Photo provided by the author
Suffield Middle School librarian Tori Barnette with a dispay celebrating the district event with author, Kwame Alexander.
During Suffield Middle School’s recent Open House, one parent stepped into the school library while following his sixth-grade student’s schedule and stopped to take in the space. Surrounded by colorful book displays, student work and areas designed for students to read, learn and gather, his reaction was immediate.
“Wow…what an incredible library,” the parent said. “My library was nothing like this when I was growing up. It’s so inviting.”
Creating that type of welcoming and engaging environment has been a central focus for Tori Barrette, now in her second year as the school librarian at Suffield Middle School. Her goal is to make the library the heart of the school — a place where students come not only to find books and learn, but also to explore, create, connect and feel that they belong.
Barrette joined the middle school at the start of the 2025–2026 school year after spending four years working alongside another school librarian at Middletown High School and two-and-a-half years as a children’s librarian at the Southington Public Library. That combination of school and public library experience has helped shape her vision for a middle school library that extends well beyond maintaining shelves and checking out books.
As part of her role at the middle school, Barrette teaches Digital Literacy, a sixth-grade Unified Arts course designed to help students learn how to navigate research, evaluate online resources, and think critically about the information they encounter.
“The goal is to help students better understand what is a reliable source, what’s helpful, and what is not helpful to them,” Barrette said.
Barrette said students are often surprised to discover how much of the information they encounter online and through social media is designed to advertise or influence rather than simply inform.
“I try to get them to think, ‘Why does the website want me to go there?’” Barrette said.
That work is expanding beyond the dedicated sixth-grade course. This year, Barrette is collaborating with Social Studies teachers on the use and evaluation of primary sources, particularly in eighth-grade American History, while also working with English teachers to connect independent reading opportunities to themes students encounter through the school’s new Amplify ELA curricular program. As a member of the district’s AI Committee, she is also working with colleagues to consider how students can eventually be taught to use artificial intelligence appropriately and ethically; as a tool to support their thinking and learning rather than replace it.
Even as the role of the library expands to address an increasingly digital world, Barrette has remained equally focused on something decidedly less digital: getting books into students’ hands.
During the 2024–2025 school year, students checked out 1,393 books from the SMS Library. In Barrette’s first year at the school, that number increased to 3,119 — a 123 percent increase in circulation.
Some of that growth has come through finding creative ways to make selecting a book an experience. Last February, Barrette personally wrapped books in brown paper bags for a “Blind Date with a Book” event. Students could see a brief description but not the title or cover before deciding whether to check out their mystery selection. Approximately 200 books circulated through the activity during February alone. The following month, an “I’m Feeling Lucky” event offered students a similar surprise with a St. Patrick’s Day theme.
“It’s like a surprise — something unexpected,” Barrette said. It added a level of fun to picking out books.”
Barrette has also reinstated book fairs at the middle school, scheduling one around the school’s winter concerts and another in the spring to coincide with the launch of summer reading.
“I wanted to find ways to get more families in the building,” Barrette said. “Tying the fairs to other school events made them so much more successful.”
Creating connections throughout the school has extended into the hallways leading to the library as well. Throughout the year, Barrette develops displays recognizing celebrations such as Hispanic Heritage Month, Native American Heritage Month, Black History Month, and Women’s History Month. Corresponding book displays inside the library encourage students to explore the people, cultures, and history represented, while monthly resources shared with staff provide opportunities to extend those topics into classrooms across disciplines.
“I want to make sure that everyone in the school community feels celebrated and seen,” Barrette said.
That vision will continue to expand this year. Beginning this fall, student access to the library during the school’s 30-minute FLEX block will become more structured, with each day offering a different opportunity — from independent reading and book previews to puzzles, crafts, and hands-on creation. The library’s new “Maker Monday” will also receive a significant boost through a recently awarded $6,000 grant from the Suffield Foundation for Excellent Schools, which will provide tools, technology and supplies to help establish a makerspace within the library.
She hopes students increasingly see it as a welcoming and engaging space they choose to visit — to read, explore, create, and connect with others.
That effort to build a community of readers and learners at SMS is also extending beyond the walls of the middle school.
Throughout the spring and summer, librarians from Suffield’s four public schools partnered with Kent Memorial Library to launch Suffield Reads!, a community-wide initiative designed to bring students, families, and residents together around reading. McAlister Intermediate School librarian, Joy Tierney, helped spearhead the project, which this year has centered on the work of bestselling author Kwame Alexander.
Alexander, whose more than 45 books span picture books, poetry, graphic novels, fiction, and nonfiction, was selected in part because his work offers an entry point for readers across a wide range of ages. Since May, Kent Memorial Library has hosted book groups around Alexander’s work, while the school libraries have introduced his books to students through displays, book talks, and related reading, writing, and art activities.
The months-long initiative will culminate on Thursday, October 1, when Alexander visits Suffield for a free community event in the Suffield High School auditorium. The evening will feature student art and writing from across the district and a presentation by Alexander focused on writing and the creative process, followed by a book signing. The event was made possible through financial support from the Suffield Foundation for Excellent Schools, The Suffield Library Foundation, The Friends of the Library, and the Meghan Voisine Kindness Matters Foundation. Organizers hope the collaboration can continue to grow, eventually including local businesses and creating additional community literacy experiences throughout the year.
That larger partnership reflects much of the same work taking place inside the Suffield Middle School library: creating opportunities for students to connect with books, ideas, and one another.
For Barrette, all of these efforts come back to the vision she has had for the library since arriving at the middle school.
“I want the library to be the heart of the school,” Barrette said, “a place where there is something for everyone.”