Welcome! I’m Ann Schwab — public librarian, fledgling writer, avid hiker, amateur naturalist. The name Librarian in the Field is a tip of the hat to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s wonderful Scientists in the Field nonfiction series for kids.

I currently live in Denver and while I enjoy exploring the foothills and mountains, plains and prairies of Colorado, my love of nature was nurtured in my home state of New Jersey. Yup, you read that right. New Jersey. I grew up across the road from Stony Brook, part of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed, in central New Jersey. I waded in the brook and played along its banks in the warm weather and skated across the ice in the cold.

My love of reading was fostered by my grandmother, Sibyl. A voracious reader, she was also a life-long birder. We spent many hours sitting together, bird identification books splayed open on our laps, watching the visitors to the bird bath outside her window. Every two weeks we visited the Ewing branch of the Mercer County Public Library on Scotch Road with my dad. Library visits also included a trip to McCrorys next door where my grandmother always purchased two packages of M&Ms — one plain and one peanut.

Now it’s time to lace up my boots, sling my backpack over my shoulders and explore! Whether it’s a trip down the block to the library or a trail through the forest, my hope for this blog is to connect people with books, nature and each other.

Contact: readwalkwrite at gmail dot com