Penny Peck has been a children's librarian for over 25 years; before that, she was Snow White and Mother Goose at Children's Fairyland in Oakland, ran a nightclub, worked as the wardrobe mistress for the Berkeley Ballet, and was an agent for a standup comedian. Her experience includes performing thousands of storytimes, leading hundreds of book club discussions for students in grades 4-12, conducting hundreds of school tours and assemblies, reviewing children's books and media, and originating the Performers' Showcase for auditioning library entertainment. She is editor of BayNews, the newsletter for the Association of Children's Librarians of Northern California. Her goal is to create libraries as place, where the community meets for educational and cultural programming, as well as facilitating the love of literature in youth so they will be life-long readers.