This post is about YouTube. But also books.

No, sorry, the rules haven't changed about allowing YouTube in the school.

It's ok. You can take a moment to continue lamenting.

I'll wait.

Alright. So, as we all know, the world has gone digital, and the day and age of reading books is...well...it's a lot less popular than it used to be. I see a number of you students come through and boast about how you haven't read a book in -x- amount of days, months, years, etc. As I've said before, and I'll say until the day I die:

YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE MISSING

It's not just that I love books and you should to. It's also not that all of us who work at school are required to say you should read. HARDLY any of that. The truth is, reading has a ridiculous amount to offer everyone. Even if you don't fully understand everything you are reading, the benefits of just reading are pretty awesome for your brain and body. This is especially important to kids in k-12 because your brain is still developing and making all those little connections to expand it's understanding of the world. We humans have a limited time in which our brains have insane potential, and as we age, it will still learn and adapt and grow, but not quite as quickly as it did, once we hit the adult stage. This is why we adults push you to read, write, exercise, learn, and all those other things you'd sometimes rather not do.

(So don't blame us, blame science for figuring this all out. ;) )

On my end, the best I can do is encourage you to expand your brain via reading (or even listening *pst*audiobooks*pst*)

Here's a quick run down of some of the perks of reading, bullet-pointed for your convenience and/or short attention span.

• Books expands vocabulary (It's easier to write and converse when you have a larger pool of words to pull from.)

• Books provides mental stimulation, which in turn can help prevent

memory loss

depression

as well as slowing the progress of things like Dementia and Alzheimers

• Books help relieve stress and relaxes the body/mind (A bad day can be tempered a bit by a good book that will take your brain on a temporary vacation.)

• Books increase your analytical and critical thinking

• Books increase your knowledge (as if I had to tell you that one)

• Books help increase your focus and concentration

• Books give you a better writing ability (You'll do better on all those reports you have to write.)

• Books help increase creativity and imagination

• Books are free entertainment, which will be especially helpful in the event of a zombie apocalypse and you're trapped in your house for days with no electricity.

That being said, if by some slim chance I have motivated you to at least give reading a try, I'd like to point you to YouTube.

Yuuup. I work in a library and am encouraging you to read books by watching YouTube.

Obviously there's a catch because, seriously, that's too good to be taken at face value.

It's recently come to my attention that there's a growing trend of YouTubers who are also avid readers, and, like me, want to encourage you to reeeeeeeead because books have good stuff in 'em. You can read the article here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/books/booktubers-youtube.html

So, here's why I'm posting this. We have thousands of books in this library. I don't even know what all we have. (Reminder, I've only been here a year. Don't judge.) Finding a random book to read can be overwhelming, and reading the descriptions on the backs of all those books, if the back even HAS a description and not just critic reviews, can be daunting. Let's take a short cut. Lets watch someone give us a (hopefully) entertaining quick once over of a book.

We can't always get a good idea of a book from a brief description, nor do any of us want to Google every book we pick up and flip through countless reviews. Instead, I recommend hitting up YouTube...at home...because you can't watch it at school...and maybe watching some of these book-tubers reviews. From what I saw, most of the videos are anywhere from 6-30 minutes, with the average being (rough guesstimate) 8-10.

I'll do you one better. Here's some links to get you started.

https://www.youtube.com/user/polandbananasBOOKS/featured

https://www.youtube.com/user/vincentvanstop/videos

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3kjI-_LeJnKH7pJtBk0-IA/videos

https://www.youtube.com/user/PeruseProject/videos

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYejuNiTTA3yCxVSOTyj7yA

So...check them out, alright? I mean, worst thing that happens, you kill 10 minutes of your life watching a video.

Best thing? You find a book you actually *GASP* like! It's ok to admit this. I assure you, fire and brimstone will not fall upon you if you admit to liking a book.

And remember, if we don't have it here, you can check the public library. If they don't have it there, I'm always looking for recommendations and will HAPPILY accept requests.

Cool?

Cool.

Now go watch YouTube.