Bio

As far back as I can remember, I have loved reading and was always huddled somewhere with a book in my hand. The escapism and beauty of different worlds found in pages and leather bindings have been my comfort and joy through my years. It began in Elementary school with the Chet Gecko series. My previous reading covered whatever I could get my hands on so everything from the backs of cereal boxes, frog and toad books and hand me down novels from school. One day at a book fair, I had saved up enough residual birthday and Christmas money to buy two of the books from the Chet Gecko Detective series by Bruce Hale and I finished them both in one night. My fervor and passion for reading was set aflame and I haven’t looked back since. Chet was the ultimate protagonist in my eyes. Stylish, cool and inquisitive, he was every bit of the detective I envisioned myself to be. Every major holiday and birthday afterwards, I asked for the newest Chet Gecko book available. My requests in the family became so well-known that my grandmother actually ended up having an email correspondence with Mr. Hale and he sent me a copy of one of the newer books right before it was released. As time went on, I moved to more varied material like the Harry Potter series and Percy Jackson. My adolescent reading days were full of fantastical places and notions of greatness coming from unexpected places and people. With age and maturity, my reading interests matured as well. Going from wizardry, gods and powers to themes of self discovery, racism and poverty was not a hard transition. Being one of the African diaspora, I was not only able to identify with the marginalized groups of popular YA novels but also apply their own lessons of facing adversity and overcoming hatred to my own life. Transitioning to non-fiction work, I was able to consistently feed the ever expanding hunger for knowledge and insight stoked all those years ago. That brings us to the present and to this blog. I hope to make SD’s Library a place where fictional and non-fictional work can bring insight, joy and knowledge to all of you, my fellow Librarians. It’s going to be a fun ride and journey and I thank you all for coming along!