What’s Your Story?
Help Your Shelf is a children’s literary consulting business that works with families and organizations across the country to create literacy-rich environments and ensure that every young reader sees themselves in a story and finds a book that sparks their joy.
The short story:
Kit Ballenger, JD/MLIS, is a Washington, D.C. area youth services librarian and literary consultant. As a book reviewer, collection curator, and the librarian in residence on SiriusXM Kids Place Live, she nurtures literacy-rich environments that sustain joy and build lifelong readers. You can find her on Instagram @KitonLit and at www.HelpYourShelf.com.
The unabridged version:
Kit Ballenger, JD/MLIS, is a youth services librarian and literary consultant with Help Your Shelf living in the Washington, D.C. area. A former child advocacy attorney, she reads KidLit voraciously and loves helping young readers find their next ‘good-fit’ book. Clients include cultural institutions, including The Met; nonprofits like Pride and Less Prejudice, National PTA, First Book, FreshFarms, Horizons Greater Washington, and Nemours Children’s Health; publishers; media outlets; and individual families, for whom she stacks to-be-read piles and curates beloved baby gifts. Kit creates book lists for children’s podcasts including the STEM-based award-winning show Wow in the World and its historical companion Who When Wow, and she appears regularly on SiriusXM’s Kids Place Live as “Kit on Lit,” the station’s librarian in residence.
Kit is currently the Vice Chair for the We Need Diverse Books Walter Awards and has served on many committees for the American Library Association including the 2024 Mildred A. Batchelder Award (books in translation), the 2022 Morris Award (debut writing for teens), as co-chair of the Quicklists Consulting Committee, which creates book lists for libraries nationwide, and as a member of YALSA’s Amazing Audiobooks team. You can find her professional reviews online at Shelf Awareness and in print for Kirkus Reviews and Booklist, the journal of the American Library Association. She served for many years on the board of Capitol Choices, a nationally respected children’s book advisory nonprofit, and is a long-term volunteer at the Library of Congress Young Readers Center, where she helps with collection development and readers advisory. She is a graduate of Amherst College and U.Va. Law School. You can find her reading recommendations on Instagram @KitonLit.
