Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

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Mom was the daughter of Sicilian immigrants. Growing up in the apartment above her papa's shoe store, she was really tiny and really smart. Her papa cosigned a promissory note for one of his buddies, the buddy defaulted and split town, leaving her papa to slowly make good on the note. The result was that after graduating high school at sixteen Mom had to work her way through business school instead of getting to go to college.

Mom always told me that it was going to be different for me.

About Me--"...sometimes we live no particular way but our own..."

Richie Partington

PRESENTATIONS:

Richie is one of the West Coast's premier booktalkers and presenters. He has presented at the California School Library Association, the California Library Association, The Assembly of Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English, and the Nevada Reading Assocation. He has done hundreds of middle school, high school, university, and public library booktalk presentations and will come booktalk at your school. Cost: $100 + transportation for 3 hours of presenting.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED:

Partington, R. (2006). Why boy books? CSLA Journal 30(1), p. 15-16. Retrieved from EBSCO, January 4, 2007.

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS:

ALA ALSC, YALSA, SRRT, AASL

ALAN, California State Representative, (2005-2007)

International Reading Association, California School Library Association

EXPERIENCE:

INSTRUCTOR: Spring 2008

I designed and taught Libr. 267, an online seminar, "Picture Books for Older Readers," in the School of Library and Information Science of San Jose State University.

RESEARCH ASSISTANT: 2007-PRESENT
GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT: 2006-2007

I was employed in San Jose State University's School of Library and Information Science, working with Dr. David V. Loertscher, a former president of the American Association of School Librarians and nationally-known author, innovator, and conference presenter. Duties include making recommendations on curriculum for classes in the MLIS program as well as serving as contributor to the text and editor of the online portion of the just-published 2nd Edition of Young Adult Literature and Multimedia (Hi Willow Research and Publishing, 2006). Additional duties include maintenance of online wikis utilized extensively in Professor Loertscher's classes, grading student assignments, updating course materials, and writing documentation for technology utilized in online classes. I have been assisting in lecturing for Young Adult Literature classes, and assisting during other online and face-to-face class meetings.

BROOK HAVEN MIDDLE SCHOOL: 2001-2007

Since the time that my wife, English and drama teacher Shari Conradson, was employed at Sebastopol's Brook Haven Middle School, until this past spring, I had been a part-time to nearly full-time volunteer in her classroom. I have collaborated with Shari in developing children's and Young Adult literature-based curriculums for seventh and eighth grade English students, have regularly read aloud to her classes, and have regularly booktalked to students and to parents both during school and at evening sessions. Together, Shari and I are responsible for initiating the nation's first No-Name Calling Week, inspired by James Howe's 2001 novel, The Misfits. Our local experience in 2002 was utilized in the formulation of a National No-Name Calling Week, which has now taken place for three years and is cosponsored by dozens of organizations including the Children's Defense Fund, Amnesty International, the Association of Secondary School Administrators, and Girl Scouts of America. No-Name Calling Week, 2006 included participation by more than 350,000 students nationwide. Shari and I also collaborated on pairings of Young Adult novels with research units relating to issues in the books we were teaching. One such unit, focusing on homelessness and Todd Strasser's Can’t Get There from Here, resulted in the publicized visit of Sonoma County Legislator Mike Reilly to Brook Haven for a forum in which Shari's eighth grade English students had the opportunity to quiz Mr. Reilly on present and future County services for the homeless. As part of my coursework at San Jose State, I created the Brook Haven Middle School Digital Library with extensive curricular and extracurricular resources for students, teachers, and parents. Finally, over the years, I have used my extensive industry contacts to attract author visits to Brook Haven for which the publishers have borne the full costs. Recent visitors have included Newbery Medalist Karen Cushman and our good friend James Howe, autor of The Misfits.

COPPERFIELD'S BOOKS: 1995-2000

I served as Children's Buyer and Children's Events Coordinator for the (then) six store chain. I was responsible for the Sonoma County appearances for authors and illustrators including J.K. Rowling, Philip Pullman, Christopher Paul Curtis, Sharon Creech, David Diaz, Sarah Stewart and David Small, Jean Craighead George, and Barbara Berger. I was also engaged in staff training and booktalking to employees.

WILLOW CREEK CHILDRENS CENTER: 1989-1995

I was employed as the hands-on Executive Director and lead teacher of the nonprofit childcare center serving low income families in northwest Santa Rosa. Under an annually-elected parent board, I had full charge of programming, budgeting, staffing, licensing, grant writing, and maintaining the educational and physical environment of the facility. Hired at a time when the organization was insolvent, I rose to the challenge of maintaining the most affordable rates possible, hiring the best teachers, running an exemplary age-appropriate program, and managing, thanks to my business degree, to keep the Center out of bankruptcy. A decade after my stewardship, the Center and its program still survives, and the teacher I hired out of the SRJC program and trained to replace me is still there. Throughout those years (and thousands of circle times) at Willow Creek, I learned first-hand what books caught the attention and imagination of young children.

EDUCATION:

SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY: 2004-PRESENT

SCHOOL OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE

I completed my Master of Library and Information Science degree and was chosen to be the class graduation speaker. (The video of my speech can be found under videos on the SJSU SLIS site.) The classes I completed in the program are as follows:

(Course/Grade)

LIBR200 Information and Society: A

LIBR202 Information Retrieval: A

LIBR 204 Information Organizations and Management: A

LIBR 210 Reference and Information Services: A

LIBR 233 School Library Media Centers: A

LIBR 234 Intellectual Freedom Seminar: A

LIBR 250 Design and Implementation of Instructional Strategies for Information Professionals: A

LIBR 261 Resources for Children, Ages 6-12: A+

LIBR 262 Resources for Young Adults: A

LIBR 266 Collection Management: A-

LIBR 286 Interpersonal Communications Skills for Librarians: A

LIBR 289 Advanced Topics in Library and Information Science: A

LIBR 298 Special Studies: CREDIT

LIBR 298 Special Studies: CREDIT

SANTA ROSA JUNIOR COLLEGE: 1987-1989

I was a star in this program, too. I successfully completed and exceeded the Early Childhood Education courses necessary to be employed under State licensing regulations as a Director. In addition, I completed several conference-related ECE courses at Sonoma State University, and learned to strum an autoharp with the best of them.

UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT: 1973-1977

I earned a Bachelor of Science Cum laude degree in Business Administration. During that time I had the opportunity to complete two modern American literature courses with then-graduate student, now bestselling author Ann Beattie and her then-husband, now author and Newsweek columnist David Gates.

COMMACK HIGH SCHOOL NORTH: 1969-1973

Voted Class of 73 Service Award, Voted "Did Most for Commack North" and "Unsung Hero." National Honor Society, helped found the Ecology Club, and wrote a Student Bill of Rights that was adopted by the school.

"Well, the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry anymore..."

I was Rexford Partington's first grandson, and I spent a significant portion of my childhood with this gentle storyteller who had been one of our nation's first Eagle Scouts. Several of his stories involved a position he once held as a department store buyer. ( I'd recall those particular tales many years later during my gig as a book buyer.)

Together Mom and Dad raised us in suburban Long Island. Mom pushed Dad into starting a plumbing business and then a residential construction business. He did the work, she ran the businesses, the house, and the three of us kids. I was frequently working on the jobs with Dad beginning when I was nine.

I was a quiet child, a dependable student, and a voracious reader who was deeply affected by the Civil Rights movement, The Beatles, the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, and the escalating war on the evening news.

When I was in middle school, I was frequently picked on, consistently on the Honor Roll, and constantly reading a new book every day or two. Happening upon books by and about the Chicago 7, I transformed from middle school outcast to high school activist. I was the hardworking antiwar guy with long hair, great grades and a big attitude who narrowly lost the student council presidency to the conservative star of the football team. A happy memory at the end of high school was the evening my Mom sat proudly between me and my high school principal as the local Elk's lodge honored me with a community service award at a fancy dinner.

I attended the University of Connecticut, where I majored in Business as Mom instructed me to, and minored in Ralph Nader. I took summer classes, graduated with honors after three years, and then spent the next three years as an unpaid environmental activist. I co-founded a local branch of Friends of the Earth, and had a key role in the successful intervention to prevent construction of twin nuclear power plants in Jamesport, Long Island. I designed and constructed a widely-publicized passive solar house, became a vegetarian in 1978, and built up an award-winning herd of Nubian dairy goats.

I moved to the land of the Grateful Dead in 1984. Goat dairying friends from Sebastopol persuaded me to settle here sight unseen. I got a job as a bookkeeper for a health food manufacturer, took radio broadcasting classes at Santa Rosa Junior College, and built a little hillside farm for the goats. (I still maintain a small herd of goats as pets; they are all named after favorite book characters or songs.)

Mom announced in 1987 that I should go back to school and become a teacher. It sounded good. But it was January--not the time of year to enter the local university--so I decided to take some Child Development classes at SRJC. I got hooked on working with preschool kids, and within a year and a half I assumed the Director's position at an insolvent nonprofit childcare center in Santa Rosa serving low income families. I was in charge of programming, staffing, budgeting, and everything else.

Half a dozen years of trying to be Superman at the Center with one financial crisis after the other finally burned me out. My grantwriting did earn us lots of money, as well as State forgiveness of a major tax debt that had proceeded me. But, always, something else would break...

I took refuge at Copperfield's Books, where my knowledge of childrens books quickly gained me attention along with the job of Childrens and Young Adult Buyer and Events Coordinator for the six stores. I paid my own way to my first trade show in Chicago and stayed in a hostel dorm. They paid from then on because of my results. I did my homework, and made the industry contacts, which resulted in my attracting famous authors to Sonoma County such as JK Rowling, Christopher Paul Curtis, Jean Craighead George, Sharon Creech, Jan Brett, David Small & Sarah Stewart, David Almond, Philip Pullman, etc. There were so many wonderful encounters with these and other authors, such as my getting to sit in a Chicago bar with Jules Feiffer and listen to him recall his experience during the 1968 Democratic Convention in that city. His book, Pictures at a Prosecution: drawings & text from the Chicago Conspiracy Trial (New York: Grove Press, 1971), had had a life-altering effect upon me decades earlier, when I happened upon it displayed on the "New" shelf at my childhood public library.

Unfortunately, the bookstore pay was terrible and they wanted to take advantage of my having mastered all aspects of the business, so I finally left.

Because of my opinions on new books (I was the rare buyer to read them all) I had built up an enormous list of followers among the country's librarians, teachers, and book buyers. I evolved my book talks and shelf talkers into the "Richie's Picks" e-newsletters which now reach a worldwide audience of over 7,000 educators, librarians, students, retailers, and publishing executives.

Then came September 11th...I immediately began emailing everyone to read and teach James Howe's THE MISFITS in the hope that increased tolerance among children will be a step toward ending the cycle of violence and toward world peace. THE MISFITS was one of my big picks for the year and I was excited to come in and read the beginning aloud to my wife's students. But once I got going it was just like being back at the preschool--I LOVE reading aloud. It's one of the funnest things in the world. I didn't plan to stay, but it has been such a joy that I continued to do so for six school years.

In 2002 I was offered a position on the American Library Associations Best Books for Young Adults committee. I served a three-year term that concluded at the beginning of 2005. I loved working with librarians so much that Shari easily persuaded me to enroll in San Jose State University's School of Library and Information Science. While it was very satisfying to graduate in May 2007, it has been a total joy to be back in school and above all the great things that have been coming my way recently, getting to develop and teach my own class in the SLIS program in the spring is up at the very top.

My only regret is that Mom wasn't still around to see me get my Masters and become a college professor.