Lewis Powell

So let’s make a new calendar: Russian Christmas is the last day of the year. So Happy New Year! This is right on time! Honestly, I do gather the lists and write a lot of the descriptions over the course of the year, then the end of the year it’s final writings and editings and formattings and gathering links, but this year I kept getting distracted every time I sat down to work on it. “I know what your problem is,” Jason, who was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and went to a special high school where he learned coping strategies, said one such time. “Your problem is you’re TRYING to write. You need to go try to do chores, and suddenly you’ll be all about writing!”

And it’s true, that actually works. Sometimes. It did in that case and then I spat out the whole “Christmas” section below.

So if you’re new here, here’s my year, divided into Real Life and Media (and also Other Stuff I Wrote, that could technically be considered Media but I don’t know), and then put into lists which may or may not be ranked, and things are bolded and different sizes by outline level, so it’s easy to skim through just looking for stuff you’re interested in! Although you nevcr know, you might find something interesting in a section you didn’t KNOW you were interested in! Whatever you do, please feed my need for external validation by leaving me a comment about whatever you DID find interesting!

 STUFF THAT HAPPENED

Real Life Events

The definite biggest happening of the year was that the burnout I'd hinted at last year finally came to a head, and I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't pull off being a full-time librarian (particularly one with a 40-minute commute). This was a massive paradigm-shaking decision, but one that has only proved more right over time, as I've taken the time to catch up on doctors appointments and do physical therapy, and I've become much more aware of my limits (emotionally and physically) since I'm not pushing them constantly. And every so often over the past few months Jason will just say, in a tone of wonder, "I'm glad to see you happy again," or "It's good to have you BACK," because I guess it WAS that noticeable!

As it turned out, my old boss from the library down the street called me the very evening my position was posted (that I was leaving it), and asked if I'd be willing to do storytimes for them on a contractual basis— paid per storytime— a couple mornings a week. I thought how ironic it was, how annoyed the arrangement would have made me a few years ago, Oh, and why don't you just make me your full-time official children's librarian? But now that I've HAD the opportunity to be a full-time-official children's librarian, I can say, Yes, I did that! But now I need less! And actually a couple mornings a week being paid specifically for storytime is exactly what I can handle! So I still get to do storytimes after all! And I can tell by how tired I am afterward that it's definitely all I can handle!

Now, it's good I have--a smaller but not nothing-- income after all, as I did worry that we wouldn't have enough money if I quit, and we'd just gotten a massive hole in our bathroom floor. The wood had rotted away under the tile and we're probably going to have to have the entire bathroom redone to fix the water-tightness, and in the process of moving the toilet to access the hole in the floor better Jason broke the toilet, too. So we've been down to one bathroom most of this year!

Also luckily, Sam has a full-time job and is now paying into the household expenses. Because he graduated from high school this year! I am the mother of a high-school graduate! My little baby boy (yes, that's how long I've had a blog)! Since he did VoTech he's straight out into the workforce, and has been learning all sorts of new adulting things this year.

One of the highlights of my year was the Honors College reunion in June. This was right when I was first debating leaving the library, so I was pretty stressed out at the time, and how good it felt to hang out with some of my old college friends— only two of my best friends could make it, Tracie and Jen, and we also met up with our friend Holly, but that was enough to just be so fun! It had been years since I'd seen Tracie or Jen and even longer since I'd seen Holly, but it felt like no time. And campus has changed a LOT. And because we were an Honors College full of nerds, one of our old (now REALLY old) professors did a lecture, and I was just like, oh yeah, this is great, I'm a nerd, I'm among my people again. And at the evening dinner we passed around a microphone for people to reminisce things to share, and I volunteered, just so I could share how amazing it had been back then to find a community where I actually felt like I belonged, and how nice it was to revisit that feeling today!

 Christmas

Christmas was good this year— bittersweet, but good. Full of laughter in my immediate family. With actual free time I returned to my hobby in previous years of sewing gifts for people, mostly sweatshirts, but also corduroys for Maddie and a jacket for my niece Betty. The problem is that JoAnn Fabrics has closed since the last Christmas I did this, and it's a lot harder to find cute fleece (for cheap. I did order some cute patterns from Spoonflower but those are much more expensive and I had to supplement with solid-color sleeves or whatnot). Supposedly Michaels inherited all JoAnns' product lines, but even online the selection of cute fleece prints is scanty. Ah well. To the point, this was the most recent time Jason out of nowhere told me "It's good to have you back," watching while I bustled around sewing and wrapping and singing carols, because "you always loved Christmas, and you just hadn't been into it the past few years," and that made me teary.

Which is where the "bittersweet" comes in, because I've been emotionally on-edge this year, maybe BECAUSE I have more time to think about things. I've been missing my dad this year even more than I'd missed him over the past three Christmases. You can tell my mom's heart's just not as into Christmas as it used to be, and I remember the Christmas Eve parties at their house— which HAD been mostly my dad's doing— and I guess something about this year made it really sink in— no, we never WILL have that particular experience again. Christmas is an eerie time of year, I say as someone who loves Christmas, but I also love psychedelic music which is ALSO eerie. It's like they say that Halloween is when the boundary between the living and dead is thinnest, Christmas has always felt like when the boundaries of Time are thinnest. Like Time as we know it is least linear. It feels like every Christmas that ever was and ever will be is happening at once. It's probably just that the music is reserved for this time of year, but it's the same music (for the most part) you've been listening to EVERY year at this time of year, and your brain connects them all that way, but the nostalgia hits hard and constant. And I love reliving the joy I've gathered from Christmas over the years, and I love spreading more of it, but I miss the people I used to see at Christmastime— the extended families— seems like extended family get-togethers died off after COVID and never picked back up. And I do my best to bring joy to the world like my dad did, but I'm not as social as him, so I can't, like, fill his shoes. And maybe I noticed it more this year because I HAD time and energy to spend on Christmas cheer at all?

Library Happenings

Obviously my library time was shaken up a good bit this year, which makes it feel a little weird, and some things I might have remarked on no longer seem important. But I shall do my best!

Top Five Summer Library Program Moments in Chronological Order Because I Can't Rank Them

The Collaborative Summer Library Program theme was "Color Our World," and I kept learning fascinating things about color all summer that I kept wanting to share but wasn't always easy to turn into an elementary-level activity. Here's a list of "moments" more than themes or activities— things I remember with great fondness!

• The Pumpkin— I don't actually mention Fausto Gilberti's Artist picture book bio series in the booklists below, they just missed the cutoff line I suppose, but it's a neat Italian series (translated) that really focuses in on what makes the artists in question interesting to kids. I picked Yayoi Kusama Covered Everything In Dots and Wasn't Sorry for an introductory read-aloud on the first day of the program, the theme of which was finding art in the world all around you, and I thought her story fit. The kids actually got really into it, surprisingly the older group even more than the younger group even if I WAS (gasp) reading them a picture book, because some of her artwork was just so wild, so it elicited a lot of "wow!"s and "WHAT?!"s. Now most of the book is cartoony illustrations, but on the last page is a photograph of one of her more recent series of works, basically lots and lots of pumpkin sculptures covered with lots and lots of dots for as far as the eye can see. Immediately after this, we made collages by cutting interesting things from old magazines. Suddenly one of the girls gasped and ran over to me with a decorating magazine. "Look what I found! It's one of her pumpkins!" And indeed, there was actually a set of Yayoi Kusama's polka-dotted pumpkins being shown off as a high-class decorating option in this magazine. It was a perfect moment of learning kismet. And she DID use the pumpkins in her collage.
• Wear Your Colors week—there's too many memorable moments to pick from this week, which focused on fiber arts. The kids did glue batiking with spray dye on T-shirts, and on the first day, while they were drying in the sun, a sudden rainstorm whooshed in, causing a bit of a panicky mess that became Quite the Story. One of the teen volunteers, who'd been getting into fiber arts herself, started a little crocheting club of a bunch of interested kids during recess and down time. Pom-pom making was the biggest and most surprising hit of the week. And I'd invited a special guest, a woman who owns a nearby alpaca farm and a yarn shop to go with it, who'd visited the library earlier that year, to come in to talk about/show them how she turns alpaca wool into yarn, and everyone was fascinated! The older kids even got to try out the equipment. That was a very successful week, on the whole.
• Fireworks video and [child's name redacted]— This is small as far as programs-for-the-group go, but it's the sort of thing that Makes It All Worth It, as they say. Fourth of July week was "Color Chemistry," so we ended the day with a video about how fireworks are made. On the second (older kids) day, a mother who had kids in both days came up to tell me that her younger son had spent the entire 40-minute ride home the day before (this library serves a VERY large rural area) excitedly describing in detail exactly how fireworks are made, and we both felt kind of lucky that the ingredients aren't things that are easy for a seven year old to come by, or there WOULD have been some attempts made at homemade fireworks, we're pretty sure! Anyway, definitely a Moment of the summer, hearing about all that excitement one little video had caused.
• 3D printing— the library had recently set up a 3D printer, and I thought it would be really cool if the older group could try it out for "Building Color" week, but I was nervous about asking. But on the contrary, our director thought that was a great idea and even suggested each kid make their own piece to take home, which I'd assumed we'd just be able to make one group piece to keep at the library. I found a little project on Tinkercad to make a little keychain with a name or initials on it, which I thought would be great for everyone to be able to personalize their own piece without spending too much time making things up from scratch. The kids caught on to using Tinkercad relatively quickly, and then each took their turn spelling whatever they wanted (within reason) on a keychain— most went with their names, but we had TWO "#1 DANCER"s, and one girl just spelled "GREEN" on a keychain that she did request be made in green. The youngest boy (who actually age-wise belonged in the younger group but was very smart and mature) made one that was really silly and made everyone laugh, which I of course now forget. My only real disappointment was that the one boy (the older brother of the one who now knows how to make fireworks actually) who I'd convinced to sign up for Summer Quest in the first place by telling him that the big kids were going to get to use the 3D printer, HAPPENED to be sick and stay home that week!
• Banana Piano and muffins— the last week was "The Color of Sound," and for stations I set up a full-chromatic-octave 12-key Banana Piano with a Makey Makey kit. Twelve bananas being used as a piano by elementary schoolers get pretty beat up after a half-hour play session, and we did this on two different days, so that was 24 bashed up bananas I didn't want to go to waste, so I made banana muffins and offered them up at our end-of-summer picnic as a gift from me to everybody. And those banana muffins were VERY popular if I do say so myself.
• Bonus: Field Trip— there was no better fit for a field trip to celebrate a summer of art, color science, and hands-on making, I thought, than my favorite former place of employment, the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh. And it was SO FUN. All the kids had a blast, and I did, too. It was fun to be back there to see a field trip from the OTHER side after having led such trips myself over 18 years ago! (And yes, I pointed out the sign in the lobby that still has my name on it because I'd happened to be working there when the expansion was built). And it reminded me just how much of my educational philosophy I developed from working there, things that have become instinctual when planning activities that, oh, I see are things I learned at the Museum! And on the flip side, I was seriously tickled listening to our guide do the Pre-Tour speech and I heard him use some lines/turns of phrase I'D originated for the speech over 20 years ago!

 Top Five Regular Storytime Themes

1. Bears: Do you have any idea how many books about bears there are? There was even a book in my old Outreach bags called No Bears that was about how sick the young narrator was of books with bears in them. And my favorite picture book of 2025 (granted I haven't read too many) is a bear book (see below). So considering I was doing storytimes at two different libraries this year I reused this theme at both, and had more than enough selections to choose from. You have to do "Going On a Bear Hunt" because this always kills (not literally, it's not that kind of hunt). I cannot remember what craft we did, but there's more than enough stories to take up the time.
2. Planting: I'd always wanted to do a long-term storytime project and I went for it this year— a two-parter program, one in mid-March where we talked about getting the garden ready for spring and planting seeds (also, read Plant the Tiny Seed, that's a must), and one in mid-May where we talked about flowers in bloom and made the required Mother's Day craft (which was a handprint flower). But at the March session I had them work together to plant a class marigold, then we set it in the window and checked in on it every week and watered it— there were different classes several days a week, and the volunteers tended to water ALL the pots, so they got plenty of water every day! They weren't ready for repotting by mid-may, so I used that as incentive for them to come back for our tomato-planting program in the off-season, so the marigolds could go in the garden with the tomatoes!
3. Skeletons: I was scheduled to do a STEM themed storytime on Halloween, and I thought, what's a spooky science topic and/or a Halloween theme that can be given a scientific spin? And so I came up with skeletons. There's a cute book called There's a Skeleton Inside You! And you can sing "Dem Bones," and a book called Give Me Back My Bones about a pirate ghost putting his skeleton back together. Soon before I left my local library the first time, I'd made felt pieces of the bones in this book so the group could put the skeleton together along with the story, but I have no clue where they'd gone in the past three years— I looked everywhere I could think of! So I made new bones out of cardstock and we put them together on the floor. Good times!
4. Owls/nocturnal: There are a lot of cute owl books, my favorite being Knight Owl, and Hello Moon by Downing (there's several books called Hello Moon) has a whole slew of nocturnal animals for the audience to identify. Last year Ms Vicki had found a really cute owl craft pattern with huge eyes made of fluorescent green paper so they'd look like they were glowing, so I thought I'd do the same at the new-old library, only I couldn't find any fluorescent green paper, so before I asked to purchase any I thought, but wait, let's take this a step up! And I made the eyes out of reflective tape instead.
5. Time: I decided to do Time as a topic for the end of Daylight Savings, even though part of me was like "seriously? How are you going to pull that topic off for your primarily toddler audience?" But I proved myself wrong— for toddlers you just focus on basic things like Day vs Night and the months (seasons) of the year, and you sing "Hickory Dickory Dock." There was a book called The Clock Struck One that added a whole clock's worth of additional verses that was a big hit. And then I had them make clocks out of paper plates and brass fasteners and little round number stickers— I found a bunch that went from 1-20, so if anyone can think of any ideas for stickers 13-20 that would be useful! The preschoolers carefully worked on placing the numbers in order around the plate and were very proud, the toddlers stuck the numbers anywhere on the plate and were very proud (I said those ones were a pretty good visual representation of what my actual sense of time is).

MEDIA REVIEWS

Books!

Top 10 2025 and 2024 picture books, because I don't have enough good 2025 ones to make a list, but a lot of 2024. And also we're skipping the "books crammed for the Mock Caldecott" category this year because only a few of those are actually worthy of this list. I sucked at getting Caldecott-worthy books into the library before the Caldecott this year.

1.  We are Definitely Human by X. Fang, 2024. This is definitely one of my new favorite story time picks—I read it in January and made an excuse to use it in as many storytimes/outreach visits as possible for the rest of the year, and bought a copy for both Jason’s youngest nephew (who thinks he’s getting too old for picture books since he’s started early chapters but he’s wrong) and my niece (who is still too young to really appreciate this one, but she’ll grow and I won’t have to worry about it going out of print before then). "Kind Humans help those in need," even when they're obviously VERY different from you—it's a great moral told in a very funny way. As a librarian in an age of state-sponsored xenophobia, I can't help noting that the author was an immigrant and this is definitely saying something about how one should treat immigrants, and does it show exactly how needed the message is when there was always one kid in every class who insisted the aliens excuse me definitely humans should be shot, even after it had been made clear over and over that they came in peace? I like the way I keep using the word "definitely" here and I didn't even do it on purpose.
2. The Bear Out There, by Jess Hannigan, 2025. Jess Hannigan is a new talent to watch—her artwork bold and clever, her storylines subversive and unexpected. I like this one even more than her first book (number 7 on this list) so I imagine she’s only going to get better. This fourth-wall breaking book is kind of a take-off on Goldilocks. It’s really silly and went over really well in the most recent “bear” storytime (see above—to be honest, finding this book was probably the biggest reason I decided to repeat the bear storytime!).
3. I'm sorry you got mad by Kyle Lukoff, illustrated by Julie Kwon, 2024. I read this right after I did the Mock Caldecott binge (without being too impressed with many of them), and decided this should have gotten some Mock Caldecott attention, too—I would have been more likely to vote for it! (I'd ironically seen it on some Mock NEWBERY lists though—and the words are great, I love Kyle Lukoff, and learning to apologize properly is important). There's just so much happening in these pictures. You can pick out Zoe before she's even explicitly pointed out. You can see all sorts of side stories going on. You can see kids reacting-- and not-- to Jack's anger. Julie Kwon did not get enough credit for this!
4. Life After Whale: the amazing ecosystem of a whale fall by Lynn Brunelle, illustrated by Jason Chin, 2024. Now this one was the Mock Caldecott binge I actually DID find Caldecott-worthy and got my number one vote—my coworker upstairs who did acquisitions even remembered it and asked me “Did you see that one about the whale?!” when I’d just mentioned Mock Caldecott coming up. Chin captures the majesty and feeling of it while still being scientifically accurate so, yeah, kind of amazing. And the words feel majestic, too. My only gripe, in evaluating it by Caldecott standards, was that sometimes I wished he would have drawn close-ups of ALL the animals the author is describing. But in the real-life ALAYMAs it ended up winning the Silbert for nonfiction, and that's probably more appropriate than the Caldecott anyway. I can say 100% that it deserves the Silbert.
5. Joyful Song: a Naming Story, by Leslea Newman, illustrated by Susan Gal, 2024. Oh this book really is joyful. I’d seen it on some Mock Caldecott lists but we didn’t have our copy in time, but even if we had I don't know if I'd have thought "CALDECOTT!" about it. But joyful? So very much. It is Jewish, is about a family with two moms of different races, and their neighborhood is incredibly multicultural-- there are people out there who would take great offense to this book, which just goes to show you how WRONG they are, because how could anyone find fault with such an utterly JOYFUL celebration of family and community?
6. Chooch Helped by Andrea L Rogers, illustrated by Rebecca Kunz, 2024.  Oh Chooch is adorable. I'm sure the narrator of this story doesn't want to hear that, but the picture where he's smiling at his birthday cake and the candles are reflected in his face just melted me. The story's simple and nice, but the pictures really are stand-out. We didn’t get this in time for our Mock Caldecott, either, but it won the real thing-- and it was the illustrator's first book, too! What a way to start off!
7. Spider in the Well by Jess Hannigan, 2024. See, new talent to watch, I tell you. And this plotline is like nothing I’ve seen in a picture book before—I had NO idea where the story was even going! It’s both very funny and full of interesting artwork. I especially like the shots of looking down into the well and looking up out of it (click the link you can see them).
8. Two Together by Brendan Wenzel, 2024. And here we have someone I remember being a New Talent To Watch but that was like ten years ago I think, and he has indeed put out SO many interesting books since. This was the book that actually won our Mock Caldecott, and I think I gave it one of my second-or-third votes. I love it but made myself confused possibly by thinking about the artwork too hard. Dog sees things in bold fingerpaints, cat in detailed crayon. But what's going on at the beginning and end? Is that how the reader would see them otherwise or what? But you see, that’s me absolutely thinking too hard, because just to experience it? It's very happy, and kind of psychedelic how the art styles combine. The rhyme is not quite perfect so I feel like it would trip me up reading aloud, but look at the pictures and be happy. As long as you don’t try to figure out the underlying artistic code of it all!
9. The Last Zookeeper by Aaron Becker, 2024. I am a big fan of Becker, and this was in our Mock Caldecott, and I could imagine the real Caldecott committee really studying this one-- it seems to get better the more you read it. The plot is barely anything (giant Wall-e helps the animals find safety), but there's so much detail that only comes out the more you look (Zookeeper is wind-powered and his friend/rescuer is solar powered! Noah's Ark references!) His previous books that did win Caldecott Honors had more plot than this one (despite them all being wordless), so I think that helped those and hindered this one. Still, brilliant artwork!
10. Zebra and Yak: the Backwards Alphabet Book by Paul Friedrich, 2025. Just pulled this off the new books shelf in my new-old library to pass time while waiting for the director, and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. This was cute, and could probably make a good read-aloud, though I haven’t had the opportunity to try it yet. I do need to get started planning another season of storytimes here.

 Top 10 Older Picture books

1. The Power of Snow by Bob Raczka, illustrated by Bryony Clarkson, 2023. It’s meant to teach exponents, but it's simple enough to simply explain to preschoolers "on every page there are twice as many snowflakes!" and you can SEE exactly what that means! Granted, when I read it to preschoolers, they'll often shout out things like "That's almost one hundred!" when I just said "Five Thousand and Twelve." So maybe their concepts about number size are not quite ACCURATE, but they still appreciate how big the numbers get!
2. Art is Everywhere: a Book about Andy Warhol by Jeff Mack, 2021. This one really impressed me. Maybe I shouldn't assume, but if I recall correctly these are Warhol's actual philosophies about art coming across in a kid-friendly way. It feels friggin' mind-opening. I used it at storytime the first day of Summer Quest because like the one about Yayoi Kusama (see above) it definitely made the point that, well, art is everywhere!
3. In Between by April Pulley Sayre and completed by Jeff Sayre, 2023. Really beautiful! Little baby-- or kid—in between that’s the point—animals! I miss April Pulley Sayre, she died too young, but had always put out such lovely nonfiction picture books about nature that you could actually use with really young kids. I believe this was her last book, her widower finished it up to put it out.
4. Christo and Jeanne-Claude Wrap the World by G. Neri, illustrated by Elizabeth Haidle, 2023. This one made ME go "wow" and smile a lot. Looking at this full list now, I see a lot of artist bios that I read for “Color Our World” that delighted me because somehow the concepts behind what many grownups see as “strange” or even “not art,” addressed to kids in these picture books, make perfect sense now and really highlight how to see the wonder in everything around you. Now that I've read it I remember someone on a podcast talking about having seen the exhibition "The Gates" when it was in NYC. “Surrounded Islands” is the one that really blows my mind though!
5. The Concrete Garden by Bob Graham, 2023. Aww, Bob Graham always writes such sweet stories, and this was SOOOO Color Our World themed. I didn’t find a place to use it in my actual programming, but I sure did put it on display.
6. The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity: a tale of the genius Ramanujan by Amy Alznauer, illustrated by Daniel Miyares, 2020. Someone on BlueSky mentioned this guy and I said, "Oh, we have a book about him!" because it's a Wonderbook that didn't fit on the shelf properly so was face out where I saw it everyday, so I picked it up as soon as I got to work. Boy was this kid ever autistic-savant. Tried not to cry at his unique outlook and struggle to get others to understand it. Love the idea that numbers for him were something magical and outright religious, the words of God. Ended up giving him a shoutout in the chapter of “Tesseract” I was writing (see below) because I feel like Madeleine L'Engle would have loved him. I was amused and a little bewildered because this was the same week I first read “Power of Snow” (see above)—two books in the same week on the same mathematical topic (exponents!) and I loved them both, despite not loving numbers. But I love people who do love numbers making me love numbers for the course of their story! Side note, the author credits the India room at the Cathedral of Learning in her research acknowledgements, but there isn't any outright bio info of her to say if she's a Pittsburgher.
7. Like a Windy Day by Frank Ashe, illustrated by Devin Ashe, 2002. I confess, I don’t really love Frank Ashe’s Moonbear books, but he wrote a separate book about the sun, and this one about the wind, that I do just love. This one is poetry that makes me feel exhilarated more than calm. I like the artwork with the wind girl in the background "playing" with things that fly.
8. Mirandy and Brother Wind by Patricia C. McKissack, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, 1988. Yes, note that the last book, this book, and the next book WERE all books I was looking at for my “wind”-themed storytime. I've often seen this book but had never read it, and I still didn't think I was going to when I picked it up now, because I could tell at a glance it was too wordy for my audience. But the voice caught me before I could put it down, and I had to read it just for my own pleasure, smiling all the while. It's a joyful book!
9. One Windy Wednesday by Phyllis Root, illustrated by Helen Craig, 1996. Ah, I am right to trust Phyllis Root to make a good read aloud. And this one's simple enough for even the youngest crowd to get a kick out of-- and I laughed, too! It’s now on my Favorite Read-Alouds list for quick reference whenever I need a book about wind OR about animal noises!
10. Emily's Blue Period by Cathleen Daly, illustrated by Lisa Brown, 2014. Aww, this is very sweet and sad but hopeful. I remember seeing it when it first came out but not reading it because, again, I could see that it was too long for a preschool story time. But this summer, when I had an elementary-aged group, and was looking for books with the combined theme of art/color and emotions? Perfect.

  Best Longer-than-Picture Books, no time range, because I didn’t read enough to warrant separating them:

1. What is color? the global and sometimes gross story of pigments, paint, and the wondrous world of art by Steven Weinberg, 2024. Fun, interesting, full of weird trivia that I was dying to share with the Summer Quest kids the minute I read it. I ended up making a matching game of colors and their sources of pigments, with interesting facts on the back, that did get a lot of good responses! The weird only problem I have with this book is I feel like there could have been a lot more. Surely these aren't the only sources of pigments in the world! I want to hear about the rest!
2. The Lady Janies series by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows, 2016-2024. I try to use podcasts (see below) to motivate me to do housework, but being home so much now, I was actually running short on podcasts to match the housework. Then I realized, wait! Audiobooks! I’ll get to read for my own enjoyment again AND get stuff done! But what should I start with? It had been so long since I’d picked out a book purely to read for myself. Now, literary agent Jennifer Laughran, who I follow on various social medias and has very good taste (she was the first person I saw talk about Hamilton. She insisted to everyone it was going to be The Next Big Thing. I suppose this is part of what makes her a really good agent), had mentioned this YA series a few times in answer to the question “How do I get out of a reading slump?” because they are funny, easy to read, and most importantly absolutely nothing like anything else out there. So when I saw My Lady Jane while browsing Hoopla for audiobooks I gave it a go, and it was exactly as she described. Well not absolutely nothing like anything else, as it and the rest of the books are very obviously influenced by The Princess Bride in humor and voice (and occasionally outright references, not that there aren’t also a lot of cultural references from any other source you can imagine. There’s a character in My Contrary Mary who keeps having what she thinks are failed prophecies but are actually the plots of famous movies in our time, and it never failed to make me laugh). Anyway, so the premise is, take some interesting people from history, tell their stories but throw in some aspect of the supernatural, and make sure there’s a happy ending even if the actual history didn’t end that way (the supernatural bits help with this. So for example, your beloved didn’t DIE, they just turned into a frog! All is well!). And also, be funny. The only drawback to my plan of getting housework done to these is I get so sucked in that I can’t stop listening once the housework is done, and I end up just sitting around playing games on my phone for hours to listen to the rest.    
3. The Secret of Lillian Velvet, by Jaclyn Moriarty, 2023. This is the entirety of what I have in the “Notes” column for this book on my BookRiot Reading Log Spreadsheet:* “(disability rep [one of the tracking columns on the BookRiot sheet] probably includes protag, everyone in the Kingdoms and Empires is neurodivergent I swear. Jaclyn Moriarty should be my best friend) (honestly, it might be a weird parasocial delusion but Jaclyn Moriarty SHOULD be my best friend).” Which is to say, reading a Jaclyn Moriarty book just makes me go “KINDRED SPIRIT? Someone on the same weird planet as me?” and decide again that probably we should be Best Friends. Oh yeah, I should probably mention that this is the most recent book in the delightfully unexpected middle grade fantasy Kingdoms and Empires series.
4. The First State of Being, by Erin Entrada Kelly, 2024. When I was supposed to be putting the new Newbery winner on the New Winners' display on the day it won, I got distracted and started reading it, instead. I enjoyed it, but admittedly part of that comes from nostalgia of the 1999 setting: the “historical” references kept making me laugh (one of the characters was reading a Christopher Pike book and when she explained the plot summary I went "OH I READ THAT ONE!") But I also just generally enjoyed the time travel plot, which is a lot bigger in the story than the summary gives it credit for—even more prominent than the one in When You Reach Me, yet another Newbery winner that crossed historical fiction and time travel (yes, 1999 is historical fiction). I actually think I enjoyed this more than When You Reach Me barring all the latter's Wrinkle in Time references. Wrinkle in Time references do beat out 90s Teenager references.
5. This Boy: the early lives of John Lennon and Paul McCartney by Ilene Cooper, 2023. Confession: this is one of those books I bought for the library collection because I wanted it. And believe it or not there was information in here even I didn't know before-- mostly about John's family, because his parents were PROBLEMATIC (they also probably had ADHD, and John most definitely had ADHD, I’m sure of it), but he adored his mother at least and was heartbroken by her death, so of course he blew off her total irresponsibility when he talked about her in interviews, and I've mostly just read all the primary sources in my Beatles-education. Like who knew primary sources could be biased. But I learned a little more about Paul's family, too, and the book helped put their childhoods in context in general in a way sources not aimed at kids sixty years later never do! If I have any criticism it's that I PERSONALLY would have liked to hear more about George, too, but he's not in the title so, that’s a me problem.
6. The Color of Sound by Emily Barth Isler, 2024. Since the last week of Summer Quest was called “The Color of Sound” (see the Banana Piano above), I had to read the first chapter to see if it would be a good read-aloud for the older group. And whaddya know, the main character is suffering from burnout, just like me! So I had to read the rest of it, too! It also amused me how many parallels the main character had with the way I was writing Viktor Hargreeves in “The Beginning of Something Else Entirely” (see below in fanfic I wrote)—she has synthesia and experiences the world an awful lot the way I write Viktor “hearing the background music,” and they’re both on strike from playing the violin and have to learn to reclaim music in the course of the story! Also, this is a timeslip story, and Viktor’s whole life has—well, a lot more than timeslips but still. In fact this book is primarily realism, just with a time-slip and some historical elements thrown in. Kind of a magic realism?
7. A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall by Jasmine Warga, 2024. Speaking of reading first chapters looking for good first chapters to read to Summer Quest, this one worked on me-- I had to keep going! It's such a unique story-- not QUITE a ghost story, kind of a mystery, kind of a realistic kid-friendship story, and several chapters are from the point of view of an artistic turtle. It felt a little slight to me on the whole, but I'm 47-- it's perfect for a slightly lower-than-upper middle grade.
8. Wrath of the Triple Goddess by Rick Riordan, 2024. Originally took this out of the library in February to read with the kids. Never found time to read with the kids. Still had it when I left the library I took it out from in August (boy can you get away with stuff when you’re listed as “staff” in the system). Finally gave up and just started reading it on my own time, sending it back to its home library through the system van! Truth was, I enjoyed it all right, but I know I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I was reading with the kids. Maddie makes us make time to watch the Percy Jackson TV show (see below in moving pictures) one hour a week, but reading the latest Percy Jackson Senior Year adventure just takes up too much time! As I said above, it’s weird picking out books for just me when I’ve spent the past ten years or so picking out books for me AND Maddie AND Sam. Or for library kids!   

 *This is the link to 2025's spreadsheet info. I can't find the 2026 one yet, though I suppose I can copy my 2025 one.

Most interesting Rereads

What's annoying is I swear I read some picture books this year that I've read before but in which the experience made me go "Oh, that is perhaps one for Most Interesting Rereads!" but I didn't write them down and now of course I don't remember. As for novels I did reread at least bits and pieces of A Wrinkle In Time (as if I need to) and the Blossom Culp books that I have, both for fic-writing purposes, see Fanfic I Wrote, Below.

Oh oh wait, I say as I'm editing up the "Top Summer Library Program Moments" section (yes, I do compose this in bits and pieces all out of order), I remember what (at least one of) the most memorable picture book reading was now! During "Over the Rainbow" week, which was also Water Play week, so the theme was light and color (and making rainbows), I read Hello, Red Fox by Eric Carle to the younger class. The premise of the book uses opposite colors and after-images— you're supposed to stare at each picture and then at a blank page, to see each animal in its "true" color instead. This requires a fairly bright light to work, and in the past when I've read this to a group, the chances of it working varied greatly because so many preschool carpet areas were relatively dimly lit or at least had indirect lighting, but this time we'd be outside in the sun! And it was fun watching more and more kids get it— a few never figured out how to do it right, but the others, it took some practice, but when it finally clicked and they saw the colors like magic, that was pretty fun. But even more memorable was the next day— I didn’t read it for storytime with the older kids because it's very basic, but while everyone was taking turns changing out of their wet clothes at the end of the day, I had activity stations out to keep the already dry/changed kids occupied, and the first batch of girls had already done all the inside activities except the Glowstick Party (which I needed to wait for another adult to pull off, and she was still outside with the still-wet kids), so I pulled out the book and explained what to do, just as an activity rather than a story, and they went nuts over it, in the best way. They hijacked every freshly-changed kid who came in after that to show off their nifty magic trick. I saw that as a clear win!

Oh I have another one, that I just remembered while getting distracted reading LAST year’s round-up! I read a few first chapters of The Mona Lisa Vanishes (that link goes to last year’s round-up) to the older Summer Quest group, then went to check it in at the end of the day, only to discover that there was a hold on it. Then I saw who had placed the hold—one of the kids from Summer Quest! (Actually one of the same girls who was making everyone try Hello Red Fox later in the summer, come to think). She’d gone straight to the circulation desk after being dismissed just to make sure she was the first one to read the rest!

Moving Pictures

The Grand Total of Moving Pictures I have watched this year, in order of when I watched them!

• “Thunderbolts*” (Disney+)—the first thing I watched this year I watched in August so what does that tell you. Anyway, I've been out of the MCU loop, I had no idea this existed until my fic-writing buddy Stephsageek started posting chapters of a fic for it (see fanfic below), and it appeared to be about traumatized superheroes -powered people, which is my jam (see three quarters of my works on AO3), so like the week I left my job Steph had posted another chapter and I said, You know what? I suddenly have a lot more free time and I want to read this fic, this has inspired me to watch this movie this week. And Steph went, oh, cool, then in return I'll start watching Legion and read YOUR fics! (She has now gotten through the first season and become a Loudermilk fanatic because obviously). But the point is, yes, it's my jam! Yay, traumatized super-people learning about the Power of Friendship!
• Leverage (Hoopla)—another thing Tumblr introduced me to. I never heard much about it in real life, but a surprising variety of my Tumblr people (people with like nothing in common otherwise!) have posted enthusiastically about it and it sounded fun, every episode a heist by a troupe of modern-day Robin Hoods. I have now watched the first season of the original run, because Hoopla offered a Binge Pass checkout for it, and so I've got the idea of it now— I'd like to hear what people's must-see episodes of later seasons are, so I can make sure to watch those (because there isn't a binge pass for later seasons, and you see how much--or little-- watching I get to in a year anyway). It is indeed very fun, and I can't get over the character of Parker, who is the most wacked-out example of authentic autistic representation ever and this was in, what, 2008 or something? That was before you could even be diagnosed AuDHD. But they made this character who is genuinely autistic but absolutely nothing like most autistic characters you see (especially at that time). Her special interest just happens to be breaking and entering.
• Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)— I think I've liked the odd-numbered seasons better than the even numbers, and I liked those, too. So yes I thoroughly enjoyed this fifth season then! Every week I would be struck with the overwhelming sensation of Watching Mystery Shows With My Mom— this is SO her thing, and I keep asking if she's seen it yet but I don't think she's even figured out HOW to access it. Anyway, the things that delighted me most this season were Loretta's Undercover Work (what an excellent use of the character!), Oliver's backstory, and that Theo had a very small appearance after being completely absent from Season 4.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Disney+)—I’m not sure, I keep getting the feeling in Season Two that it’s trying too hard to be just like every other upper-middle-grade fantasy property put to film—but then again maybe that’s just me getting old? I had a similar reaction to the latest book in the series after all (see above). But it’s still fun, and the end credit animation never ceases to be fascinating. Also having been reading the Senior Year series I keep forgetting that Percy and Annabeth aren’t dating yet at this point, and I keep having moments of going “why are they acting so—oh they’re still not actually that close yet, I forgot.”
• Oh, I forgot! I DO have a number 5 (and six, and potentially 7 and 8 but that would be cheating) to round this out: The Muppet Script Reading Series (here at Dynasty Typewriter)— Matt Wilkie, a big Muppet nerd who hangs out in the ToughPigs arena (see below), but also happens to work in the improv scene in LA in real life, decided to organize a script reading of The Muppet Movie for charity, and recruited a whole bunch of big names in the improv community (Marc Evan Jackson plays Kermit) to perform it. This turned out to be so successful and so plain fun for everyone involved that he's kept it up with MORE Muppet movie scripts— they just did Christmas Carol a couple weeks ago, but so far I've just watched the first one and Caper. You have to pay $15 to watch, but it's for charity, and it IS very fun, so enjoy!

 Podcasts!

• My podcast listening still revolves primarily around Children's Literature and Muppets, with podcasts I've talked about before here. One additional Muppet podcast I have to call out this year though is the "70 Years 70 Muppets" campaign series at ToughPigs. Muppet Studios at Disney actually contacted ToughPigs about producing a podcast to tie in to their list of Muppets of the Week they were featuring during the anniversary (slightly-longer-than) year, and ToughPigs came up with a really creative premise: each week would be covered by a different staff member and they had full license to feature the character in whatever way they liked. So you had interviews with the podcasters' family members and interviews with the actual Muppet performers and interviews with people who just happened to share an occupation with the Muppet in question. You had off-the-wall silly episodes (see, anything by Shane) and unexpectedly fascinating episodes (see Drake's interview with Kathy Mullen for the Gaffer the Cat week, which is probably one of my favorite episodes and I'd never given the slightest thought to Gaffer the Cat before). You had episodes brimming with love for a character, episodes from a bewildered state of what is there even to say about this character, and at least one episode totally hating a character that I thought was nonetheless handled very well. You never knew what to expect from the podcast week to week, but every week was absolutely delightful. It just ended last week and I already miss it!
• But in the spring one of the hosts of Muppeturgy mentioned a (her words) "lovely" podcast called "Strong Songs" devoted to picking apart what makes different songs great. Now, I think I'd heard of the podcast before but thought it had a dumb name so didn't look into it further, but the way she described it here made my brain perk up and think "THAT IS EXACTLY MY THING!" and I immediately went onto the ToughPigs Discord (Muppeturgy isn't a ToughPigs podcast but all the other Muppet podcasters do hang out there because that's just what Muppet fanatics do) to ask for more info, and before I knew it I was bingeing the whole thing from the first episode and keeping a list of music it introduced me to that I needed to seek out further (see below). I have learned so much, for while our tastes are generally similar (definite exceptions excepted), he has a jazz background, which I have no experience with, and there are a lot of things I just wasn't even aware of that he points out. It's awesome. You can hear him answer my question about musical notation in this episode.
• And in a spinoff of that, Strong Songs cross-posted a miniseries (six-and-a-bonus episodes) podcast called "The Wonder of Stevie" — now, I like Stevie Wonder all right, some of his songs stand out as flat brilliant (and "Sir Duke" is definitely on the list of Top Favorites Just Under "Here Comes the Sun" But Which Are Unable to be Sorted Further), and I generally enjoy most of the others I know, but I wouldn't have called myself a Big Fan or anything— but the host, music critic Wesley Morris, is SO enthusiastic, and the stories he told were so fascinating, that I got sucked in immediately and thoroughly enjoyed this whole series— and ALSO discovered some new music, see below! Also, the show is produced by the Obamas— yes those Obamas— who are big Stevie Wonder fans, so sometimes Morris will interview them as fans, and he always cracks me up because you can hear his voice go into this "Oh, no biggie, just talking to MR. PRESIDENT here, you know" thing and it makes me laugh every time. (Side note, remember when Presidents generally tended to be halfway decent human beings? I kept thinking, My, what a decent human being, I miss having a decent human being for a President. End side note).
• Also I noted that youtube videos about music can often be listened to without watching, so they became podcasts too. One that stands out as particularly interesting are all the interviews music producer Rick Beato conducts with a huge variety of musicians— I guess "variety" not so much in genre (he seems to have the most contacts in the rock and particularly grunge circles) but in fame? Because one video he's chatting with freaking David Gilmour, then with some up-and-coming kid with a YouTube channel, then with a studio musician you've never heard of who turns out to have played on a ridiculous number of big hits, then with a sound engineer or mixer, and what's great about these interviews is he talks to everyone the same way— well, he did fanboy over Gilmour a little bit— but I mean, he focuses on the music and how they go about creating music, a musician chatting with another musician about this thing they both love and hyperfixate over. You can tell the interviewees are totally comfortable talking with him like this, in a way they might not be with some random reporter in a publicity situation, so they also tend to have interesting stories you probably haven't heard before as opposed to canned responses in a typical style interview— or interesting stories you haven't heard before simply because no one ever thought to interview the non-famous interviewee before.
• Also listened to a bunch of YouTube Music/Album reaction videos, but mostly those aren't worth recommending so much as they're just a fun alternate way to listen to an album; but I will call out this dude, Isaac Brown, who's in the middle of reacting to all the Beatles albums in order (as I copy this link I see that he accidentally posted a Led Zeppelin reaction to the top of this playlist, but don’t let that confuse you, it IS the Beatles playlist). I find myself reacting to the reactions, mostly of the "you ain't seen nothin' yet!" variety, but also because he'll ask questions about what he's hearing and I will respond out loud, just because Beatles info. I have an automatic response issue with Beatles info.

 Music!

•  So "The Wonder of Stevie" (see above) focused on a "streak" of amazing albums Stevie Wonder put out one after another in the 70s. Morris outright called out, in one of the later episodes, that while there's a subgenre referred to as "Album Rock," and all the great rock bands have whole albums that they're known for, no one talks about "Album R&B," that Black and R&B artists are usually known for their individual songs, as "hitmakers," instead, and yet Stevie's whole albums deserved to be appreciated as ALBUMS too. And boy, was he right! I definitely have a new appreciation for Stevie Wonder as "Album R&B" or whatever now, and Innervisions and Fulfillingness's First Finale have made my Frequently Played Albums list. (Me committing a heresy: I know Songs In the Key of Life is supposed to be The Greatest, but while the highs are REALLY HIGH— "Sir Duke" is on it after all— , as an album I get kind of bored in between the highs? *gasp* I'm sorry, I'm tasteless. Whereas Innervisions and FFF keep me going "oh THIS is EXCELLENT" the whole way through).
•  I started following a "Do You know this song?" poll blog on Tumblr, and one day what I thought was a delightful foreign song was revealed to be by an American band called Dengue Fever, made up of a white guy who visited Cambodia and fell madly in love with Cambodian 60's psych rock, some friends he begged to help him recreate it, and one actual Cambodian immigrant they found who, it turned out, had been a real pop star in Cambodia before she moved. So eventually they developed their own unique American variety of Cambodian-style psych rock, and I went, okay, I need to hear more of these guys, obviously. So I binged their albums for a month on Freegal (which my now-old library subscribes to but my local-old-and-new-again library does not, so one of the negatives of quitting my job was the day I discovered my library card no longer had Freegal access) and ended up downloading quite a bit. Like listen to this stuff. Can anyone claim that doesn't rock hard? No, you cannot.
• I was listening to a bunch of music reaction videos on YouTube as I said, and one was on Floyd's Atom Heart Mother album, which I'd never listened to, since it had a reputation of being Not Good— but I liked it. I outright LOVED one number from it, "Summer '68"— which was apparently Rick Wright's contribution to the album songwriting-wise, which makes sense, because me and piano, and Wright's keyboarding is one of the things I love best about Floyd.
•  Oh, I just noticed that I SAID I was keeping a list of music I'd discovered or at least wanted to explore further on Strong Songs, but haven't named any here (the Stevie Wonder being through the podcast I found THROUGH Strong Songs)! I still have the list up on a (computerized) sticky note here, so let's see. Some standout examples I see are Sufjan Stevens, whom I'd heard of but had no idea what his music actually sounded like (answer, not a bit like I would have guessed, and it actually reminded me a bit of Paul Simon of all people); the first time I actually ever heard a Phish song, "Limb By Limb"— my sister is a huge Phish fan yet somehow I'd never actually heard them? And I ended up buying Muse's album Origin of Symmetry pretty much immediately after the Strong Songs episode about two of its tracks. 

 Fanfic (I Read! See lower for fanfic I wrote!)

The One I Can't Rank Because Someone Wrote It Especially for Me

"Blossom Culp and the Convincer Effect," by psychomachia for Rockinlibrarian, (Blossom Culp Series - Richard Peck, T, 8,393, words). So like, Blossom Culp was my imaginary best friend when I was 14, so I was thrilled to discover that somebody had nominated this series for the Yuletide fic-writing exchange and I was like Okay sign me up for one of THOSE! (And when all the numbers were in of who had requested and offered what, I kind of figured this would be the fandom I got because no one besides me had offered in the other two fandoms I requested!) And so I have this post-series genuinely spooky adventure of Blossom and Alexander attempting to navigate an old theater with a ghost who just really wants to finish his show!

 Top 10 Other Fanfics I Read This Year

I've long since finished the TUA-fic-in-alphabetical-order binge so I don't have to divide it into categories. To be truly honest, I've also read less period, and I'm chapters behind on some of the fics that are even on this list. I also haven't read much from this year's Yuletide because I was so excited to see Blossom Culp fic that I ended up bingeing that instead (I read the three Blossom Culp fics from this year's Yuletide. One of which I wrote, so I guess TWO Blossom Culp fics have been the extent of my Yuletide 2025 reading). But that said, let's kick this off with some Yuletide 2024 instead:

1.  "On Sale Now, Sold Out Always," by Missy for lemonwedge_onasaturday, (This is Spinal Tap (1984), G, 106 words)—putting this one first on account of I've read it the most, because it's shortest— one of the many things I love about the Yuletide exchange is the Madness collection, where people will post random little weird things like drabbles and poetry based on people's prompts, like this, which is a short letter Derek Smalls sent to his fan club about his new solo album, the title of which album still cracks me up but I can't tell you because that's basically the whole point of reading this thing— the titles are so perfectly canonical-sounding I wonder if Missy had just had a "List of phrases that sound like Spinal Tap songs" on file to pull for just such an occasion. This description is possibly longer than the fic now, so just read it, in Derek's voice for best results.
2. "Cartes Postales," by mikeneko for salifiable, (Blossom Culp Series - Richard Peck, T, 21,631 words)— Somehow mikeneko wrote this for Yuletide 2012— I ASSUME the amount of time between assignments and due dates hasn't changed THAT much in 13 years, so the fact that this is basically a whole new book in the series, both in length and quality (and chronologically, like, if there WAS a fifth book this is when it would happen and it's the sort of thing that would happen too), is beyond impressive! Who writes the entire next book of a series for friggin’ Yuletide? WAIT: CONSPIRACY THEORY: what if mikeneko IS Richard Peck? They haven’t posted on AO3 since 2015 and Peck died in 2018! Coincidence? Yes probably.
3. "Captain's Log," by rarefiedrest for Undercamel_of_Pluto, (Dredge (Video Game), G, 12,497 words)— so my Tumblr peep Pluto had posted a thought about the game Dredge, which I hadn't even heard of, but apparently it's Cthulhu-Mythos-seafaring-horror about a fisherman whose wife fell victim to whatever's haunting the Deep, and Pluto suggested that it'd be interesting if the fisherman had died and the wife was the main character instead, and went on to describe why, and I was like I know nothing about this game but I'd totally read this story. Then Pluto reblogged a link to this fic, because Rarefiedrest had also thought it sounded great so set out to WRITE the story! And despite still being clueless about the source material, I've been hanging on to every word of this deliciously atmospheric epistolary tale of foreboding and madness (almost— the most recent chapter is still open in a tab unread. But I'm looking forward to reading it whenever I stop doing all the other things!)
4. "Empty Graves," by Unpretty, (Superman - All Media Types, DCU, T, 6,539 words)—speaking of Tumblr, this is one I read on Tumblr, then saw the post was linked to the story on AO3, so I followed the link just to bookmark it in the very likely event it would rank high enough in my reading memory to make this year-end list, which, as you see, it did. Now I'm kind of a Marvel-over-DC girlie, but I know the basics of Superman, which is all I needed to know to appreciate this tale of Martha Kent going all mama-bear on a bunch of time-traveling assassins targeting her son, and then promptly forgetting about it because time travel shenanigans. It's fabulous, as many others have apparently discovered before me, judging by the stats on this thing. But if you haven't read it, go do that!
5. "A Confessional That Never Closes," by Stephsageek, (Thunderbolts (Movie 2025), M, 52,701 words)—and speaking of Marvel now, see the note about the Thunderbolts movie above, because this is the continuing story (both that the FIC is the continuing story of the MOVIE and that I'm continuing the NOTE of the movie here). So then I read and thoroughly enjoyed Steph's fic, which deals with a lot of similar themes and concepts as my own fic "The Beginning of Something Else Entirely" (see below), because like I said, traumatized super-people are my jam, and this is another story of bonding/found family, recovery from recent events, and healing from old wounds.
6. "haircut & post office," by owlinaminor, (Kairos (O'Keefe) Series - Madeleine L'Engle, Austin & Murry-O'Keefe Families - Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (2018), T, 2,374 words)— my long-delayed fic "Tesseract" (SEE BELOW IN CAPS BECAUSE I'M EXCITED) is tagged "Alex/Kate," implying the presence of a romantic relationship, and my fic, though not a romance per se, especially in this chapter focuses on Mr.-and-Mrs.-Murry as true life-partners, definitely Couples Goals, and while working on that chapter I wondered if anyone else had written them from that angle. The Alex/Kate tag only has 17 fics to begin with, and disappointingly most of those are actually focused on other people-- they'd been tagged mostly as a background thing. But this one, telling the Kate-POVed account of the week post-Wrinkle, was exactly what I'd been looking for, so in-character and focused on them as grownups. I mean, yes I do adore middle grade fiction and all, but I AM 47, I appreciate a good look at the grownups in the book I've been obsessed with since I was nine.
7. "Summer Ghosts, Again," by LydiaOLydia for Aeriel, (Blossom Culp Series - Richard Peck, T, 11,077 words), on the flip side, that doesn't take away from me bingeing these stories about a couple supernatural-trouble-prone teenagers who I was obsessed with when I was 14, does it? The fact that I've had all these THOUGHTS about what happened post-series in my head for over 30 years without sharing them, then suddenly I find a stash of fics from like-minded people who apparently had many of the same thoughts all along? This was one of the first I read (since it was most recent pre-Yuletide '25— it was a Yuletide '21*— apparently Yuletide is the excuse now-grown Blossom Culp fans use to make public all their THOUGHTS), and I was stunned by how on-the-same-page I'd been all along with random strangers about these characters. Like in both my fic-based-on-my-30yo-headcanons-see-below and this one (spoilers for both these fics), Alexander tracks down Blossom at the newspaper where she works, and she at first won't talk to him since she's still furious that he jilted her several years ago, when he'd panicked at the various implications of Their Future** and figured his best option was to (pardon the term) ghost her— the circumstances and writing of each are very different, but for even the basic outline of that to be so dead-on it's like, the part of me that believes that All Stories Are True In Some Other Dimension is like, Well, our headcanons are obviously CORRECT, then, that IS what happened! (There are more repeating details coming out among the other fics, too, that were not stated in canon, but were apparently foreshadowed enough that everyone came to the same conclusion maybe? Like it's a little amazing how many different people decided that they'd lost their virginity-or-nearabouts to each other in The Barn Loft round about senior year, considering this is based on a young-YA-practically-MG series and it would have happened in 1917-18, but I guess that's another thing that just Happened in the Dimension Where it's Real? On the other hand, the aforementioned Mikeneko-who-is-probably-not-Richard-Peck, in a different fic, had Alexander lose his left leg in The War, just like I had (again see below—not my leg my story), which is frankly a WEIRD coincidence. Pretty sure Richard Peck—the real one—didn't foreshadow that one). Anyway, this particular story is very cozy and Correct to me, which is why it makes this list.
8. "Fear of the Ethereal," by LuckyyWritess, (The Umbrella Academy (TV), E, 18,118 words)— Look, I know what you're thinking. But I PROMISE I didn't put this in here just to throw an Explicit Fiktor fic at you unawares. I do understand that my average blog reader has no interest in Fiktor-smut! No, I'm highlighting this story (which does happen to contain a bit of smut, fair warning) because of the really clever worldbuilding. It's an AU where all the marigold-babies are gods in a pantheon, and all their canon powers translate to godhood and make perfect sense. Their personalities as well, and other canon events, are reinterpreted for this setting in really creative ways. Viktor is the up-and-coming powerful new god and the God-of-Time is smitten with him. So yes, it IS also a (sometimes smutty) romance between Five and Viktor, but hey they're not even pseudo-related in this one and even if they were that's totally normal for gods!
9. "put your heavy heart to rest," by backpacks-lite (TumblingBackpacks), (The Umbrella Academy (TV), T, 1,732 words)— here, perfectly platonic 5+7 content, happy now? This is pure canon, of Viktor's reactions to Five's return in season 1, but what makes it special is that it's told in a lovely 2nd person prose-poetry style, quite beautiful.
10. "Never Again," by Peevesie_Writes, (Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones, G, 2,349 words)— I found a lot of the fics I read this year mostly by clicking on tags in my own fics to see what other people had written on the topic, and clicking the "Howl & Megan" tag yielded a small-but-high-quality treasure trove of complicated sibling relationships, three of which made my Bookmarks as potential end-of-year highlights. I picked this one because it condenses a lot of emotions and backstory and explanations of how the past affects the present in a relatively short story. Sad but kind of brilliant.

Honorable Mention: "Closed Loop System," by One_of_Them (greenbean_paste), (The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells, T, 1,532 words)— this is actually a game of Minesweeper in which every move unlocks a bit of dialogue (usually funny). Supposedly there are four different endings, but I haven't the slightest idea how to find those, possibly because I'm no good at Minesweeper— I've just found two, in which You get Eaten By a Bug (which happens a lot), and In Which You Don't. So I'm recommending just on the basis of how cool the concept is, although perhaps I don't know the full of it.

*I didn't start doing Yuletide until '23, which is why this is the first year I saw Blossom in the nominations

**His actual motivation isn't in the fic I wrote, yet, but that WAS it, as will be shown if I finish the tie-in Alexander-POV chapter

STUFF I WROTE! 

Stuff I Wrote, Here on Dreamwidth Edition: 

• Should I not be counting last year's Annual Roundup? Someday I might actually finish one of these by new year's eve again.
• In which I explain about my burnout and decision to quit the full-time job
• This year's Yuletide Request Letter!

Stuff I Wrote, GeekMom Edition: No? But I have time again, I may go back to it at some point.

Stuff I Wrote, Tumblr Edition: So I've noticed Tumblr has become my social media of choice, which is kind of annoying because most of my real life friends aren't on it. But it's in chronological order and the ads are unobtrusive, so it's so much more enjoyable to use than Facebook or Instagram! I don't make ALL that many original posts there, but I do some, so here are the highlights of those this year:

•  In which I was geeking out over the Legion soundtrack again so decided to make a big post with imbedded music links about why
• In which I am given full permission by a follower (actually it’s Rarefiedrest, see fanfic list above, hence the comment about “weird fish horror”) to share some nostalgic stories about how awesome my dad was
• the time I let Tumblr know Hoagie was home safe from his day-and-a-half Outdoor Kitty adventure. Oh, I didn't put that in the year's highlights above, maybe because it was short and had no lingering effects. Hoagie got out and was missing for a day or so in April! But he came back the very next day, as the song about a different cat goes.
• When I found out Brian Wilson had died and was bewildered that no one was talking about it
• in which I outline my plans to catalog my dad's 45 record collection
• In which I try to get all the writers who follow me to sign up for Yuletide

Random short bit that made me laugh so I'm sharing it even though it's short: I keep forgetting Megan Whalen Turner follows me and then I get a "Megan Whalen Turner reblogged your post" notification and go "WHAT??? oh yeah I forgot," every time.

I tried to get people to play the Lyric Game with me three times (still talking about Tumblr here):

• https://www.tumblr.com/rockinlibrarian/784021952100777984/the-lyric-game-redux-redux-answers-and-another
• https://www.tumblr.com/rockinlibrarian/785101735493599232/answer-post-for-the-lyric-game-redux-redux-part-2
• https://www.tumblr.com/rockinlibrarian/792616696056889344/answers-and-music-links

 And here’s a bunch of Writing Asks (still on Tumblr):

• An ask about the most difficult part of my current project and I go off about a podcast episode about Anne of Green Gables
• An updated survey (in July) about AO3 stats.
• A survey about all kinds of ficwriting habits.
• Two parts: an ask to list the file names in my writing folder and an ask about some of those file names, particularly the Howl’s Moving Castle ones

 Times I linked on Tumblr to the fics I'd just posted on AO3, if you want to read the notes I wrote about each. (Otherwise, just see the links below!)

• BoSEE 4
• IMotRKwaMOTTLbaS-MDtPTSC that’s what I get for attempting to shorten these by initials
• NWS 3
• NWS 4
• Tesseract! That’s only one word so I’m not just calling it T!

And combining the two: Yuletide Reveals and End of Year AO3 Writers Survey! Technically that was posted on January 1 of this year, meaning 2026, but that was the earliest I could talk about the Yuletide things I'd written! (Oh, so I wouldn't have posted this Annual Roundup by New Year's Eve, anyway, even if I HAD finished by then. I'm not going to NOT post about two of my fics of the year!)

 Stuff I Wrote, Fanfic Edition:

I technically ranked these, but it really goes 1st place, 4-way-tie for 2nd, 3rd-only-because-it's-freewritten-crack. BY THE WAY I LOVE COMMENTS. YOU SHOULD READ AND COMMENT.

"Tesseract,” (Kairos (O'Keefe) Series - Madeleine L'Engle, Marvel Cinematic Universe, G, 7,256, words)—CHAPTER TWO!  I'd posted Chapter One in December of 2021, and I PROMISED I hadn't abandoned it, I WAS still working on it, I WOULD finish it someday— and Someday was this October (well, for chapter two— there are still another couple chapters to go)! This fic, if you don't remember after all that time, is the prequel to A Wrinkle in Time that posits that Alex Murry had actually been working for SHIELD on THEIR Tesseract project before his disappearance, so it's a fun crossover. This is a fairly long chapter and it does cover over three years of story, in which, on the homefront, the Murrys try to figure out their strange nonverbal toddler Charles Wallace in an age when autism was considered a type of schizophrenia; and in the workplace, the Tesseract project gradually transforms from what the MCU claimed it was about into what we know it turned out to be by the events of Wrinkle. It's a really cool chapter and I'm really proud of it, not least because it took me four years.

“New World Symphony,” (The Umbrella Academy (TV) , T, 20,563, words)—TWO chapters, Three and Four! This is my post-S3 everyone-falls-into-a-new-universe-that-already-has-no-powers-no-adoption-places-for-them-and-also-Five-and-Viktor-are-married story. Chapter 3 centers on their first major fight as allegedly-a-couple, and most of the rest of the family including some Sparrows make an appearance. But Chapter 4 is one I had written a lot of already a long time ago and was just WAITING for myself to hurry up with Chapter 3 so I could share it, it's the chapter that switches to Five's POV after having been Viktor's up until now and is about him learning to let go of his pent-up guilt. Hey, did I mention my thing about traumatized superpersons?

“Psychomagnetism" for Snacky, (Blossom Culp Series - Richard Peck , G, 4,257, words)—As I said above, I was really excited to see Blossom Culp nominated for Yuletide and wondered who had possibly done a thing like that, so when everyone's request letters went out I went to see who else had requested Blossom, and Snacky's request letter made me go, "Wait, I've already written this story!"…mostly, because I'd STARTED putting all my headcanons about what happened post-series into a story several years before, but never finished because I assumed no one would care. Here was someone who cared! And Yuletide has the option of writing additional Treats for people who aren't actually your assigned recipient. What a perfect excuse to finally finish this up and post it! I guess I already talked a bit about this fic above! Also Snacky got a Wrinkle In Time fic for Yuletide last year, so we should probably be friends.

“The Many Masks of Amahl Farouk" for skazka, (Legion (TV 2017-2019) , T, 3,413, words)— this is my actual Yuletide ASSIGNMENT, I was like, whoo, Legion I'm an expert at writing Le— oh, they want a Farouk-centered story. Farouk is the only Legion character I've never actually written before. Oh well, a challenge! And I think I pulled it off! It's Farouk chatting about all the faces he's worn in the course of his disembodied life as if he's doing an interview, and, I realized, one of the only times I've actually written a whole story from a villain's pov.

“The Beginning of Something Else Entirely,” (The Umbrella Academy (TV), Legion (TV), M, 25,051, words)—because Farouk is long gone by the time this story takes place and all. Anyway, CHAPTER FOUR of this one went up this year. This of course is my post-S4 TUA fix-it in which the recently-erased Hargreeves find themselves in a pocket universe where Summerland is carrying on post-Legion, and everyone gets traumatized-superperson therapy! In this chapter Lila does Memory Work, Viktor starts the Prime-8s and sings James Taylor with Five thereby creating Summerland's new Music Therapy program, and Oliver Bird finally manages to assemble a complete barbershop quartet.

“The Inaugural Meeting of the Ruthless Killers Who Are Much Older Than They Look But Are Single-Mindedly Devoted to Protecting Their Siblings Club,” (The Umbrella Academy (TV), Legion (TV 2017-2019), G, 1,091, words)—this was a silly bit of freewriting I did last year BEFORE starting "Beginning," when I was debating crossing over TUA and Legion but didn't have any ideas yet. So I threw Five and Kerry into the astral plane and had them interact. Also Lester Papadopoulos aka the-god-Apollo-stuck-in-teenage-form-as-punishment randomly shows up. Not so randomly, he just wanted to know why he wasn't invited in the first place. Anyway, I just was reading it this year and decided to finish it up and post it so here it is!

TA-DA! I know it's long, and I included lots of links to MORE stuff to read, but if you've come this far, DO leave me a comment about anything here that strikes your fancy!