School Librarian in Action: 2025

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

School Librarian in Action: 2025 in Review

Revisiting the year through the posts I wrote on the first day of each month. And, I just want to say, that the blog turned 20 years old in April 2025. I may not be blogging the same way since, but I am too sentimental to give up SLIA.

May 2026 be kind to all of us! Happy New Year!

December 2025 - Zine Making with Teens: I got invited last week for an Author Visit and Zine Making Workshop at Jubilee Christian Academy.

November 2025 - The Lighthouse Diary #80: Inquiry and the Library : The 2nd term is the shortest of the four terms in a school year.

October 2025 - Back in Bangkok. Again. 2025 Version: Our welcome dinner: Thai Hainanese Chicken. (Not in photo: sticky rice with mango.)

September 2025 - BTS A Little Golden Book Biography Part 3 Expanding the Reading Experience: In Part 1, I reflected on the cultural significance of BTS A Little Golden Book Biography and

what it means to BTS'

August 2025 - New Book Planting a Tree of Hope: One of the coolest things that happened on National Children’s Book Day (NCBD) last July 15, was meeting Tin Javier in person!

July 2025- Book Blog Tour Grandma Yogini by Raven Howell: I signed up once again for a book blog tour with Women Writing (US) that will kickstart in August.

June 2025 - When Parents Listen to Their Children: Today is the Feast of the Lord’s Ascension unto Heaven, a Sunday we spent with our marriage and family life community, the Magis Deo Community.

May 2025 -

The Lighthouse Diary #73: Exploratory Essay: Working on Feedback & Creating a Research Pathway: This is an update on the Exploratory Essay I wrote as model text for our grade 11 students.

April 2025 - The Disaster Ready Kids in Books Philippines Catalog, Bologna Children's Book Fair : Our books, “Disaster Ready Kids: Earthquake and Volcanic Eruption” (Lampara Books, 2024) are off to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair!

March 2025 - Kuwentong Bangtan: The Breadth and Depth of BTS' Discography & Hope On the Stage Seoul: J-Hope’s 3 day concert #HopeontheStage in Seoul finally ends.

February 2025 - The Lighthouse Diary #67: Expanding Our World: Reflections on World Languages and Literature Week 2025: During this year’s World Languages and Literature Week, we, at the BA Library had the privilege of hosting three remarkable authors namely, Joel Donato Ching Jacob, Robin Sebilono and Artie Cabezas who shared not only their books but also their writing journeys and the literary works that have shaped their thinking.

January 2025 - 2024 In Retrospect: Books Read and Reviewed: Before I begin making a new reading list for 2025, here is a rundown of books I read and posted reviews on in the blog and in my IG.

Grace in Every Season: D1 to 2026

This year’s deepest grace was time I never thought I’d be able to give.

Time with my daughter in Seoul, held alongside the reality of caring for my Papa with dementia, the weight of his care, the grief I carry in Mama’s passing and the loss of a dear mentor and friend.

What made it possible were not perfect circumstances, but friendships, family, and community.

Knowing who walked with me and with my ARMY daughter, from start to finish was grace enough.

I want to tag you all, but you are simply too many. So instead, I offer a collective prayer:

If you are reading this and you are well aware that you had and have in many ways reached out, helped, and held us in 2025, may it return to you as grace, in forms you need most.

#GraceInEverySeason #FindingGodInAllThings

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Grace in Every Season: D2 to 2026

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Rizal for Young Readers (Curated List)

Rizal Day in Biñan City 2025

Biñan City commemorates Rizal Day today. It proudly claims José Rizal as its own, given that his parentage is Biñanense and that the young Rizal lived and studied in Biñan during his elementary years. Years that would later surface, remembered and reframed, in his writing.

Earlier today, I had the privilege of serving as a judge for this year’s Batang Rizal sa Biñan Declamation Contest, organized by the Biñan City Culture, History, Arts, and Tourism Office, and held at the School of Rizal Site and Museum – Jacobo Gonzales Casa Biñanense along Capinpin Street, Barangay Poblacion.

The experience left me with a lasting impression not only of the young voices interpreting Rizal, but of Rizal himself: a writer attempting something quietly radical. In Memorias de un estudiante de Manila, he repositions a Western literary form, the memoir, and uses it to narrate his lived experience as a Filipino child shaped by colonial schooling, provincial life, and early displacement. What emerges is not merely nostalgia, but curiosity, attentiveness, and an awareness of becoming.

Reading this memoir today, while living and working in Biñan, I realized that Rizal’s remembered town and my present one now overlap, unevenly, imperfectly, but meaningfully. The Filipino translation of the piece makes the experience even more personal as it connects memory in a language closer to home. Rizal’s observations on power, language, and social distinction continue to echo in our present lives.

Today, we remember Rizal the hero. But let us also remember that he was once a child who wondered, played, observed, and was still in the process of becoming.

Thank you to Shiela Gilbuena Legaspi and my co-judges Sirs Rudy and Paulo. It was an enjoyable morning! Happy Rizal Day!

(Akala ninyo BTS na naman. Mamaya pa ako mag-post tungkol sa kanila.

)

Monday, December 29, 2025

Grace in Every Season: Day 3 to 2026

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Sunday, December 28, 2025

Grace in Every Season: D4 to 2026

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Book Review: Lost, Light Life

Lost, Light, Life

By Rob Cham, Anino Comics

Our little Backpacker’s journey has come full circle. The illustrations, coloring and inking have all beautifully complemented the story of the little one’s triumph. Here’s to more fulfillment of dreams and adventures big and small in the years to come!

Thank you @aninocomics 💜

May we find the loyalty of true friends, the faith of family and the fortitude to soldier on in our chosen paths!

Friday, December 26, 2025

Grace in Every Season: D6 to 2026

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My 2025 Writing Life: Disaster Ready Kids Series (DRK): Flood, Fire, Earthquake, and Volcanic Eruption (1/4)

As 2025 draws to a close, I look back at a writerly year. I am mighty proud to have launched and presented seven titles of books: 1 series and 3 stand-alone illustrated storybooks for children with @lamparabooks @tuttlepublishing and @thebookmarkinc

First of seven is the Disaster Ready Kids Series (DRK): Flood, Fire, Earthquake, and Volcanic Eruption. @juno_abreu and I were interviewed at the Philippine Book Festival last March 2025, and though we were not in the Bologna Book Fair and the Frankfurt Buchmesse, our series was present. At the MIBF in September, we showed up for meet-and-greet sessions. There were author visits in between, where I had the pleasure of sharing my creative process with young readers and it was a joy to talk about the DRK Series with teachers and literacy experts at the Reading Association of the Philippines’ annual conference last November.

As I end this year, I do so with gratitude. For editors who believed, illustrators who brought heart to the page, publishers who took risks, teachers and librarians who carried these books into classrooms, and children who listened, asked questions, and saw themselves in the stories. Writing, I am reminded, is never solitary. It is sustained by community, trust, and grace. I step into the coming year thankful, grounded and ready to keep telling stories that serve, prepare, and hold.

#writinglife #phchildrensbook