One Year In

 
I have been at this children's librarian gig for 14 months now. Time really flies when you ARE having fun! Thinking back on my first year, I had a lot of ups and not very many downs. Some disappointments yes, but really life at work has been grand. Kudos to my co-workers for putting up with my zaniness, and my last minute running around because I forgot the camera for a program AGAIN!

It has been an interesting transition to public persona. I run into people I have met at the library all over the place. About six months in, I found myself riding the mechanical horse in Dairy Queen after a program. As I was riding the horse, I started to get off when I realized that some of the people there might know me (and may never want me near their children again). But what the heck, I was already on the thing so I figured that I might as well get my quarter's worth- Ride Like the Wind, Bullseye! That was an eye opener for me. When you work at the public library, the public sees and knows you. When you go out into the public, the public sees you and might recognize you... after they can place you. What is a crazy librarian supposed to do? Act more responsibly?

Responsible? On my time off, well that hardly seems fun.

Bribe them with Candy

Kim and I were trying to come up with a catchy bulletin board for Christmas the holidays in which we could use her naughty and nice wrapping paper. We thought we could make a list of "naughty" and "nice" book characters, but I just couldn't decide which ones were naughty (they all have good qualities). Why don't we let the kids decide? They like labeling things, especially when the word naughty is involved. I ended up using some of the words to Santa Claus is Coming to Town with an emphasis on "check it out" as my title.

After I had some book characters picked out, and had to decide what to do with left over candy canes from Santa's visit, I thought I would make a game out of it. Kim made a sheet of ten of the children's characters and we had the kids identify the characters for a candy cane. Each kid got to play one time, and they had got to eat their candy canes out in the lobby (librarians are Scrooges). We went through over 30 game sheets in the first two days! I have found that candy is a great motivator for children. Needless to say, I need to go buy some more candy canes.

From Above

The kids have been loving the loft we added to our library in September. In November I had a grand vision to change it into a gingerbread house for the holidays.  It’s not grand per say, but the kids know what it is and there are colored lights on it, so it is good enough for me. Santa visited the library and some of the smaller kids were more interested in playing with the loft than talking to Santa. The little ones who were afraid of Santa could climb up on the loft and spy on him "safely" through a layer of plexiglass.

 

That Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It’s that time of year again. I’m so thankful for the little house I made for my book display in August. I used a cardboard box and duct taped on a roof and stuck a book cart inside. I had some awesome kids hanging out at the library paint it for me. It has been a school house, a haunted house and now it is a wintery house with lights and snow. The best part of these different houses is that they are all full of books! It will be interesting to think of some new ideas for my house, I am open for suggestions!