Who are the brilliant and passionate librarians behind SLJ’s reviews? Each month we take a peek behind the books and learn about the folks who help us read and evaluate thousands of titles every year.

How and why did you first get into librarianship? The roots of that go back to a volunteer gig in junior high as a library assistant (I still have my little gold pin) and my first encounter with a professional librarian. Hair bun, check. Geeky name, check (Ms. Moody). Passion for matching me (and everyone else) with the right books at the right times, check. I caught that passion and knew that library work was for me long before graduating from high school. Why do you review for SLJ? Way back in 1980, when I began at the New York Public Library (NYPL), and for a surprisingly long time after that, no new children’s book could be ordered until it “passed” with a written, strictly in-house review by a staff member. These reviews had to fit everything we had to say on a 3x5 form, and being carefully vetted by the brilliant librarians in the Office of Children’s Services; they were great training for clear, concise criticism. They were often pretty frank, too. I loved writing these but was reluctant to take the plunge into reviewing for publication until Trev Jones sent me a copy of what I still regard as one of the finest books ever: Mem Fox’s Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, published by Kane Miller and illustrated by the incomparable Julie Vivas. I’ve been happily reviewing for SLJ ever since. Is there a book that made you fall in love with reading? I’ve always been a total bookworm and can’t say where that comes from, since there weren’t a lot of books around the house when I was growing up. But I devoured all of Curious George’s misadventures, and he was my first literary hero. What are you reading (and liking) right now? I don’t drive, but since retiring five years ago, I’ve been taking long walks and so have belatedly discovered the pleasures of audiobooks. Right now I’m working my way through Laurie King’s Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series, and I find their reader, Jenny Sterlin, just an awesome talent. Tell us something surprising about yourself. I share a house in The Bronx with three other ex-NYPLers, and we call it the Yellow Submarine—not because of its color but because we all live there.