Book News

Delighted to share that Saving Our Sturgeon was recently named an honor book for the 2026 Green Earth Award in young adult nonfiction from The Nature Generation. Be sure to take a look at the other books honored - great nature reading!

SoS has also been selected as the middle grade book by the Library of the Great Lakes for the 2026 Great Lakes, Great Read program, a “one community” read for the entire Great Lakes region. Stay tuned for some upcoming events regarding this!

Library News

In the other side of my book life, I’ll be one of the keynote speakers at the Wisconsin Educational Media and Technology Association conference next March. This is the school librarian conference for our state and, after working in school libraries for 23 years, I’m touched to get invited to do this.

Sturgeon Shopping News

In a quest to find a non-cheesy sturgeon t-shirt, I recently stumbled across Creative Graphics by Eva, an online shop by Eva Oldman, that features her original indigenous designs. Check out her work.

Sturgeon News

Lake sturgeon spawning viewing was difficult this year due to flooding on the Fox and Wolf Rivers, but if you can swing in the future, I highly recommend seeing this amazing event. The Department of Natural Resources maintains a list of viewing sights and updates the action daily, so be sure to check in next April.

Great news for sturgeon in the Milwaukee River! After a 20-year restoration effort, which included yearly stocking, dam removals, and fish passage creations, a sturgeon has traveled twenty miles upriver to Ozaukee County for the first time. Even more fun is that they were able to trace the fish to the 3-year-old boy who released him in 2011. Read more here.

Reading News

I’ve been plowing through Tana French’s Cal Hooper series lately. It’s about a Chicago cop who retires to a small village in Ireland. He thinks it’ll be peaceful and idyllic, but there’s generations of drama brewing under the surface. I love the writing, the characters, and how every bit of dialogue means more than what is said. I just finished the third (and last) book.

Also on my list of great recent reads: the Newbery Honor book, The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest by Aubrey Hartman (so funny, so poignant), and Trans History: a Graphic Novel: from Ancient Times to the Present Day by Alex L. Combs and Andrew Eakett (fantastic in audio format).

And that’s about it. Thanks for reading. Consider subscribing so you don’t miss the next one, which will be in the summertime.