About Us

Welcome to Cardigans, Coffee & Bookmarks! Yet another book blog!

CC&B is made up of two twenty-something ladies from the Midwest. We met during our undergrad years while getting our BAs in English!

Becky is a grad student studying library science with the goal of becoming a youth librarian (children or teen).

Randi M is a grad student studying secondary English education, and she hopes to teach middle school language arts.

We both share a passion for books (hence those grueling years spent working toward those English degrees! Haha), especially young adult lit, the classics, and children's books. We hope you'll stop by to read our thoughts on the books we've picked up and that you'll get to know us a bit. :)

Randi M. (and husband)

Randi M.'s Story

Hi there! I'm Randi, Becky's co-pilot in this new, scary world of book blogging. During my undergrad studies (I studied literature and linguistics), I knew one thing for sure: I absolutely did not want to teach. However, I had the experience of working as a writing tutor in college and then did a brief stint as an AmeriCorps VISTA in an educational setting with young adults labeled "at-risk." It was during this latter experience that I realized *cue cheesy moment* I was meant to teach! Thus began my journey toward my Master's in secondary English education.

Here I am a year later, enjoying my education coursework and doing a lot of reading. Though my book-buying addiction has increased tenfold since I started grad school, now I can tell my husband "But I'm building my classroom library!" :) I've been enjoying much YA lit and am also finding more middle grade reads (I ultimately want to teach middle school LA). I recently learned about using picture books in the secondary classroom as well, so I'm enjoying dipping my toe into that genre

As Becky said, our reviews will probably become more polished as we go along, but I'd like to share a review of one of my recent YA reads. Keep in mind, not all of the books I'll be reviewing would necessarily be books I would use for classroom purposes, but I plan for my posts to include a nice mix of genres from YA to middle grade, picture books, and also the occasional adult book.

Becky

Becky's Story

It wasn't until I began tutoring for Americorps in a gap year after my undergraduate degree that I realized I loved working with kids and the literature aimed at them.  It was incredibly moving to share a good book with the K-3rd graders or listen to them read to me.  That's kind of when it hit me.

Now I'm playing a bit of catch-up as far as the literature goes.  I've been focusing mostly on teen and adult books since fifth grade, and I need to expand my book-base fast.  You'll see a lot of picture book reviews from me and comments about how to use them in storytimes.  I also cannot resist a good teen horror or dystopia.

What else should you know about me?  I love the color blue, I love vampires...the scary kind, and I love playing with my old-lady dog. If I don't get my coffee and two hours of quiet me-time in the morning I am irate all day.  If there's anything I left out, just shoot me a message!