Books

If you're like children's librarian Josh, you're not in love with Valentine's Day. But he's positive if you take a minute to share one (or more!) of these books with the special little one in your life, you'll be sure to enjoy Valentine’s Day just the teensiest bit more this year.

Some of the best movies have been inspired by books. As an avid book reader and former movie industry professional, I am more critical than most of book adaptations. I want the characters I envisioned in my head to translate to the screen the way I pictured them. Everything from characters to scenes to sets can be transformed in different ways when a book is made into a movie. As a book and movie lover, I can appreciate both the book and the movie, even if I typically like the book best. These are the book-movie adaptations, I am most excited about in 2016.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theaters in a few days, and if you’re anything like the entire rest of the Internet, you’ve been hysterically excited about it since the summer of 2012. How are you ever going to make it one more hour, let alone days? Now, the obvious solution would be to read some Star Wars books to pass the time, but there are less than 300 of those. I’m sure you’ve read and re-read all of them too many times for them to provide much comfort. So instead, you tell me what you like best about Star Wars, and I’ll tell you what book you should be reading to find more of that. I’ll be giving recommendations in the comments, but for the sake of having a blog post to comment on, please welcome our crowd of imaginary patrons with conveniently phrased questions.

Some of my fondest memories with my family are from snow days, including warm mugs of hot chocolate, movie-watching, hide and seek with Gus the cat, hours of story-telling, almost as many hours of nap-taking, blanket forts, and lots of outdoor excursions. In our home we make a habit of celebrating our goofy winter getups. This winter I hope you’ll celebrate too by overdressing, playing outside when it’s snowy, and reading some of the following books that highlight the many snuggly layers of winter.