iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 25/08/2026

Season #2 of our Podcast launches next week. We needed time to prepare for this semester and imagine brave new hyperbole to throw at you! In the meantime, Friends of Desoto will surely appreciate today's library coloring sheet! @greatesttrek.com @benjaminahr.mobi #kidLit #inJokes #DS9

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 23/08/2026

A lot of people think their country is the best, but, if we’re being objective, the new puppy is at best an ok Dane. #dogsofbluesky #puppy #parentlife #dog

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 20/08/2026

Some #forkToTable from my little’s #learningGarden. Homegrown basil, tomatoes, zucchini. The polenta and pasta were not, in fact, homegrown. 😂 #toddlerLife #girlDad #parenting #vegetarian

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 19/08/2026

Beyond thrilled to announce that, against all odds this late in the year, I have found a landing spot and will be teaching as Dr. Gill for the first time!

Gandalf the White stares at the camera announcing “I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide.”

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 19/08/2026

This absolute banger of a picture book. Genuinely terrifying. #kidlitchat

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 18/08/2026

Can you name the #picturebook from these three images? Note: they’re not from the book itself—that’d be a giveaway—they’re just descriptive of it! #kidlit #booksky

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 18/08/2026

Along with cyclospora and salmonella, we’re apparently no longer checking the expiration date on fortune cookies, either.

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 17/08/2026

Y'know Robert Lawson, who illustrated Ferdinand among other greats? He won a Caldecott in 1941, for a book that looks to demonstrate how his ancestors made America a proud nation by...fighting for the Confederacy? Listen Here: apple.co/463masC #EduSky #BookSky #KidLit #CivilWar #PictureBook

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 17/08/2026

“Your child will never have to go to therapy… for the same reasons you do.“ —my therapist. #kidlit #parenting #fairytales #booksky #girldad

A nightstand with a potted plant beside it contains three books stacked atop one another: a compendium of Victorian fairy tales; the Princeton UP Grimm Bros fairy tales; Maria Tater’s compilation of Classic Fairy Tales for Norton. A truly bad edition of the LOTR can be seen behind it—the small pleather bound ones—and Peter Straub’s Ghost Story as well.

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 12/08/2026

Toddling the Stacks—come for the ASMR of an elderly mastiff snores, stay for the gentle sounds of puppy ears flapping in the breeze. Bonus litcrit for careful listeners! #dogsofbluesky #puppy #podcast

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 12/08/2026

THE KING WHO BANNED THE DARK offers an accessible and appropriately light-hearted look into propaganda, populist politics, and resistance when a young King, afraid of the dark, decides to just get rid of it. Buy it, sure, but request it at your local library too. It’s a #mustRead. #kidlit #edusky

A king, eating at a table, is advised by his staff that he can’t ban the dark outright without public support. He has to make the people think it’s their idea first.

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 11/08/2026

Take a look at these pages from Clare Newberry’s 1940 Caldecott Honor winning April’s Kittens. I’d hang this in my little’s room as an art print any day! Miles above the Robert Lawson book that won that year (that episode drops Thursday). #kidlitart #kidlit #booksky #cats #kittens #art

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 07/08/2026

#Picturebooks teach valuable lessons. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, for instance, can prepare you if your child ever asks you to “be pride rock” during imaginative play, the way mine just did. 😂 #girldad #dadjokes #dadlife #parenting

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 06/08/2026

It’s been a second but today’s haul of bedtime contraband was too egregious not to share. 4 titles in one bed! Rarely is the question asked: is our children reading? #kidlit #raisingreaders #dadlife #picturebook @sandraboynton.bsky.social

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 05/08/2026

@aishasaeed.bsky.social and @anooshasyed.com created BILAL COOKS DAL, one of my little’s favorite #picturebooks about a boy who learns about patience cooking chana dal with his dad. Though 3, she’s no slouch in the kitchen, so tonight we made it! #devoured #kidlit #cookingwithkids #parenting

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 03/08/2026

New Episode Alert! Is @bjnovak.bsky.social 's The Book with No Pictures the Ulysses of #picturebooks? Eh. But amidst the turmoil of PBdom in the early 10s, the book represents a modernist-style experiment with form, language, and humor. Listen for more! #kidlit #edusky #booksky apple.co/3Tp8QMl

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 02/08/2026

Another #SundayFunday learning #garden haul! Our little picked most of the stuff going into the plot, decided where everything was going to go, and planted it all (with help). She even helped make the raised bed! Sadly no tomatoes have survived long enough to photograph. #parenting #girldad

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 01/08/2026

Always two there are. Say hello to Tessa, Toddling The Stack’s newest intern! We just adopted her! She’s the youngest pup we’ve ever had, so lots of learning ahead for her and us. Our EM, Greta, already adores her though! #dogsOfBluesky #puppy #adoptDontShop #babyDog

A large black puppy with a white splash on her chest sits on green grass wearing a pink collar.

A large black puppy sits next to a much larger English Mastiff on green grass.

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 29/07/2026

An elderly rabbit implores a baby bun to stay quiet as two cats approach. Moments later, the bun has said goodnight to her, to the world, even to air itself. Welcome to everyone’s favorite bedtime story. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t... #kidlit #picturebook #edusky #parenting #raisingreaders

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 29/07/2026

#liveFootage of me starting off the day. If you’re starting yours off, too, why not queue our pod up before the commute? www.ToddlingTheStacks.com or your pod app! (Image from the fun logic game Cat Crimes, which can easily be modded to play with your #toddler!) #parentingHack #dadLife #commute

A picture of a game piece printed with a cute, tan-on-brown cat biting its own big fluffy tail. The word “Sassy” appears in a distressingly comic sansy type font below it.

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 28/07/2026

AGGIE AND THE GHOST, my little’s current fave, features a cheese obsessed ghost, and a more aspirational goal for one’s afterlife I can hardly imagine. QRP with cheese so that this spectre can haunt all of Bluesky. #kidlit #cheese #ghosts #booksky

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 27/07/2026

Today featured a quick jaunt to the bike park and nature walk—complete with our regular scavenger hunt for oak trees—followed by finishing up our rain stick craft! Giving this kid the upbringing I never had has been life’s greatest gift. #SundayFunday #dadLife #girlDad #artsAndCrafts #parenting

A brightly colored papier mache rain stick sits atop a wood table. The photo is poorly composed and features a lot of unnecessary junk.

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 24/07/2026

Can still cite it in MLA from memory 😂

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 24/07/2026

#libraryhaul Not a big fan of celebs expanding their portfolios in PB land, but @bjnovak.bsky.social's The Book With No Pictures is a freaking riot. My 3yo is probably still laughing about it, and she's been asleep for an hour. BOO-BOO BUTT. #kidlit #toddlerlife #raisingreaders #parenting

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 23/07/2026

We play by the Cobra Kai rules when it comes to coloring around here. Strike first. Strike hard. No mercy. Not in my dojo, kid. Not in my dojo. Jk I love the way her understanding of color is growing every day! #nailedit #dadlife #toddlerlife #dadjokes #artsandcrafts #coloring

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 22/07/2026

At the tender age of 86, Lois Lenski’s The Little Train still has a lot to offer young readers—if modern editors would just leave it be. Find out more in this week’s episode, What‘s Black and White and Red All Over? podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t... #bookreview #booksky #kidlit #edusky

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 17/07/2026

Off to family #vacation —which, to be clear, does not include a break from the Berenstain Bears. Tonight’s post-lights-out activity is a small glass of mezcal, followed by quizzing my in-laws on the first 11 episodes of our hit new podcast! #familyfun #parenting #dadlife #momlife

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 15/07/2026

Looking at our reading by the numbers, I’m clearly missing some of the great 90s #picturebooks. What do you folks recommend? #kidlit #parenting #booksky #raisingreaders

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 14/07/2026

we will now be releasing subscriber-only episodes containing just uhms, lip smacks, mastiff snores, stutters, awkward pauses bc I forgot who I am, and gratuitous uses of “right?”, released whenever I get an ad offering to have #AI do the #podcast for me. #HumanMade #HumanProduced

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 13/07/2026

Happy Monday y’all! This week’s episode looks at the work of serialization in #picturebooks and begs the industry for more. This image may or may not be relevant to the discussion. Find out by listening! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t... #kidlit #parenting #toddler #momlife #dadlife #booksky

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 10/07/2026

If you had to whittle your #library down to just authors whose names started with the same letter, what would that letter be? James Baldwin? Jane Austen? James Joyce? Charles John Dickens? It’s the letter J for me.

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 09/07/2026

Off to vacation? We highly recommend tucking @jessiesima.bsky.social's JULES VS. THE OCEAN into your beach bag. It's fun, and the ocean wins in the end, just like in the Anthropocene! Don't read it while driving tho: subscribe to our podcast for that! apple.co/4eTtP0M #parentlife #parenting

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 09/07/2026

I use a spreadsheet to keep track of my little’s reading and my ratings. There’s also a column to indicate suspected AI use. Per my research, AI-generated #kidlit first appeared in 2004, right around the time Netscape 7 dropped 😂.

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 08/07/2026

#libraryhaul! I’ve taught Melville‘s Bartleby several times; it’s a favorite of undergrads, incl. those who don’t read often. This Bartleby doesn’t maintain the inscrutability of the original—and he doesn’t die—but he has plenty of charm his progenitor lacks. #kidlit #raisingreaders #parenting

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 07/07/2026

🎶woahh we're halfway there🎶 500 left to go in the #1000booksbeforekindergarten challenge! #500 was @jennyabooks.bsky.social 's FRIDAYS ARE FOR CHURROS. We highly recommend it, especially if narrated by our local librarian, Ms. Alison, on a car themed activity mat. #kidlit #parenting #toddlerlife

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 07/07/2026

Continuing my scholarly monograph about what children want in #kidlit (besides taco trucks run by anthropomorphized animals)—in magnatiles, tho, they definitely want their castles to have separate outdoor dance floors for people and puppies. #toddlers #girldad #kidsaythedarndestthings #parenting

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 07/07/2026

Top: opening shot, THE SEVENTH SEAL. Bottom: opening illustration of HUBERT AND THE APPLE TREE. The POV change matters a lot, but I think much of the work they're doing is the same. Listen to this week's episode and chime in! #kidlit #parenting #kidlitart toddlingthestacks.com/the-curly-ha...

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 06/07/2026

Most podcasts die before their tenth episode. Naturally, then, we chose death as our topic for this milestone, picking a #picturebook that will introduce this hard topic to your little gently, even beautifully. Listen to “Death, Be Not Mop-Headed” today! apple.co/4eTtP0M #kidlit #parenting

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 05/07/2026

That “missed connections” section of Craigslist, but it’s an opt-in #bookclub for people placing holds on the #library #books we’ve checked out.

An image of James Blunt singing into a microphone transcribed with the text “I saw your face in a crowded place.” A red line has been drawn through the word “face” altering the text to read “I saw your library hold requests in a crowded place.”

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 04/07/2026

From our family to yours, Happy 4th! Today we celebrate the people of America, whom we love, and whom we know to be worthy of more than our current moment. Another world is possible, friends, and I have faith we will build it. Together.

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 03/07/2026

You may not like it, but this is what peak #Caldecott #kidlitart looks like. Should #picturebooks be perfectly polished and possessed of rare talent? Or should it be something kids can aspire to? What’re your thoughts? Listen to our ABRAHAM LINCOLN ep: apple.co/4eTtP0M #kidlit #edusky #parenting

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 02/07/2026

In this lonely world, I hope you find someone who loves you as much as Eric Hill loved feeding Spot chocolate. #kidlit #kidlitart #picturebook #dogsofbluesky #parentinghumor #dadjokes

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 02/07/2026

I left this guy under my rear windshield for an entire summer once. Cover almost completely bleached out and the spine turned to dust. 😂

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 01/07/2026

This gentle giant is ready to be immortalized in PB form.… as long as all the action takes place within 100 yards of her bed.

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 01/07/2026

The inestimable Kate Greenaway really raising the ante on "snitches get stitches" in this fin de siècle #nurseryrhyme. QRP with your most surprising moments in #kidlit! Don't worry. They don't have to beat this one. #kidlitart #KateGreenaway #picturebook

A poorly photographed page from a compilation of Kate Greenaway's illustrated nursery rhymes displays the text "Tell Tale Tit, Your tongue shall be slit; And all the dogs in the town Shall have a little bit." An illustration in muted colors displays two young children sneaking up behind a third. The image of a dog stands below the text.

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 29/06/2026

Early #Caldecott #picturebooks can be tough to find…and tough to read. We looked at #3 this week, a #kidlit biography of Abraham Lincoln. While it’s a little advanced for my 3yo, it holds important lessons for kids today, with accessible #kidlitart. Listen & subscribe: apple.co/4eTtP0M

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 28/06/2026

Here’s hoping you had a #Sundayfunday like ol’ Abe in 1939‘s ABRAHAM LINCOLN—well, maybe without a whole ham hanging over your head…unless that’s your thing! Sneak peak of tomorrow’s episode, dropping at 6AM! (Spoiler: Hobbits) www.ToddlingTheStacks.com #kidlit #kidlitart #picturebook #caldecott

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Toddling The Stacks @toddlingthestacks.com · 28/06/2026

“You will get the X! Any time. Any way. Take patience!” —My child, consoling her uncle who is pretending to struggle with tic-tac-toe. #parenting #raisingreaders

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