Welcome to our series, all about getting to know our very special Youth Services staff members at the Barrington Area Library! Each month, we'll publish an interview with one of our lovely staff members. Up next we have Youth Services Librarian Chris!

What is your favorite part of working at the Barrington Area Library?

Encouraging and indulging a lifelong love of books in young people is a special thing, especially when I'm learning just as much about literature from the children as they are from me.

What are some of your favorite books and/or genres?

I have to be careful, because I could just fill this whole post with this answer. But some of my favorite children's series include A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, the Lewis Barnavelt series by John Bellairs, Abarat by Clive Barker, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, and the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix. Another well-loved series, but hard to find nowadays, is the Culpepper Adventures series by Gary Paulsen.

Individual favorites include Howl's Moving Castle, Coraline, and (more recently) Peter Pan and Inkheart.

Genre-wise, I tend to gravitate toward realistic fiction, fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery. I'm also a big comics and manga fan but that's for another post!

Do you have a hobby or knowledge of a certain topic that you like to incorporate into your work at the library?

Here’s a non-answer to this question: I started editing videos for our YouTube channel when we were mostly closed to the public during COVID, and I’ve kept up with it ever since. Nowadays I’m the editor for our channel, and I make videos myself. I especially love filming booktalks, of course!

I’ve learned a little bit about editing thanks to my work on the YouTube channel, but I want to know more! I’ve started wondering if I should work on creative, personal projects.

So in this case, my work at the Library has inspired me to pursue a new hobby!

What do you like to do when you’re not working at the library?

I read a lot, of course, and write when I can. Poetry, fiction, etc. If I'm not doing any of those things I'm probably playing video games or watching scary movies or anime.

If you could be a character in any book in our collection, who would you be?

I would be Candy Quackenbush from Abarat. Candy gets to leave her small Midwestern town, just like I did, and go on adventures with all sorts of amazing creatures, who seem scary at first but are just as human as she is, just as loving.

I’ve always loved monsters. I’ve drawn them and written about them since I was a little kid, and to this day I’m sympathetic to monsters. I’m pretty faithful to weird and scary things.

Is there a fun fact about yourself that you’d like to share?

I collect toys. My desk is absolutely covered with them. I’ve always wanted to make toys, especially puppets… maybe I should give it a try!

    Youth Services Specialist Stefanie