Readers weighed in on our story about Jessie Storrs, 2024 School Librarian of the Year finalist, who serves incarcerated youth at the Sacramento County Youth Detention Facility.
 

Familiar and comforting in a difficult time. That’s what all books aspire to be—thank you for your work. 
—@nidhiart Nidhi Chanani, Instagram, on “Jessie Storrs: Serving ‘Just Kids’,” Instagram

 Incarcerated 10 year olds...America what have we become? 😢
— Antoinette Denise, on Facebook

 In New York it costs 1 million per year to house a minor in a juvenile facility… Imagine how we could change their lives with that money if we were to invest in preventative and supportive services from birth for the whole family.
— Janelle Marble, on Facebook

Among our most viewed stories was an essay by Kimberly Olson Fakih, SLJ's senior editor of picture books.

Read these over and over as a child. Learned a lot about a different time, religion unfamiliar to me, sisters! Itchy stockings! Kerosene in the hair for shine, shopping for treats at the street market with pennies🙂
—Mary Dean, commenting on “Jewish Joy and the ‘Little Women’ of the Lower East Side | Opinion” Facebook
 

On Instagram, we posted our profile of 2022 School Librarian of the Year finalist Pia Alliende:

Having no budget, Pia Alliende was undeterred. The Redmond, OR, district librarian, secured four grants totaling nearly $25,000. Just before her 60th birthday, she set out on a multiday, 347-mile bike-packing race across Oregon and raised nearly $2,500, which she divided among school libraries in the district.

It drew quite a response—much applause and big ups for Alliende. A few readers underscored the need to sufficiently fund school libraries.

She is obviously amazing, but this story is not inspiring! Nobody should have to do this. Professionals in other fields are not expected to fundraise their own budgets. This story is depressing. Wait til a school board tells a librarian that she doesn’t need a budget because she can simply follow the example of Pia Alliende and fundraise the money herself.
—Julie Goldberg Springer, Facebook

Yes! They love it. Mega man all of them we just bought some Stich ones and now they are gone. Can't keep them on the shelves. I get them in and I don't even have time to put them back on the shelf and they are gone again.
— Stephine Brentson, Facebook, on “There’s Not Enough Middle Grade Manga. U.S. Publishers Are Changing That.” by Brigid Alverson.

It’s Big

I read this with my 1st and 2nd graders today. You have no idea how much it touched them. ❤️
— Bonnie Grover @BVGrover, responding on X to our post “Sharing Big at Story Time”

Yes please. We need more books written in Spanish. Translations are fine but my kids need more than American kid classics written in Spanish. And we’d love to see books written in the Spanish of central and South America.— Jennifer Taransky, on Facebook, responding to Gauging Service to Spanish Speakers: Libraries see critical demand for books, information en español | From the Editor