Cats Dogs Plants Animals, Children's literature, Librarianship

Evolution

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It’s almost six months since Tuffy joined our household, and I can’t count how many times people have said to me, “You got a dog? But I thought you were a cat person!”

Well, yes, I am a cat person – a pretty good cat person, actually. Our now-retired awesome house-call cat-only vet once said to me that I “have amazing natural instincts with cats.” I get cats, and they get me, and I was more than happy with our three amazing cat sibling housemates. But – and this is a big but – I have always wanted a dog.

When I was in fifth grade, I vividly recall wanting a collie more than anything in the world. We had our Tabby cat, who was awesome, but I really, really, REALLY wanted a collie who looked just like Lassie. I was actually completely devasted when my fifth grade class gift, which was voted on by all my classmates when I was not in the room, was to give me some aluminum foil because I was so creative at making figures out of the aluminum foil in which my mother used to wrap my daily (endless) tuna fish sandwiches. Meanwhile, one of my classmates received as her gift a tiny porcelain figure of – a collie. I went home and sobbed into my pillow because I was the one who wanted a collie, not my classmate. (Now, with adult perspective, I think it’s kind of cool that my classmates thought I was that creative…but yup, I still would like that collie figurine.)

By the time I was in my twenties, I had decided that I wanted a German shepherd. I was watching the Uncle Matty television show on PBS, and I was completely sold on well-trained German shepherds as the ultimate dog companion. I was so focused on getting one that I bought a book by Matthew Margolis on how to train a German shepherd puppy so that it would be loyal and well-mannered and non-aggressive. I didn’t have the ability and opportunity to get a German shepherd puppy, so ultimately I ending up mailing that book to my sister who lived in a rural area and had a stray adult German shepherd who ended up on her property. Which is to say, I can’t produce the book as proof of my obsession, but it was real – and to this day I melt a little whenever I see a German shepherd.

And then when I was in my thirties and forties, I had fixated on golden retrievers as the ultimate dogs for our lifestyle. Jim doesn’t know this, but I used to troll the adoption sites of rescues that adopted out older goldens, since I figured that an older golden would be the perfect addition to our household. It seemed like it was extremely difficult to adopt an older golden, so I never put in an adoption application, but the dream lingered.

Fast forward to this decade of my life, and after the sadness that came of adopting Clara (part hound and part black lab), for whom we had to find a new home after seven months of terrified cats and my needing to use my inhaler four times a day, I had kind of accepted that a large dog wouldn’t fit in with our cats and most likely would be a huge source of allergy and asthma misery for me. For a couple of years after Clara moved on to her awesome new family I didn’t look at dog rescue sites too frequently…and then in the last year or so I started looking again. I found the Vintage Pet Rescue site when they were referenced by another rescue that I followed, and I started following them on Facebook. Facebook being what it is, before long the first post that would pop up in my feed each time I logged on was a Vintage Pet Rescue post, and I realized that these older small dogs were pretty awesome and would probably be a great fit with us.

And then came Tuffy. It was almost like the stars aligned and I saw his listing on VPR right after it was posted, and with Jim’s blessing applied right after I saw the post, and then three days later we were driving home from Rhode Island with this amazing, sweet, smart, cute, funny, and incredibly loyal dog in our backseat.

So, from collie to German shepherd to golden retriever to a twenty-two pound Shih Tzu/Pekingese/Pomeranian mix who now is my best canine buddy. We’re on vacation this week, a staycation as usual, and today Jim was outside burning brush and doing other yard work while I stayed indoors (all that smoke ain’t good for these lungs!). Tuffy was very worried about this man who he kept spotting through the sliding glass door (Tuffy has cataracts and can’t see as well as he’d like). At one point while I was making lunch in the kitchen, Tuffy kept barking at me, intent on getting my attention, and finally resorted to urgently nudging my leg with his nose. We’d just been outdoors for a pee break, so I knew that wasn’t the issue – and then I realized that Tuffy was incredibly worried about my safety with this man hanging out in the yard. How cool is that, I thought. This sweet little dog loves me that much – and I love him that much right back.

And then I started thinking about my career. From the time I was five years old, I wanted to be a writer. Clearly, that hasn’t happened, and isn’t likely to. But then I thought maybe I’d like to be a professor, or a high school English teacher, or an elementary school teacher. And I had many successful and happy years working as the manager of a small independent specialty toy store, which was lovely and fun and suited me well, though I always wished to have a job that had Meaning and Significance, and thus moved on from retail to get my Master’s in Children’s Literature with the thought that I could do something with that degree (honestly, I had no specific plans on what to do with my MA in Children’s Lit while I was pursuing the degree).

Somehow, though, after all those other varied career aspirations, I managed to land in the perfect profession for me: children’s librarian. I never in my wildest dreams thought of being a children’s librarian, or indeed any kind of librarian, when I was younger, or even when I was in my twenties or early thirties. But now here I am, seventeen years and counting in my job, with a newly minted MLIS, and I couldn’t be happier with my career situation.

A children’s librarian of long standing who has a wonderful sweet elderly small dog. Who knew that these were the things that would make me happy.

Graduate School, Librarianship

Honors

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To be honest, I’m not really very comfortable tooting my own horn [this is where Jim would insert a giggle-ridden joke about “tooting”], but since I’ve just finished the last formal education that I plan to pursue, I figure I might as well do a little tooting [insert more giggling].

I got an email this week telling me that the faculty of SLIS have voted to invite me “to join Beta Phi Mu, the International Honor Society for Library and Information Science.” The email goes on to state that “only 35% of students with a grade point average of 3.75 or higher, and who showed promise in leadership and service, were considered for membership.”

Woo-hoo! Even at the ripe old age of whatever I am, I still show promise! I’m not being flippant here – I’m seriously delighted to be thought of as promising, as having a future and having future impact on the world. And I definitely feel energized now that I’m done with school, and I’m excited about all the projects I’m cooking up for my professional role.

And I’m seriously delighted to receive the honor of being invited to join Beta Phi Mu. A huge thank you to the faculty of SLIS for the invitation!

Graduate School, Librarianship, Life

Finished, at last, and some good press

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I turned in my final paper for my final class for my MLIS on Friday, December 16 at exactly 3:00 PM. It was a fantastic feeling to hit the “send” button on that email and to know that I was DONE. No more school ever for this girl! Two Master’s degrees is sufficient for my purposes, and I’m really happy to have my free time back. Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy being in school and learning all kinds of new things, because I absolutely did, but being in school was a heck of a lot more fun before the pandemic hit. I wish I’d had more time available to really dig in and really love school this time around, but as of March 2020 it became tough to portion out my time in a satisfying way. I’m deeply grateful to my awesome professors and classmates who made learning enjoyable in the midst of pandemic pivoting at my workplace.

As of January 31, Simmons University has completed their degree audit on my classes and officially decreed that I am graduated from the MLIS program with a concentration in Libraries and Librarianship. And I’m incredibly proud to report that I graduated with a 4.0 GPA – all that hard work and sacrifice since September 2018 paid off in terms of getting a 4.0 in every single one of my twelve classes. Yay me.

And in other good news, the Trustees of the HPL asked if they could submit an announcement about the very generous scholarship that I was awarded at the end of August. The announcement was printed in yesterday’s Harvard Press, and can be seen here. The link will only work for one week (unless you have a subscription to the Press), so I’ve also taken a screen shot:

I was deeply honored to have been awarded this scholarship from the Patricia Thomas-Jeanig Fund of the Community Foundation of North Central Massachusetts. As I said in my thank-you note to the Foundation, “words truly cannot express the depth of my gratitude at this honor…it is an enormous validation of my career and life’s work as a children’s librarian.” And I added “I hope to go on to support and mentor the next generation of children’s librarians (while, of course, continuing to be a children’s librarian myself).”

I’m giving myself a little bit of grace for a month or two (or perhaps three), though, in order to catch my breath and remember what it’s like to have unscheduled time that I can use to do anything I like at all. It’s amazing to not have a voice in the back of my head reminding me of all the “have-to-dos”, and instead be thinking of the “want-to-dos”! But I’m also contemplating the ways that I can follow through on my promise to mentor the next generation of children’s librarians. It would be amazing to teach a graduate class on children’s services (not sure if that is possible without a PhD, though), but it would be equally amazing to set up an internship program at the HPL where each semester I could host a student intern and give them some real hands-on experience being a children’s librarian. We’ll see what I can cook up!

Meanwhile, it’s time to go back to my lazy Saturday morning reading a book (a book of my choosing!) by the woodstove with the four awesome varmints. No better way to spend a freezing cold February day!

Cats Dogs Plants Animals, Graduate School

5 weeks and 2 days…and a dog

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My final paper for my final grad school class is due in 5 weeks and 2 days. On December 16, I will officially be finished with my MLIS degree, after four and a half long years of work. (Huge thanks to Jim for his patience with the never-ending homework!) And I’m so thrilled that my final class for this degree ended up being an independent study with my favorite professor – I’m studying Management Theory for Leading and Working Effectively in Libraries. Best class ever!

Since I have a LOT of studying to do today (I’m on study-cation this week), this post will be brief – but one quick fun announcement: we got a dog! (Because, of course, when you’re trying to finish up a Master’s degree program the best thing to do is get a dog…)

Meet Tuffy. He’s a 12-year-old Shih Tzu mix (though we think he must have a lot of terrier in him – his face is all terrier to our eyes) who came from Pensacola, Florida where he was found as a stray and never claimed. He has dry eye and wonky arthritic legs and very few teeth, but he’s an absolute sweetheart and so much fun. And I’m not too allergic to him – nothing I can’t handle with a little Claritin – and so far things are going ok with the cats. We’ve seen some positive interactions between the felines and the canine, which isn’t bad for a week and a half of living together, and have high hopes that in time everyone will be getting along fine.

We got Tuffy from the best pet rescue ever – I can’t say enough good things about them: Vintage Pet Rescue in Rhode Island.

Here are a few photos of our new friend:

Tuffy loves hanging out in our yard
Moxie and Bud in my lap checking out the sleeping doggo
Sleepy Tuffy
Tuffy!
Librarianship, Library events, Pandemic

Whew

I don’t know about anyone else out there, but I’m feeling pretty darn exhausted right now. Happily, as of this minute I’m on vacation (yay!), so I have big plans for doing a whole lot of nothing this coming week. By necessity this will be mixed in with a whole lot of studying for grad school – I have a big research project due on April 27 (presentation) and May 3 (paper) – but it feels like a gift to be able to focus my mental energy on One Big Thing for a week rather than the crazy mental multi-tasking that I’ve been doing regularly for two years.

I think that the challenge has been that I’ve not been able to settle down and run in auto-pilot at all since the pandemic began. There has been constant rejiggering of everything to do with my job over the last two years, from policy decisions (when to start indoor storytimes?) to publicity reboots (time to write a new description for storytime logistics again!) to how to handle patron interactions (can we be up-close-and-personal today, or do we need to keep our distance?), to which programs to offer and when. Usually in my job there are certain aspects that can counted on, and for those aspects it’s been about maintenance. For instance, for years I’ve had a weekly Game Hour program on Thursday afternoons. The only challenge with that program was making sure that I had enough teen volunteers to run it, but honestly I’ve always had so many awesome teen volunteers that it was easy to run Game Hour week after week with minimal mental effort on my part. The program description stayed the same from one week to the next, it was easy to maintain communication with the volunteers, and occasional blurbs to the elementary school newsletter guaranteed that we always had the right number of attendees. Game Hour was a great high yield, low effort program which served the community in multiple ways.

So the usual way of doing things, pre-pandemic, was to have the ongoing programs that were well-established and only required maintenance, and then my creative energies could be spent on innovation and expansion of programs and services. It’s a great model for providing continuing services that are successful while always looking ahead to the next great thing that we can provide to our patrons. And it’s incredibly energizing and exciting for me to be able to always innovate and be creative.

During the pandemic, though, there hasn’t been anything that can be taken for granted: I’ve had to constantly reevaluate how our programming is provided and also which programming is provided. And with that constant reevaluation is constant rewriting of the language used to describe programs in our calendar, newsletter, website, social media, and emails sent to patrons. Frankly, this is exhausting and also emotionally draining. I’m so sick of not being able to provide programming in the way we used to, and I really really really miss being able to push our service provision in new and interesting directions. Additionally, all of this constant rejiggering has left little mental energy for me to devote to graduate school, which just makes me very sad. I love being in school, and I love studying and expanding my educational horizons, but it’s really hard to take full advantage of these (very expensive) classes at Simmons when I arrive home completely pooped at the end of each day. Ugh.

I know I’m not the only LIS professional who is feeling this way, and from the number of new jobs being posted daily on the MBLC website it feels like a lot of LIS professionals are burnt out and leaving the profession. I also know that it’s not just LIS professionals who are reaching their limit – clearly other professions are experiencing the same kind of employee burnout and exodus. Maybe the solution is for all of us to take a nice long vacation? Or to give each other and ourselves a big helping of grace and understanding? I have faith that we can all get through this, but I also think that we need to acknowledge the reality of how tough these two years have been and to support each other unequivocally.

Meanwhile, it’s time for the first nap of my vacation…

Book groups, Pandemic, Storytime

And another anniversary

As we inch back towards “normal” (or the closest equivalent to normal that is possible), I’m marking another anniversary. Two years ago today I ran my last indoor in person storytime at 10:30 in the morning. By the mid afternoon, I was worrying about whether I should hold storytime the next day. By early evening, I had cancelled the storytime that was scheduled for March 12, 2020, and had put out publicity saying something along the lines of: “Out of an abundance of caution, we have decided to cancel all children’s programs at the library for the next few weeks. Thank you for your understanding!” On the morning of March 12 there were a couple of families who hadn’t read their email and showed up for storytime – families who were puzzled and perhaps a bit annoyed by the “abundance of caution” decree.

We all know what happened next: that the situation was far more serious than any of us had thought, and the world shut down. As I discussed in last year’s anniversary post, in late March of 2020 I switched to all virtual programming, which was a Herculean effort requiring 80 hours a week of work to adapt to the world of virtual programming (for any who wonder: no, children’s librarians don’t get paid overtime – at least this one doesn’t – and those extra 40 hours a week were unpaid and came from a place of me wanting to provide the best services possible to my beloved library peeps). Last summer I switched again, this time to outdoor programming, which I really love. I’ve continued with outdoor programming through the winter (yesterday 21 people attended my outdoor Mother Goose on the Loose storytime on a chilly morning with fresh snow on the ground!) and had planned to add in indoor programming starting in January…but then Omicron hit and put a huge wrinkle in those plans. Back came the virtual programming (blech) for half of my storytimes and all of my book groups. Though a great option to keep us all safe, it’s not really the programming option of choice anymore, and I can’t wait to pack up the lovely camcorder, tripod, microphone, and lights that I bought.

So what’s next? With very cautious optimism, I’m planning a return to indoor in person programming on April 4. All programs that have been virtual in the last few months will move to limited enrollment, pre-registration required indoor programs, with masks required for all participants over the age of two per vote of the library Trustees. (The outdoor storytimes will continue for those who feel safer outdoors.)

In late November and early December I allowed myself to get really excited about the planned return to indoor programs in January, and it was a real gut-punch and morale destroyer when I had to go back to virtual, so I’m not allowing myself to get excited this time around. I’m hopeful, I really am, but…but…but… what can I say? I’ll believe it when I see it? It will be great if it happens this time? Hopefully we’re headed on the right track? Only time will tell?

It’s been an exhausting two years, and when you couple pandemic programming and librarianship with me being in graduate school, let’s just say that I am pooped (and it also explains why I rarely post on my blog these days). Fingers crossed that we’re moving on to better times!

Librarianship, Library events, Pandemic, Storytime

A Strange Anniversary

March 11, 2020 was the date of my last in-person storytime, which means that we are heading towards the one year anniversary of when library services as we knew them ceased, and library services as they are now began to evolve. Though it would seem like it’s a sad anniversary, I’m actually feeling – dare I say it? – hopeful these days. The air has that lovely damp springy feel, even on bitter cold days like yesterday, and earlier sunrises and later sunsets make everything seem better. I’m still double-masking, and I’m still trying my best to keep far apart from coworkers and library patrons, and I haven’t been into a store in months (Jim has been vaccinated for his job, so he handles the shopping), and I’ll continue to be vigilant about keeping safe, but…things are looking up? I hope?

At this point I’ve done so many Zoom storytimes that they almost feel natural (almost, sort of…), but now that spring is coming I’m contemplating how to handle outdoor storytimes at my library. It seems like a simple thing: just move the storytime outside and keep people socially distanced. But then I start thinking about the details, and I realize how complicated this endeavor will be. My library is on a large area of land, and those grounds are well used by everyone in town. People walk their dogs there, students from the middle and high schools practice sports there, students walk through the library grounds to the library parking lot to get picked up at the end of the school day, the elementary school will probably have outdoor classrooms there again once the weather is warmer – you get the idea. I need to figure out a way to mark out a space that is just for storytimes. No dogs, no sports teams, no classes, no walkers. And that space needs to be near the electrical outlet on the historic front of the building, because I’ll need to amplify my voice. So problem one is: how do I mark out that space and keep it for storytimes only? (Note that there isn’t the possibility of having a second staff member help me with crowd control, since we are short-staffed and extremely busy with filling curbside requests.)

Next problem is how to adequately amplify my voice. I have a small amp that I use for storytimes in our large program room, but I doubt that it will be loud enough for an outdoor storytime. The Friends of the Library are short of cash at this point, since they couldn’t have their annual book sale last year, and most likely won’t have one this year. I’ve already spent a lot of my own money to purchase the camcorder setup for Zoom storytimes, so I can’t spend more of my own money. I applied twice for Cares Act Grants, but was denied both times. Surely there must be another grant that I could apply for?

Along those same lines is that I can’t hand out scarves and musical instruments during the infant storytime. In normal times, I go around the room passing out instruments to everyone, and then collect them, and then later in the storytime I do the same with scarves. Other “regular” storytime highlights are the throwing of the pig stuffed animal – where I go around the room and give each child a chance to throw the pig – and pulling the felt Humpty Dumpty off of the felt board, where children line up and take turns pulling Humpty down (a great way for young children to practice turn-taking, patience, and also supporting other by cheering them on). Clearly these things are not options right now! I had hoped to get the Cares Act Grant to purchase enough instruments, scarves, small stuffed pigs, and felt Humptys for all attendees, so that each family could have their own storytime kit that they would bring with them each time. Libraries are free to all, so I can’t really ask people to purchase a kit from me at cost. I also can’t assume that all families have these items in their homes; though it’s likely that most people could cobble together something to use, what about the families who can’t?

And then there’s the biggest issue of all – the one that I don’t have a solution for at all. I won’t be able to accommodate all my regular storytime families at these outdoor storytimes, so I’m going to have to ask people to rotate and take turns attending in person. I had thought that I could just set up my camcorder and laptop and livestream via Zoom to the families who aren’t in person on any given day…but then I started thinking about how impossible that would be to manage. I can’t moderate the Zoom waiting room and attendees while I present to and pay attention to the in person crowd while I make sure that no one walking by accidentally dumps my very expensive camcorder to the ground (I picture a happy running dog doing this!). In other words, a single staff member can’t possibly run all these things at once (see above for why another staff member can’t be spared to assist). One solution might be to run more storytimes – to do the outdoor storytime, pack everything up and then go inside to run an indoor virtual storytime for everyone else – but I literally can’t fit that into my day. I’m having a hard enough time keeping up with all of the curbside requests that need to be filled, and rarely have time to work on the essential task of collection development. Adding additional storytimes would cut into curbside fulfillment, and also pretty much eliminate my ability to do collection development (which is not only essential, but also just about my favorite part of my job).

Of course, there are other issues, too, which I won’t discuss here, including what to do if it rains, whether the group of attendees will be allowed to sing (I’ll need to talk to the local board of health), and how on earth will I be able to project my voice while wearing a mask (will my voice be too muffled for the microphone to pick it up?). And will my young patrons be upset to see me wearing a mask? And the list goes on.

All this is the long way of saying that I can’t wait to get back to some form of in-person storytimes, but there are a lot of obstacles to overcome before I can pull this off. Yikes!

Book groups, Librarianship, Library events, Pandemic, Storytime, Summer reading

Pivot

It’s been almost a year since my last post, and I can’t believe how different my work life is from one year ago. It’s not something I would ever have predicted, and, frankly, my mind is still reeling with the changes at almost nine months into pandemic restrictions.

At this time a year ago, I was just finishing my required class on technology for information professionals. The final project for that class was to create your own website on the Simmons server, which I then transferred over to my own domain. I loved having a website that actually had content and photos and that showed what I was doing in my job – it was pretty fantastic (even if my web skills are a bit amateurish). But today I had to face the fact that my website was a snapshot in time of how I did my job pre-pandemic, and that it no longer reflected the reality of my work life.

Under the “projects” page on my website, I talked about all the great things that I had as goals for myself for 2020: applying for an LSTA Mind in the Making grant to upgrade the children’s room playspaces; adding great new stations to the once-monthly sensory playtimes; and coming up with descriptive materials in multiple languages to better serve storytime attendees who are not native speakers of English.

And now? There are no children in the children’s room, not since March 13, and thus no need to upgrade playspaces. Indeed, when we reopen (and who knows when that will be) there won’t be any play materials out in order to limit surfaces that need cleaning and to help everyone maintain social distancing.

Sensory playtimes feel like a sweet memory of an innocent time when parents and children from multiple families could be in an enclosed space together (the story room), playing with shared materials like rice tubs and water tables and oobleck. Sensory playtimes were hip and happening a year ago, and there were so many awesome new stations that I looked forward to adding to that program; now, though, I don’t anticipate being able to run a sensory playtime again for a very long time, if ever.

And the goal of making in-person storytimes more accessible to all attendees also seems like something from a more innocent past. The sad fact of the virtual storytimes that I now offer is that they are actually more limiting and less accessible to all: children with hearing impairments, for instance, are not well-served by a storytime on video. Those young children can’t read captions, and I can’t wear the teacher microphone that connects to the child’s hearing aid or cochlear implant. Parents who are non-native speakers of English cannot be provided with handouts at the time of the storytime that explain the order of the lesson and the purpose of each lesson part. Nor, frankly, do I have the time right now to come up with such handouts, since my workload has at least doubled, if not tripled, with the addition of curbside service provision.

There have been so many pivots in my job in the last nine months that I feel a bit dizzy. There’s the technology I’ve had to master: Zoom, Facebook Premiere, YouTube, Screencast-o-Matic, Adobe, Canva, Beanstack, Google Forms, and I know there are others that I’m forgetting to list. I’ve had to first learn how to do storytime in a virtual format, and then how to use a camcorder and HDMI converter to live stream a higher quality of video (it took a surprisingly long time for me to figure out the camcorder dilemma). Summer reading had to become a completely virtual experience, with curbside pickup of the limited prizes that we could afford. To save money on prizes, I had to learn how to make giant lawn pinwheels, and then spent hours this summer assembling 114 of those pinwheels. Book groups have gone virtual, and have expanded to include 1st and 2nd graders and adults. Other programs have fallen by the wayside, like the weekly game hour, because those programs don’t translate well to a virtual format.

And almost all of my patron interactions now take place via email, rather than in person. Where I used to walk around the room with a child reader recommending books by putting the books into their hands for them to assess – now I fill paper curbside bags with books that I hope they’ll like, and then set the bags out for pickup. Some parents will send me photos or anecdotes about their children’s reactions to the books in the bags, which brightens my days but isn’t quite the same as talking to a child in person. The best parts of my days used to be interacting with kids and their caregivers; now I work in a very lonely isolation in an empty, joyless children’s room. Though I’m technically an introvert, I also thrive on human interactions (I think of myself as a workplace extrovert), and I’m finding that there is nothing sadder for me than a children’s room with no one in it but me. It’s just a room now, not a children’s room.

And this doesn’t even touch on the misery of wearing a mask forty hours a week, nor the stress of doing curbside duty each day when there is always at least one patron (usually more) who will come up to me without a mask on. Talk about feeling powerless and vulnerable.

I know I’m not alone in feeling blue right now, and I know that things are far, far worse for many people – for those who have lost a loved one, those who are suffering from long-term effects of COVID-19, those who have lost their jobs, their homes, their livelihood, those who have fallen into depression, those who are trying to juggle working from home and supporting their children who are doing remote learning…the list goes on and on and on.

All I can do for now is to continue to try to do my job as best I can, and to try to support others who are struggling as best I can. It’s not much, but it’s something.

Book groups, Children's book reviews, Children's literature, Spare time - Culture

Currently Reading, End of Vacation Edition

I’ve had an absolutely lovely vacation, packed to the gills with lots and lots of reading and enough jewelry making to keep me very happy – not to mention all the time spent by the woodstove with the cats (which helps explain how much reading I’ve done!).

I’m still chipping away at Joe Jackson’s musical memoir, A Cure for Gravity, and it’s one of the best books that I’ve read in a very long time. I’m definitely a fiction reader, and I don’t often seek out nonfiction (my husband is the exact opposite – he is always reading nonfiction, usually about music or history), but Jackson’s memoir has held my interest because it is witty, wise, fascinating, laugh-out-loud funny, and has expanded my musical horizons. The book is dense, and draws you into Jackson’s life (mostly his professional and artistic life) in a way that makes it hard for me to read more than twenty or so pages at a time; I find I need to take breaks from the book in order to fully appreciate it, if that makes sense. He is an amazing person, and as a very longtime fan it is so cool to learn about his journey from working-class Portsmouth kid to the Royal Academy of Music in London (from which he graduated with a degree in percussion) to the cusp of stardom (my bookmark is on page 210, which is 1976). I’m looking forward to reading about his experiences from 1976 to 1999, which is when the book was published. Highly recommended, even if you’re not a Joe Jackson fan.

On the flip side, I’ll admit to being very disappointed by Neil Patrick Harris’s The Magic Misfits, which I read for the 4th grade book group. I found it to be poorly written, but, more importantly, incredibly condescending to its intended audience. In my experience, children are pretty good at figuring out the meaning of words they don’t know from the context clues that they can find around the unknown word – and as a former teacher of reading, I know that use of context clues is something regularly taught in schools. Children are not stupid, and many children actually love to puzzle out the definitions of new words on their own. So I was annoyed by Harris’s constant defining of words and terms for his audience. I’d include an example here, but I hated the book SO much that I returned it to the library immediately in order to get it out of my house. Blech. Having said that, though, the 4th grade book group members absolutely loved the book. I kept my mouth shut about my own opinion, and let them carry the discussion on their own, since I’d hate to wreck a book for them that they love so much. Once again, a children’s book that shows the divide between what an adult “expert” thinks makes for good children’s literature, and what the intended child reader actually enjoys. There will always be a disconnect here on some level for every children’s book; I see my duty to be to nurture the love of reading in kids while also gently encouraging them to try some of the deeper, better written books in addition to the books that they will pick up on their own. Sort of like having your vegetables along with the dessert – a body can’t exist on dessert alone, just as a mind can’t exist on bestsellers alone. But dessert sure is nice, and makes life a lot more fun.

I’ll quickly list two books here that I was also disappointed in, though I know from the starred reviews both earned that I’m a bit alone in my harsh opinion of them. The Secret Horses of Briar Hill by Megan Shepherd feels to me like a book that was written with the hopes of winning an award: it’s very conscious of how lovely and unique it is, and for me that puts it in the two stars out of five category. It’s not a bad book, and I enjoyed it to a point, but I wish that it had been less obvious in its intent.

I’ve also heard great things about The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty, but for me it didn’t quite live up to the hype. I think this is partly because I so love Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin, a book about a similar type of character. Lightning Girl (Lucy) has OCD and acquired savant syndrome, which sets her apart from her peers, while Rose is autistic and misunderstood by both her father and her classmates. But Martin’s depiction of Rose feels more genuine, understanding, and complete than McAnulty’s portrayal of Lucy, and I was left wanting much, much more from McAnulty’s book.

On the happy surprise side, I loved Monstrous Devices by Damien Love. Unique, creepy, breathlessly exciting, and hard to put down, this book is one of my recent favorites. I wish that the 6th grade book group hadn’t already decided on all of their books for this year, because I would love to share it with them (but at least I can tell them about it!). I don’t want to give away the plot, because it is so unique, so I’ll just say that fans of fantasy that is based in reality (think Harry Potter) should give this book a try. Even better: the sequel is due out soon, so if you read Monstrous Devices now you won’t have to wait long to find out what happens next…

Finally, I just started The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert, and so far am enjoying it. I like Albert’s writing style, and I’m intrigued to see where she goes with the plot. I’ve also started Lalani of the Distant Sea by Erin Entrada Kelly, and can’t wait to read more. Of these two fiction books that I’m currently reading, I think that I’ll finish Lalani first, since I have a suspicion that it’s a contender for the Newbery Medal…we’ll see if I’m right about that soon enough.

And that’s been my reading for this vacation, in addition to various magazine articles and the Sunday Boston Globe. A little more jewelry making is on the docket for today (before and after the Patriots game), and then it’s back to work tomorrow!

Children, Storytime

On Process Art

I’ve always been a proponent of process art, though I didn’t know that official term until about ten years ago. When I was growing up, my mother – who was a Kindergarten through third grade teacher and also an artist – would talk to me about teaching art to young children, and about how important it is to not limit children by presenting them with a set, teacher-made example that shows the children there is only one correct way to make art, thereby squelching creativity and artistic exploration.

Her lessons stayed with me through my time as a camp counselor in my late teens and early twenties, and through my multiple regular babysitting gigs through high school and college, and even through my time teaching special education students at an elementary school, though I was responsible for teaching them reading, writing, and phonology and not art. And when I became a children’s librarian a little over fourteen years ago, I knew I finally had the venue to really engage young children with art in the most creative, explorative sense.

As I tried to figure out how to implement this type of art, I searched the library catalog and the internet for inspiration…and somehow the first search term that I entered turned out to be the correct one: process art. Perhaps my mother had used this term, and I just don’t remember her saying those words, or perhaps I was able to distill the concept down to its bare essentials, but however I got there, I was able to find some amazing materials available for use in my programs. The most useful resource that I found in that initial search, and which I still use regularly today, is MaryAnn Kohl’s book Preschool Art: It’s the Process, Not the Product. Along the way I’ve found some other print resources that are hugely useful, such as Asia Citro’s books and also Meri Cherry’s books, as well as some blogs that focus on process art and preschool education.

For yesterday’s Art & Stories for 4’s & 5’s I needed a process art project that was simple but wintery, since I was doing a themed winter storytime with the group. The books I read yesterday were The Storm Whale in Winter by Benji Davies and Here Comes Jack Frost by Kazuno Kohara, so I wanted a project that was complementary to the books. Happily, I found a wonderful, easy project on the Stay At Home Educator blog that used materials I had readily available.

I gave each child a nice thick piece of watercolor paper, a large paintbrush, and a palette loaded with three colors of paint: white, royal blue, and turquoise. It was great to see how different each of their paintings turned out – all in wintery blues and whites, but each completely unique. As each child finished the painting part of their project, I handed them a bottle of white glue and let them have at it squeezing glue on their paintings. Interestingly, the one six year old in the group kept painting far longer than the other children; developmentally, she was in a different place when it came to the painting portion of the project.

So much glue was squeezed on, in lots of cool formations: some large and goopy blobs, some delicate gluey tracings, and one that was just glue along the bottom of the page while the blues of the painting covered the top of the page. And then when they were each ready I passed them a small cup with a couple of tablespoons of sea salt in it (I didn’t have Epsom salt on hand, and the sea salt worked quite well). The group had a great time spreading salt over their paintings, and it was also great fine motor skill practice and problem solving, as some children delicately pinched and sprinkled bits of salt over their paintings, others put the salt in the palm of their hands and shook it over the painting, and still others used the cup to shake the salt. Some of the children even took it a step further and shook the salt around their papers and then funneled the excess salt back into their yogurt cups. (Others, of course, went for the “as much salt as possible approach” and pillaged the discarded salt of their peers to enhance the large sparkly salt pile on their own painting.)

As the children were nearing the end of their creative process I called in their grownups to come see what they had made. This is my favorite part, especially with this group of intuitively awesome grownups, since all kinds of great conversations take place between the children and their adults: “Tell me what you did here!” “I love the colors that you used – how did you make that blue?” “The sparkles are so beautiful – what are they? Salt? Wow!!!”

All in all, it was a wonderful last preschool art storytime of this decade, and yet another affirming process art experience.

Reflections on children, literature, libraries, and life…and cats.