SLJ reviewer and international librarian Leigh Collazo and friend. Photos courtesy of Leigh Collazo.

Who are the brilliant and passionate librarians behind SLJ’s reviews? Each month we take a peek behind the books and learn about the folks who help us read and evaluate thousands of titles every year.

A longtime SLJ YA reviewer of science fiction, romance, fantasy, historical fiction, dystopian, and horror, Leigh Collazo, originally a Texas school librarian, packed her bags and her family and became an international librarian. How and why did you first get into librarianship? In my first week as a teacher, I took my seventh-grade English class into the library for the first time. I remember sitting there, listening to the librarian booktalk the new Texas Lone Star Reading List, and thinking how much I would love to have her job. At the end of the period, I asked the librarian what I needed to do to become a school librarian. Less than three years later, I was hired to open a brand-new elementary school library in Keller, TX. Twelve years later, I live on the other side of the world, but I still love every day in the library! What made you decide to be an international librarian? My husband is also a teacher, and we had talked about teaching internationally for a long time before we actually did it. As I’m sure you can imagine, it’s scary to think about selling everything you own and moving to a foreign country. When we had friends who went to teach for an international school in Korea, it gave us just the push we needed to try it ourselves. Our only regret is that we didn’t do it sooner. Our two boys are getting a top-notch education, and our pay and benefits are far superior than they were in the United States. And we can actually afford to travel! What are some of the highlights from your career overseas? My school leadership is very supportive of the library and has encouraged me to take risks and try new ideas. While I have always had supportive school leadership, I did not usually have the library budget or manpower to support projects I wanted to try in the library. At my current school, I have both the budget and the support of our administration. I have a full-time library aide, a part-time library intern, and an army of parent volunteers who love to help in the library. Because of this, I have been able to genrefy the fiction section, implement OverDrive, begin our school’s first Battle of the Books, and bring in several authors from the UK, Australia, the States, and China. We’ve added cozy sofas and chairs, barstools, and pub tables to the library space. Next year, we are hoping to add OverDrive to our junior school, genrefy our growing Korean book section (students have requested it!), and revamp an underused space on the second floor of the library. Are you ever coming back to the States? Well, I can’t stay away from yummy Texas food for too long! Yes, I come back every summer to visit family and friends, to shop at my favorite clothing boutiques, and to eat as many fried pickles and nachos as I can. Will I come back to live? Who knows? Right now, my whole family is really happy living overseas, so I don’t plan to live in the United States again anytime soon. Is there a book that made you fall in love with reading?  Yes, there are actually two books, and I’m not sure which one I read first. The first is The Sarah Summer by Mary Downing Hahn. I read it when I was in sixth grade—12 times! I loved that book! The other was Bummer Summer by Ann M. Martin. I have always enjoyed summer camp stories, and this one was probably the first that I ever read. I loved Bummer Summer so much that when we got a new kitten when I was in sixth grade, I named him Simon after the kitten in the story. What are you reading (and liking) right now? Or what was the last book you read that you absolutely loved? Since I am in a British school, I am trying to become more familiar with British authors. So I asked a girl at school to recommend one to me, and she gave me Cherry Crush by Cathy Cassidy. It’s pretty cute so far. Are you involved in any committees for ALA or with local or state library organizations? I am on the Panda Book Steering Committee. The Panda Book List is an international book list that highlights eight to 10 books for four different reading levels—picture books, middle readers (elementary), older readers (middle school), and mature readers (high school). My job on the committee, aside from nominating and selecting books, is to design the posters and bookmarks. I designed the 2015–16 posters, and I will be working on the new list posters this week. We have just selected our lists for 2016–17 school year, which will be available here once they are official. I am also a part of the Shanghai Librarians Network. There are maybe 25 librarians active in the network, and the group meets once each month in Shanghai. We have librarians from the United States, UK, Australia, China, and the Netherlands. Between meetings, we email and communicate daily through Schoology [a learning management system]. It’s a tightly knit group of some incredibly talented international school librarians. It’s been a privilege to work with and learn from them. What would people be surprised to learn about international librarianship? I think people would be surprised that even though I am in China, I still have access to the same books I had in my Texas libraries. We order most of our books from Follett in the United States;  they just take a little longer to get to us. I have had no issues with censorship and have been free to order whatever books I think our library needs. We are also able to order books in English from Amazon China, OverDrive, Shanghai Book Traders, and Obido Books, a local expat-owned bookseller.

The Couple's Retreat Garden at Suzhou. The city is full of gardens, water towns, and canals.

Can you tell us a little bit about Suzhou? Suzhou is a beautiful Chinese city located about 50 miles west of Shanghai. Suzhou is most famous for numerous canals that crisscross the city. These canals are lined with weeping willow trees, and it’s not unusual to see large white cranes flying over the water, looking for their next meal. The canals are why Suzhou is known as the Venice of the East. Suzhou is home to a growing expat community, and because of that, we have many Western restaurants and businesses. It is a large city, but it is nowhere near as busy as Shanghai. Public transportation here is excellent, and we have enjoyed the many perks of not owning a car. This is definitely the safest place I’ve ever lived, and the locals are always friendly and willing to help, even if I don’t speak Chinese. We also enjoy the Jin Ji Lake recreational area, only a five-minute walk from our apartment. This area has a nice boardwalk lined with small restaurants, kite-sellers, and ice-cream trucks. There are lots of sculptures and a water mosaic, and one area, the Children’s Walk, has a giant windmill and sculptures depicting scenes from The Wizard of Oz and Don Quixote. You’ll also see plenty of rollerbladers, cyclists, joggers, tandem bicycles, and kite-fliers along the boardwalk and adjoining park.