Ruth Allard
For the past 19 years, Ruth Allard has been the director of Windham County
Reads, notable for its creative literacy programs for children and families. Books and children are Ruth's two abiding passions, and she feels very fortunate to have meaningful work combining the two. In the past Ruth has been a Montessori teacher, a children's librarian, a children's bookseller, and the chair of the Vermont Literacy Board. She lives in Guilford, VT.
Mary Ahlgren
Literacy has been an important part of many aspects of Mary's life. When her children were young Mary volunteered at their schools as a one-on-one reading teacher and as a parent librarian. As a children's librarian, Mary has taught non-reading parents to read and enjoy books with their young children, and helped them work on developing skills of their own through programs such as Read to Me. Mary is currently director of the Hall Memorial Library serving the towns of Northfield and Tilton NH, and serves as NHLA's Intellectual Freedom Chair. She served on the Advisory Board of the family literacy project Evenstart for four years, has taught New Hampshire Reads Americorp members, and enjoys reading to and with children any chance she gets. She is past President of the Children's Librarians of New Hampshire (CHILIS). Mary lives in Sanbornton, NH.
Selena Cate
Selena Cate started her library career as library director of the Lisbon Public Library in Lisbon, New Hampshire in 1982. During that time she had the pleasure of providing library services to the students at the one-room school in Landaff, NH -- the Blue School. She served on the board of directors of the Lisbon Children's Center for many years. She worked at the Moosilauke Public Library in Woodstock, NH and provided services for children in the Woodstock and Lincoln, NH communities including out-reach programming at the Lincoln-Woodstock Community Childcare Center and for the WIC program. Since 2001 she has been the library director at the Thornton Public Library. This library is located in the Thornton Central School and Mrs.Cate has the great fun of having 9 classes in grades kindergarten through fifth as captive audiences once every week. She has served on the New Hampshire State Library Advisory council since 1997. She is delighted to be able to serve as a CLiF Advisor.
Peg Downing
Peg is the Director of the New Hampshire Reads AmeriCorps Program. She is responsible for managing the start-up and on-going development of a statewide literacy program focused on enhancing and extending reading-related experiences during and out of school time for preschool and primary grade children and their families. Prior to this position, Peg was a Community Outreach Worker in Plymouth, NH, and a Coordinator for the Family Literacy Program, and Coordinator for the Even Start Family Literacy Project in Franklin and Hill, NH. Peg has also been a committee member of the NH Partnership for Literacy, Success By Six, and has served as a volunteer literacy tutor for an adult tutorial program. Peg lives in Canterbury, NH.
Toni Eubanks
Toni Eubanks is the director of two small public libraries (Barton and Glover) in the Northeast Kingdom part of Vermont. She became interested in the library world while volunteering at her children's school library while living in Massachusetts. She also volunteered in the reading programs in their classrooms, ran Jr. Great Books for 1st and 4th grades, ran after school programs for the PTO, and ran a birthday book program for the school library. After moving to Vermont five years ago, she continued volunteering in the school classrooms, PTO and Everybody Wins! Now being attached to two libraries makes her youngest child (13 years old) very happy because reading a book a day sometimes calls for having to have instant access to more than one library during off hours.
Grace Greene
Grace has devoted her whole professional life (not to mention much of her personal life!) to children and books. She worked as a children's librarian in several public libraries in MA before coming to Vermont in 1986 to become the Children's Services Consultant. In her job she helps librarians connect children and books through summer reading programs, book review sessions, and the two state childen's choice awards, the Dororthy Canfield Fisher Award (for grades 4-8), and the Red Clover Award (for grades K-4). She has taught children's literature at St. Michael's College in Vermont, and Salem State College in MA, and is one of the principal developers of the Mother Goose programs, the family literacy programs of the Vermont Center for the Book. Her goal is for everyone to feel the way one six-year-old friend of hers does. As he says, " Reading makes my heart beep." Grace lives in Barre, VT
Kathleen Finn
Kathleen Finn is the school librarian at St. Francis Xavier in Winooski and reviews books for School Library Journal and the Vermont Deptartment of Libraries. She has also worked as a children’s librarian at the Winooski Public Library, and freelance publicist for the Vermont Folklife Center Children’s Book Series. Prior to moving to Vermont (and raising her three children), she worked for ten years for several New York children’s book publishers in both editorial and marketing positions. A native of Ottawa, Illinois, where she read her way through stacks of books from the public library, she got her first professional glimpse of the children’s book publishing world by serving as a college intern in the nearby offices of Cricket Magazine. Kathleen is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, the University of Denver Publishing Institute and holds her MLS from Long Island University. She lives in Shelburne, VT with her husband and children.
Ann Hoey
Ann is the Youth Services Coordinator at the New Hampshire State Library. She earned a Masters in Information from the University of Michigan, after which she worked as Children's Librarian at the Canton Public Library in Michigan and at the Southwick School Media Center in Northfield, NH. Before entering the library world, Ann taught English at schools in Ohio and New York and then at Plymouth State College in New Hampshire. While at Plymouth, she also worked part-time for Plymouth Friends of the Arts, primarily doing children's programming. Ann lives in Bow, NH.
Mary Catherine Jones
Mary Catherine is a former director of sales and marketing for a Vermont publishing company. She has run toddler and pre-school storytime programs for the Wilder Library in Wilder, VT, the Howe Library in Hanover, NH, and the Pierson Library in Shelburne, VT. She currently Co-Chairs the Shelburne PTO, is a Jr. Great Books leader for 4th-8th graders, and an Everybody Wins! Reading Mentor. Mary Catherine has also served as a CLiF Program Assistant and a CLiF Director. When not practicing fingerplays, Mary Catherine lives in Shelburne, VT, with her husband and two teenage voracious readers.
Jane Knight
Jane credits her love of reading to her mother and her childhood library in southeastern Michigan. Passion became livelihood over 15 years ago when she started selling books in 1994. She has also served as a tutor, teaching ESL in Colorado, and as a tutor with Central Vermont Adult Basic Education. For five years she served on the board of Planting Hope which is based in Montpelier and La Chispa, Nicaragua. They built a rural library in La Chispa in 2002, and a preschool in Pueblo Viejo in 2004. Jane began selling books at Bear Pond Books in Montpelier in 1995 and has happily been the children's book buyer since 2006.
Joanna Rudge Long
Joanna, who was young people's book review editor for Kirkus Reviews from 1986 to 1994, has also been a children's librarian at several libraries including New York Public Library and has taught children's literature at Rutgers University and Trenton State College. She now works in various capacities with several book-related organizations, including the Abbott Memorial Library in her hometown, Pomfret, Vermont, and reviews children's books for The Horn Book Magazine.
Sarah Putnam
Sarah has taught elementary school in Newfoundland, Canada, Philadelphia, and Orford, New Hampshire. In addition, she has been involved in environmental education, and homeschooled her daughters for two years. Currently, she is librarian at the Orford Social Library. Involvement in education continues to be a key element of her work as classes for the elementary school come regularly to her library for stories and research. Sarah lives in Orford, VT.
Joanne Scobie
Joanne has been a librarian, book reviewer, teacher, and storyteller for over 30 years. She was Children's Librarian of Lebanon Public Library for 19 years. Currently, she enjoys working occasionally in the Children's Rooms of Howe and Lebanon Libraries. She also travels in Guatemala, volunteering in libraries and tutoring students in English. She lives in Hanover, N.H.
