianship that there's not anything there to to sort of think about in terms of research.
You know you're doing your-- you're being a librarian and you're going through your days. You're busy, I think there's a lot of sort of intellectual value in everyday librarianship, 
and in like our interactions with the collection. And I think that reviewing also is a great way to capture some of that.

I think reviewing helps me on a lot of fronts.It certainly honed my analysis skills. It's made me a better writer, by far. It helps me--I have shifted into reading for an audience,
which sometimes takes the joy out of the rare book I read that isn't-- that I'm not getting paid for. It's hard to like not like jot down the age of a character, when I do not need to jot down the age of a character.
So I think, because I've been doing it for so long I've sort of forgotten how to read not for reviewing.
But that's okay, and I think it's you know it's a good way to add variety to your work life.
It's a great way to stay connected to the literature and what's happening, and I think it's a good connecting point between professionals.
I think it also helps battle this is sort of this constant condescension about just kids books, or just teen books.
That I hear all the time. It's demoralizing. It's infuriating and we all know these books matter, and they're worth thinking about in critical ways in thoughtful ways the same
way that adult collections would be built. And reviewers-- reviews are essential for that.

I had from reviewing, I had one tiny touch of celebrity that I will mention. 
I was at ALA about 5 years ago, and chatting with a woman about reviewing, and she suddenly grabbed my arm and gasped, and she said, "You're AS." It took me a minute to figure out what was happening.
So the Bulletin only uses initials unless it's a Big Picture, and she said that over the years she had learned to--
She read my reviews first. She liked how sarcastic I was, which I try not to be as much as you know.
But she said that she was thrilled to meet AS finally.And so that was nifty. 

I think there's also something really sort of wax poetic for a minute special about reviewing that taps into the literature in a different way than we get to do as a as a librarian on
a daily basis. I've reviewed a lot of series from start to finish, being a long term reviewer, and that's pretty amazing and special. I think the most important one to me was Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series.
Loved the first one. Was madly in love with all the others. The last one which he wrote as he was dying came out after he died. and I saw it on the on my reviewing shelf, and I burst into tears and
then I cried all the way through it, I cried as I wrote the review. I think I probably even teared up at the review table that week.
It's this: if you haven't read the series the the final book is this sort of extraordinary glimpse into the both the author and conclusion to the story, because there are elements that he didn't quite
finish before he died. and those are sort of left exactly as they were. They weren't completed by anybody, and it's this great reflection on death and legacy, written by someone who is surely contemplating their own
legacy. so like 10 years later. I still feel really lucky to have written that review, and I looked back at it last night to make sure I wasn't remembering it wrong.
I think it's one of my best reviews. You know I write a lot of reviews a lot of them slip into the ether. but there's a few that I remember really crisply 
and clearly, and that's certainly one of them, So that's what I've got to say.

(15:20-15:33)
KATE QUEALY-GAINER: 
Well, thank you very much. I have a couple of questions for you but I'm gonna circle back during the Q&A.
And Amanda, I'm gonna ask if we can go ahead with you.

(15:34-19:57)
AMANDA TOLEDO: 
Hi! everyone I'm Amanda. My pronouns are she, her, hers, and ella.
I have been reviewing just under a year. I want to say I started in January of this year with Bulletin and I am coming off of 5 years working in public libraries.
Predominantly in youth services where I was one of the selectors for our collection.
And so, even though I'm not necessarily new to reviewing actually like a decade ago, when I was a student at U of I, I would write reviews for TV and film in the Buzz magazine. 
It's been a long time, so it's been a really interesting journey of getting back into this type of writing and really kind of trying to I think I'm still a little bit finding my voice with the Bulletin.
I think I'm feeling more solid now. but really kind of getting back into the more artistic and kind of erudite tone that the Bulletin has. Definitely like fought a little bit of imposter syndrome when I first started. 
because, like the reviews are so good and I will also say, like I don't know that there's a review April has written where I was like I do not want to read that book. 
Absolutely, I'm not surprised you had a fan come up to you because I love all of your reviews.

But yeah, you know I predominantly have been reviewing a lot of young adult, so a lot of realistic fiction.
But some fantasy too, which is definitely my favorite, and then, as well as some picture books.
And I we just kind of started got into a bilingual Spanish picture book, which I hope to be doing more of, because that was what I selected in libraries. I did the Spanish bilingual picture book collection.

And yeah, what I really like is being able to bring that lens from being a selector in the library into this, because I used to have kind of a more perfunctory idea of like, I need to know what 
the story is about. I need to know what the benefit, what are its strengths, what are its weaknesses?
And then I need to decide, and I think kind of what I'm finding now that I'm kind of getting more familiar with reviewing, is really finding the artistic expression with it.
And what makes a book really beautiful and like, How do we capture that in a review where you know we have a limited we have got like 300 words to really capture what this is about.
and I think right, like, because I haven't written in this format for so long-- I think, when you're younger you really think of looking at something critically into the negative format of, well, what can I say is, what did they do poorly?
And I think now, what I've really enjoyed is what is really fantastic!
How do I capture what is beautiful? What is transcendent about a book, and convey that to somebody who's considering adding it to their collection?
Considering it, using it in their classroom. Yeah, things like that.

And I think, honestly so sometimes I struggle more I haven't I do a bit of fantasy not a overwhelming amount, and really when you were dealing with an entirely new world how are you in
300 words. How are you capturing here's the world? Here is the plot, and here are the strengths to consider and weaknesses, if there are them.
And so really just kind of still finding a balance with that and honestly the things that I kind of approach with are What did I really want to know when I was making my selections in the library?
Especially with the kind of story it is like I think it's Diverse Bookfinder that calls the category of books 
"beautiful life." Right, if this book is including Black, Indigenous, people of color, Latine, disabled representation.
is it just about struggle, or is it also just about having a beautiful life having a joyous life?
Things like that. I wanna know if that kind of content is in a story. and so that's something I really try to be cognizant of as I'm reading, and noting, and how do I wanna mention these things in my
reviews. Yeah, I think that's it for now for what I have.


(19:58-20:23)
KATE QUEALY-GAINER: 
Alright, I also have few questions, and I will circle back to you.
But, Quinita, do you want to tell us a little bit about your experience?
QUINITA BALDERSON: 
Okay, can you hear me now? Are you able to see me and hear me?
KATE QUEALY-GAINER: 
Yes, I can see you and hear you. 

(20:24-27:11)
QUINITA BALDERSON: 
Yeah. Okay. So well, I'm Quinita Balderson. I've been reviewing, for the Bulletin since about 2017. I tend to review dark humor, horror, and I really like to take the opportunity
to review writers of color or any marginalized groups, but particularly Black authors.
Just because I wanna read the voices or read from voices that I didn't necessarily have a whole lot of selection of, you know, when I was reading as a little girl or reading as young adult.

So the thing that brought me into reviewing. Well, I went to grad school in my mid to late thirties, and I met Betty Bush. Actually, before I started my program, I remember taking a community--
taking a Grant level course as a community, as a community credit at the U of I and that's the first encounter I had with Betty Bush.
And it just felt like she was talking directly to me.
And so when I did apply for the iSchool and got accepted for Youth Services, I was actually a LEEP student, which meant most of my classes were primarily online because I worked full time, had
family. but I made sure that I was on campus for Betty Bush's classes, and it's actually a good thing that that happened because she's the person who really sparked my interest in reviewing because she took me
aside one day and said you gotta apply for this. There's a position open, and you need to apply for it. 
And I'm grateful to her for that, because one not only does she pick out something that I really that I didn't realize I had a talent for, she took the time to tell me, you know, and I and I'm really grateful for that.
I don't know that she's necessarily understands how much she's impacted or how much of her insights has had on my career goals and on myself.
But it's really one of the main reasons why I love to review. You know, I get a chance now to recognize someone or something special because someone did that for me.

So, let's see, I would also like to talk a little bit about my approach for reviewing. As I said, or why I find reviewing valuable, as I said, I love the odd, the horror.
Give me all of the dark humor and I really appreciate reviewing, particularly because my full time job is within the library, 
but I don't get to specifically deal with youth books or any materials necessarily for children and that's where my passion is.
So I find this opportunity to continue to review, for the Bulletin is just invaluable for me, and I really do enjoy it.

I selected this field of study specifically because I care about why libraries and what they mean for all. Particularly for younger generations.
So you know, anytime the value of libraries and schools, the community comes into question. It really-- I see red. You know it's to question the value of the space, 
and or the books or materials within for me is just completely absurd.
And my passion is there so I really feel like you know it's important to highlight the library space and the reviewing as significant and important and valuable.

Aside from that, I am a writer.
I belong to different groups where we discuss and analyze and we we challenge. And I think that helps me with reviewing, because it's important to be comfortable with that, to be comfortable with my voice and receiving
criticism. It really keeps me grounded. 

And other than that. I well, I really wanna-- Oh, I'm so sorry there is something else that I wanted to talk about.
And I don't know if, Kate, if you remember this but when I was starting out reviewing, and we could actually go to the Bulletin and sit around the table and pass books around. 
At the end of a meeting there was a stack of books that you had prepared for me, and on the top of it it said, Funny, weird, Quinita!
And for me I really appreciate that I love that, because I feel like okay, I can be my true self, even if it is a little different.
And I'm comfortable with that and it's every bit, as valuable as you know as genres.
I think one of the reasons why I like to highlight dark humor and horror is because a lot of times those, get like Children's literature in general tends to do, a lot of times those get kind of
dismissed or you know that's low brow or not as important, and I'm not here for that at all. Children's literature is absolutely important and you know I'm--
anytime I see something special or unique I really wanna take the time and highlight that. So yeah, that's a bit about me. Thank you. 

(27:12-31:54)
KATE QUEALY-GAINER:
Thank you, Quinita. You actually, you segue very nice into what I wanted to talk about, which is assigning books for the funny, weird, and scary.
So, as I mentioned earlier, I am responsible for assigning the books to my reviewers, and I am a little bit possessive of my reviewers.
Like, I said, we get in a ton of books from publishers, and I look at all of them.
It's a little bit strange now, it's a very different process now that we've moved to virtual. When we were in a physical space, we had the physical galleys 
I would go and I would sit on the floor, and I would flip through books and and whatnot, and I would assign them to be people. now that we've shifted to a
virtual format, which I think has huge benefits. It has made assigning books a little bit different. 

So we use a couple digital galley platforms like EdelWeiss and NetGalley. If you are familiar with those. and then we also get sent a lot of Pdfs 
of books from the publishers. So that means I'm flipping through a lot on my computer and I'm looking at Pdfs. I'm looking at what's on Edelweiss especially.
We use Edelweiss quite a bit and when I'm reviewing or I'm sorry when I'm assigning I try to keep in mind my reviewers preferences, strengths, and weaknesses. 
I usually probably annually send out an email that says I know you've told me this before but can you remind me?
And it's sort of what are your preferences. What do you feel like you can review fairly?  which is a different question than what do you prefer?

I like it when people give me this is what I can review fairly. Because it gives me a little bit more of wiggle room when it comes to assigning them things.
We typically have-- everyone kind of has their wheelhouse a little bit. When Betty Bush as Quinita was talking about was with us and she was with us for a long time.
She was our non-fiction person. She was great, she was just so curious and wonderful. And so she brought that to non-fiction. You know she would look things up.
She would go down Internet rabbit holes. She taught me how to review nonfiction, and it's certainly something that I am doing right now, which has been a lot of fun.
But also involves a fair amount of Internet rabbit holes.
And so I try to keep in mind sort of everyone's wheelhouse.
I also try to think how they could potentially be challenged and could maybe stretch out of their zone, because I know that they're writing strengths could take them somewhere.
And when that happens, and I kind of pushed a little bit sometimes my reviewers email me and say, I don't want to do this, or can we have a talk?
I want to go over what I think this review could be,Let's talk about it. 

When I take on new reviewers, there's sort of an onboarding process in which they write reviews.
They submit them to me, I revise them. We kind of go back and forth.
I explain my revisions. We look at what could be, You know, I think one of the biggest things.
There are 2 major things that I look at is you gotta trim it down.
300 words is sort of our max so if I can get that down a little bit, and you would be surprised when you finally look at your review.
You will be like. Oh, I was repeating myself a lot there. I can trim that sentence down. And then the other one, as Amanda was talking about, is there is this approach
I think, particularly at the beginning of a review, career or profession. You have an approach like I'm gonna talk about everything that might be challenging or bad or problematic about this book, 
and sometimes that's not what we're here for.
We serve a very different role. We are we are primarily trying to help librarians do collection development and me telling them everything that's wrong with a book, and then tagging at the end, and being hey,
It's fine in your collection. Is not gonna do anybody any good. So we there's a little bit of a shift.
I think that needs to happen when you're starting to review. So I just kind of wanted to talk about those 2 things.

And then I Okay, We're okay. I do have a couple of questions for the reviewers themselves, and then we can open it up to Q and A.
April, you have been reviewing with us for a long time, and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about any of the trends that you've seen both sort of within books, 
but also with the reviewing world itself. And kind of what has changed, and what could potentially change for the better?

(31:55-35:50)
APRIL SPISAK:
Sure. Well, I think most of the changes have been absolutely positive.
I think one of the we are way way better at talking about queer identities, gender identities, and working them--The Bulletin has always been pretty great at it.
But across reviewing folks are getting better and better at incorporating those in smooth ways.
You know you have this sort of worst case scenario of like Eve, black, lesbian with divorced parents really wanted to go to Mars. Okay, how much can I fit into this first sentence, 
so that we have all the things and I think that's gotten a lot smoother. A lot more thoughtful and a lot more effective.
I think the publishing world is finally catching up to diverse books by diverse authors.
And I think authors notes are often so refreshing in their sort of transparency, and helping readers make connections between the author, between the books
and that feels really terrific, and like a really positive in the past 5 years.
And hopefully, that gets better. I think we're Oh, this is smaller one but I think
we're way better at reviewing graphic novels than we were 15 years ago.
I think we were still talking about like, What is it a format, is it a genre?

KATE QUEALY-GAINER
Oh, totally agree. 

APRIL SPISAK
In 2004, when I was a youth services librarian for the first time, I actually had to present to the library board
when I wanted to buy the very first graphic novels for the teen room, because they assumed I was buying smut as in explicit and they were very concerned. 
and I had to go present to this group of 12 people that I did not, in fact, want to buy graphic things just things with pictures. Just that just pictures and so like Iim old
But I'm not that old that happened in my career you know I and so that one.

And then I think one just interesting, quirky thing that I think I never would have spotted except as an insider who reviews a lot is that teen literature takes bizarre cycles.
Of like groups of things. There was one year where, I reviewed more selky books than I had ever read in my whole life.
There was a season where I was doing a whole bunch, like all the mermaids were terrifying. They all had sharp teeth and bad intent.
And that was a grouping and then the season that my son was born. So, my son was born in 2008, and I reviewed right up until he was born, and actually came a week, and a half later to the next meeting
where I would just remember vividly through my whole pregnancy. All I felt like all I kept reading was books about vampire schools, like schools for vampires, in middle grade literature, and in teen literature.
The day he was born, I was reading a book about vampire school.
And so I think that's just a I don't understand why that happens, or how that happens.
But it absolutely happens. and so that has been funny and interesting and I realized I forgot to mention that I think it's in my little bio, but I'm head of youth services now.
And what that means at my library is that that's just a big lie, and it's a department of me. I'm head of myself, and so I do all of the purchasing for birth through the end of fifth grade.
So just to give a little perspective on where I am. 

(35:51-39:30)
KATE QUEALY-GAINER:
Thank you. Yes, you are right about the cycles.
When I was a graduate assistant we had a white board, and we would cross the trending thing off and put the new one on. So that was that was always fun. 

I got a question in the chat a little bit about sort of how I review, or how I look at a book to assign it. Do I read it? Do I open the book? 
Yes, even on the sort of Pdfs. I kind of,I go through it. I look at the jacket copy. 
I look at the summary that's a little bit tougher right now, because the Pdfs don't always come with it, so I gotta start I gotta flip through.
I sort of do, I try not to go to the end because I don't want to spoil it if it's for me.
But I try to do sort of like the beginning in the middle. I look at writing style. I look at the format of it. Obviously, graphic novel, poetry, but also sort of what I think might be the age group.
And then I sort of think about like, well does this work for that age group?


And at that point I sort of give it to my reviewers, and I do trust them. I do say to the reviewers, you can reject this one if it's not in your wheelhouse or two,
if you just think the ink shouldn't be you know spilled on it, we don't need to review it.
We have so many books that we need to review that it's I think important to get the good ones out.
We do do sort of negative reviews. A very negative review is few and far between.
But we do so, we have 2 codes well we have multiple codes. but the 2 that you're gonna see the most are the R.
And that's recommended, and then the A.D. or the Ad and that is sort of like this book is flawed, and it might be more flawed than it's good.
But if you need books of like of this type in your collection, it might be worth having. 
Withing those reviews, we also sort of try to maybe recommend another book, or point people to a different author or sort of couch it in a way that like this book is still valuable, 
there might just be some other ones that are a little bit more valuable. So what would you be an example of? Oh, okay,
So there, there are kind of really easy ones that just kinda we don't typically review like an alphabet book. If it's an Abc book that's you know it's just it's gonna go. It's fine. It can go into a library and those are just very common.
If I look at a book that, I just choose not to review at all, it will sometimes be.
Oh, my gosh! this is like the fifteenth book that we've had of this particular kind, and when I open it up the writing style isn't particularly refreshing.
There's nothing really new about it it doesn't feel like it needs to be reviewed when we have, you know, 14 other different books.

I do actually try to prioritize small presses that's something that I really like about the Bulletin. Is because there's only one person doing it.
I can sort of dedicate some time and getting, and there there's a lot of small presses coming up, and that's really nice, because those small presses bring more representation to both the literature and gives the
reviewing field sort of more a bigger opportunity to review those materials.
So that's always really good, but with the bigger presses I do tend to sort of see Oh, are they just giving us the same thing, and if we are, you know, we don't need to review it it doesn't mean
the book isn't good it just means it doesn't need to be reviewed, which is kind of a different it's a different beast. 

Emily.

(39:31-43:16)
EMILY CONRADT: 
Hi Okay, Can you hear me?
Perfect. So I have a couple of questions for the reviewers.
The first question is just kind of a basic when you get a book to review what is your specific process?
Because I imagine different people do it differently. I mean, do you do a quick read through once?
Do you do some background research? What kind of notes do you take when you're doing it?
Just a general idea of your process.

KATE QUEALY-GAINER:
Well for me I take notes. It's again when it was physical galleys I did a lot of dog earing, but honestly like to a certain point every page was dog earing and it wasn't doing me any good.
It's like when you're an undergrad, and you just highlight everything, and you realize that you've highlighted like half of the book and it
doesn't you any good. So typically now, I usually there are a couple of important things that I try to start with age of the character that's important. Either, 
if we get the number or the grade. Character names is what I try to remember. We do have a lovely fact checker, though, who helps us. He is very, very detailed and good at what he does.
So those are the couple of things that I do if it's a really complicated book. I will take notes, in my head, honestly as April said,
you're kind of writing the review in your head like as you're reading it sometimes.
So if I come up with something a wonderful sentence that I know I want in my review, I will jot that down. Doesn't happen a whole lot right now.
But yeah, that's that's sort of what I do. 
Amanda, do you want to talk about your process?
You're a little bit you're on the newish, and I'm wondering if it's a little bit different for you.

AMANDA TOLEDO: 
Yeah, I definitely I don't know how much my process has changed, I think, for when I'm picking out which books I'm going to read, I feel like I am the complete opposite of April.
I, for somebody who is a book nerd and who has always loved reading her whole life, I am the world's slowest reader. I wish I could be a faster reader, but I'm not so
I will often look, How long is this? Could I actually read this to be able to put out a review in sufficient time, and then I am also really looking for my interest points. I love Latinx, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, disability representation.
So if it's in that and there's a little bit of magic, I'm probably gonna want to read that.

And then for me, I kind of went on a journey with how I how I was doing things. I was kind of doing things a little haphazardly at the beginning, but my latest process that I think I'm gonna stick with is, you know, 
I'm usually reading a digital copy off of my phone. So what I do is I screenshot, I highlight what's important whether it's characters' name, age, something, I think, is important, and then I have my notes app and I'll put the
screenshot in there, and if there is a line that I know I want to put into my review. How do I feel about this thing, or what do I think is important?
Then I will put that into the notes app too. So that I can just kind of go through it while I'm writing my review and be like, okay, these were the things that I thought were important that I wanted to touch upon or here's a quote 
that I thought was really great or really captured the essence of the story that I really want to include in the review. And that was also honestly pretty new to me, too.
I don't know why because obviously I'd read multiple reviews before starting to write my own from other reviewers at the Bulletin, and at first I was like you just write your review, and then I saw how people how
other reviewers were folding in quotes from the book and I was like, Oh, that's really nice.
I want to learn how to do that so that's kind of something I've slowly added into is how to incorporate quotes from the book that I think will benefit the review. 

(43:17-46:10)
KATE QUEALY-GAINER: 
Priya, I think your hand is up. You can go ahead. Sorry am I talking over. Okay.

PRIYA: 
Is it okay? Am I ready? Oh, okay, so I had a question for Kate. In your intro, 
you mentioned that, we you know, you said something like reviewing has changed, or has influenced in some way because of these, you know, unprecedented number of book challenges.
So that's my question. What did you mean by that how has reviewing changed or how is that influenced the way that you review books now? 

KATE QUEALY-GAINER:
I don't think it has necessarily changed it. I may have misspoke that is something even when I started, which was 15 years ago.
I almost can, I'm almost on April's tenure, I think I'm not quite there.
But my boss, my former boss Deborah would talk a little bit about how these reviews can be used, and are often used in challenges.
And so you'll review needs to communicate to the librarian, whether the possibility sometimes of this book getting challenged, and what I mean by that is that we do include you know if something includes a lot of explicit sex. We have
to mention that, because that librarian has to know what they're buying, and if they buy it with that information, then they get to, then they can take that, you know if it's a highly recommended book, and we also say yeah
there's a lot of sex-- they can take it and be like I knew this, but I also wanted this book, because of these strengths. This is what made that book good for me. 
There's a lot of challenges. I mean I think the ALA has come out with numbers that are insane. It's we're up like what 300% when it comes to challenges across the country.
So as I've started to see more of that, especially I would probably say in the last year, I'm a little bit more aware of that when we're reviewing something. Amanda had a book a couple of weeks ago
that had a sex scene off screen we call it so it didn't happen in the book, but it was the character itself did sort of struggle with the idea of
did she consent? What did that consent look like? So it felt important to include that in the review. Partially because it was obviously a huge part of her character, but also partially because it's something that the librarian who is making that collection development choice 
needed to know in case they have to come up against someone who is challenging it, you know, for better, or for worse.
So that was one of the things that I meant with that one. 
Michele, you have your hand up.

(46:11-49:20)
MICHELE: 
Hi! Thanks, sorry I don't know how to put my hand-- maybe I did, 
so I guess my 2 questions are kind of related. But I'm really curious how you get into reviewing because it's something that I've been thinking about professionally for a long time.
I'm in an academic library setting but buying the children's books, so I read your guys' stuff. So then, my other question that's tangential or connected to it is how many books per reviewer per month, and how many hours per week do you dedicate to reading writing all of that especially
since it sounds like there's several of you that have other full time jobs. So I was just curious about that.
 
KATE QUEALY-GAINER: 
Yes, most of our reviewers have full time or part time jobs. I definitely call this. This is a gig job, or this is a consultant job almost.
How you get into it is really I mean as you heard it's sort of across the board sometimes people fall into it.
I think our process, like 5 years ago, needed to be formalized because it was just kind of people were falling in and falling out, and it needed to be formalized.
So right now, I would hire someone through the university. I put up an ad. Ususally, we kind of have turnover, I would say in the summertime, because people are graduating. 
We do have some students who review for the Bulletin or sometimes we have professors and instructors who sort of need to focus on developing courses, so it's kind of a nice-- I know most jobs
don't like the the overturn but we kind of do, because we get a lot of different perspectives. 
When it comes to how many hours are devoted, or how many books people review, that is typically up to them. When I hire them we talk a little bit about, what do you think you can handle?
And I talk about You know what I need at that moment. It does sort of depend on how many reviewers I have currently, also, how many reviewers I have on hand who are reviewing you know one thing like, if I have someone who's doing all of the nonfiction, 
I might not need another nonfiction reader. And so, while that reviewer might be wonderful if all they can do is non-fiction. I don't need them at that point in time, so I probably would pass on hiring them. It really depends on kind of where we are at
sometimes, and other times I need an influx of reviewers. One of the things I'm just going to like give myself toot my own horn here.
I do teach a reviewing class through the university. I am offering that the second session of the spring semester.
Sometimes it happens over the summer as well so if you are a student, or if you can enroll in that outside of it, you know I teach it, and it's always a lot of fun. 

MICHELLE: 
Okay Cool. So would you recommend then just watching the U of I hiring board. 

KATE QUEALY-GAINER: 
Yes. 

MICHELLE: 
Okay, Yeah. Cool sounds good. 

(49:21-49:53)
AMANDA TOLEDO: 
Could I add to that, Kate? 

KATE QUEALY-GAINER: 
Yeah, go for it. 

AMANDA TOLEDO: 
I would also say, I am an MLIS student currently but I would say being part of you know, all of those professional email chains.
That's how I heard about the reviewing opportunity is somebody in my circle had received as part of I don't know if was Rails-- it was one of the Illinois librarians email groups that this got pushed out to and somebody was like, Hey, you might be into this.
So that could be another way to to keep hearing about it.

MICHELLE: 
Thanks. 

(49:54-52:18)
KATE QUEALY-GAINER:
Emily, I see your hand, But I wanted to circle back to Quinita really quick. I know, I stepped over you, Quinita, and I think you were gonna talk about your reviewing process, and I want to make sure that we get an idea of that as well.
And then, Emily, I will get to you. 

QUINITA BALDERSON: 
Oh, yeah, thanks, Kate. I will just quickly because I'm aware of the time. So my review process. There's a reason why I tend to go for something that's different, 
unique, you know something that's a little bit you know not easily identifiable.
Not necessarily, I did, I not necessarily easy to categorize I should say. 
And I tend to gravitate towards the different, or the horror, because frankly, realism just gets way too scary for me sometimes, and I find that dark humor is kind of my comfort zone and
also back in my grad school days which really wasn't that long ago.
I had the opportunity to create a zine and I called it Beautifully Out of Place, because that's kind of how I feel in the library like in my library career. 
and I've not always felt I've belonged or had, or have been taken seriously in some areas of my life.
But because I'm a critical thinker I try to you know, use that, as you know, as use that to my advantage, 
so I try to stay aware of how valuable it is to occupy spaces or genres or character roles where people of color or you know margin, marginalized groups are not typically expected to be and I try to
give that a boost up because I want folks to know it's like, hey, this is valuable it's important.
And let's see you know honestly my education background teaches me to question everything.
So when it comes to reviewing, I try to be open. But I do know where my strengths lie, and I kinda tend to think of myself as kind of a mindful Daniel Handler or Lemony Snicket.

(52:19-53:41)
KATE QUEALY-GAINER:
Emily, go ahead with your question.

EMILY: 
I don't know if we have time for this. But I was just curious whether the reviewers in the process of reviewing there was a time 
when you realized you had had a blind spot about a particular type of thing, and just how you've learned over time, along those lines?

KATE QUEALY-GAINER:
I can say hands down with the last year or 2 I've had to become very aware of pronouns within a review while editing.
That was definitely a blind spot before. I think that we did get a couple of notes from publishers correcting us on pronouns, and that was actually kind of helpful, 
because it was like okay this is a practice that we need to start doing, and I really appreciate when my reviewers you know, pointed out, or let me know.
But it is a thing that both my fact checker and I are starting to be way more aware of. I don't know if any, if anyone else wants to talk about that, we do only have, I think, what 2 minutes.
Alright. Well, I guess I'll just expose myself as someone who made a mistake.
No? That's okay. Oh, Quinita go ahead. 

(53:42-54:44)
QUINITA BALDERSON: 
I will just say it's very beneficial for us to have the the group readings of the reviews, because I get so excited,
I want to talk all about this book I might actually give something away. So you know it's really and you gotta be cautious about that.
And honestly, as a student, I will say as a student in having someone teach me how to review for a project not a full class like Kate.
One of the things that I brought up was how do I know what to say, so I don't give anything away, and they're response is 
well that's part of it because your audience needs to know, so it's really finding that balance you know. 

KATE QUEALY-GAINER: 
Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Finding a balance on the spoiler or the series is also definitely a skill. I think that that takes a little while to be honed. 

(54:45-57:15)
APRIL SPISAK: 
Hey,Kate.

KATE QUEALY-GAINER: 
Yeah.

APRIL SPISAK: 
So I'm sure I have blind spots, and I've probably just forgotten-- learn through them.
But it's a one thing that really had me stuck for at least the first few years was this fear of reviewing something badly that ended up winning the Newberry. I and you know I went to
Deborah, who was the editor at the time and I was like, What do I do?
And she's like they can go pound sand you know which was really Yeah, she's like you don't know any less than anyone out there.
And what they choose to award you know you don't like--. We're not privy to their standards you, do you?
And that was really helpful. And one time I reviewed a book, put it up for a star, It was turned down for a star, and it did win the Newberry so I'll hold on to that. 

KATE QUEALY-GAINER: 
Another time, I remember distinctly is that we gave an M to a book, and that is marginalized that's a sort of like this book is not good.
Don't buy it for your library and that one won the Printz, and I remember being like, oh, no, but you know we we stood behind it.
I think that was the one thing that was great about Deborah is that she trusted all of us.So that was always really helpful. 

AMANDA TOLEDO: 
and I don't know if this is kinda of small, because everything everyone else is saying is exactly yes, but for me, what kind of caught me is like really catching now I kind of do
a search on every review, because I find I love to reuse the same word or the same phrases. I did not think about that until, I was like, wait a minute.
I have used delightful, too many times, or I don't know what like you have to like, really catch your little fillings there. 

KATE QUEALY-GAINER:
Yeah, we will occasionally put a moratorium on either a word or a turn of phrase.
I use the word rich and brilliantly way too much. So that's one thing that you also kind of get into. 

It is 12:01 right now. So I'm sorry I am gonna cut it off for people because I know that people have to go, and I actually have to go in a little bit.
But it was lovely having you all here. I really liked to talk about it. I'm always willing to talk about reviewing but yeah, it was great.
And to my presenters: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I appreciate your help and your insight. 

APRIL SPISAK: 
I threw my email in the chat...