Monthly Archives: June 2010

Summer reading

Crazy time

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You’d think, since this is my fifth summer reading program, I’d not be feeling crazy stressed out right now…but no matter how prepared I am for the start of summer reading, there’s still always a ton of niggly-piggly details that need to be tended to: buying the ice cream toppings, printing out the prize signs, creating the signs for all of those great summer programs, etc. etc. etc.  You get the idea.

So I’m taking the next couple of hours off to read a book (The Kings of Clonmel by John Flanagan) and relax before I go in to get everything ready for this evening’s family movie night. I’m looking forward to seeing Where the Wild Things Are, and if I have time I’ll post a review of it this weekend.

Until then, happy reading to me!

Pop culture, Spare time - Culture

Really bad T.V…

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Jim had a gig last night, so I spent most of the evening writing thirty donation request letters for raffle items for the summer reading program – a seemingly easy task, but always remarkably time-consuming. Last night it took four and a half hours, which includes the writing of the letters, printing of the envelopes, and, most importantly, fact-checking on the web, since donation request contact people often change from one year to the next, and larger organizations like the local minor league baseball teams often change donation request procedures from one year to the next.

At any rate, by the time I finished at 8:15 I was ready to do something totally mindless. So I cracked open a growler of Lost Sailor* and turned on the T.V. And watched “The Bachelorette,” a show I’d normally avoid at all costs. Last week when I was home sick and too dizzy to read, I did watch some bad television, but “The Bachelorette” definitely trumps that episode of “Divorce Court” that I saw on Thursday.

So here’s my beef with “The Bachelorette”: the whole premise of the show is what’s wrong with love and marriage in this country in general.  Ali, the bachelorette, had a great home-based date with a nice guy last night, where they cooked dinner together, hung out and relaxed together, and seemed to have a nice happy time together.  But Ali sent this guy home because she wanted “romance” and a “connection,” and if a guy wasn’t going to be “romantic” in this reality T.V. setting, then there was no chance of “romance” in real life. I’d love to take Ali aside and tell her that diamonds and roses aren’t romantic. Romantic is coming home after a long day of work, feeling kinda sick and crummy, and having your sweet husband smile at you and say, “You look awful. Sit down, take a load off, and let me cook dinner for you.” Seriously. Romance is those little, daily thoughtful things that show how much you care about someone. Sure, a big date night here and there is good, and remembering birthdays (hint hint) is also good, but it’s the day to day compassion and love that really count.

But I didn’t see any evidence of that type of romance and caring on last night’s show. There was a lot of testosterone fueled posturing as the guys talked about “being there for Ali,” a girl they hardly know, and there were a lot of fake smiles and strained facial expressions and a whole lot of wine consumption. It was pretty depressing. Luckily, Jim came home before the end of the show and we muted the volume and made fun of the whole silliness. While consuming popcorn and Lost Sailor, of course.

* Please note that I did NOT single-handedly consume said growler. That would just be gross.

Etc., Summer reading

My head spins right ’round, baby, right ’round…

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Like a record, baby, right ’round, ’round ’round…

(A gummi frog – virtual or real, depending on your proximity to me – to the first person who correctly identifies the name of the song, the album, and the band that I just ripped off with my post title.  And, yes, I DO own an album by this band – on cassette, not record or CD, which should be a big hint.)

At any rate, I stayed home yesterday, and had to leave at 1:00 and go home today because of a weird virus that has taken control of me.  A dizzy-virus.  Things started getting bad Monday afternoon, then worse Monday evening (standing in line at Idylwilde with Jim, I asked him “Do you feel the floor shaking?”  He raised an eyebrow, then said, “No, hun, that’s YOU shaking, not the floor.”).  Then while saying goodbye to Jim yesterday morning, I had to sit on the floor of our foyer because the dizzies took over…and they didn’t show signs of going away, so I stayed home and in bed all day.  This morning seemed better, so I went in to work, but barely made it through the infant storytime.  There’s a lot of movement in that storytime, and everytime I moved my head I felt wicked woozy.  (This was especially bad during the songs where I “rock” Pepper the storytime puppet in my lap – that side-to-side motion just about did me in.  Oooof.)  Even reading two stories to the Kindergarten class that visited was tough, since reading aloud involves looking at the words in the book, then looking at the kids who are listening, then looking back at the book…blech, I’m getting woozy again just thinking about it!

Luckily, I can feel pretty sure I’ve got a weird virus, not some dread disease, since someone else I know has the exact same symptoms.  But I do wish this stupid virus would GO AWAY and leave me in peace to finish my preparations for summer reading – I’ve got less than two weeks before the Ice Cream Social, and no time to waste on being dizzy!  Grrrrrrr.

And don’t forget to play my little song-album-band naming game!

Librarianship, Summer reading, Teaching

School visits

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I had a fabulous time last week visiting classes at the elementary school.  As the week went on, the visits got better and better, culminating in the terrific last day where I actually got to read to the kids in their classrooms (the school library was being used for another purpose).

I LOVE being a children’s librarian, but visiting those classes made me think (not for the first time in my life) that I would also love to be a classroom teacher at the elementary level.  To spend a whole year, day in and day out, with the same group of kids, really getting to know them and teach them and see them progress intellectually and socially – it’s got to be a cool feeling.  Hard work, for sure, but also rewarding work. 

But back to my visits.  I chose a bunch of newer books to read to the kids this year, and a lot of them were very well-received.  This year’s favorites include: 

For the 1st graders:  I Lost My Bear written and illustrated by Jules Feiffer.  Ok, so this isn’t a “new” book, but it’s a fantastic readaloud, and most of the kids had never heard it before. Then Help! A Story of Friendship written and illustrated by Holly Keller.  An oops on my part worked out just fine – I remembered that this story was a hit last year, so I brought it out again this year.  What I didn’t remember is that I read it to the Kindergarteners last year, and to the first graders this year – in other words, I read it a second time to the same kids.  But it was actually ok, and the kids loved it just as much this time as they did last time.  Then, the last story for the 1st graders was Lissy’s Friends written and illustrated by Grace Lin.  I really love this story, as do the kids, and it gave me a chance to show off one of our freshly-signed Grace Lin books.

For the 2nd graders:  Cupcake: A Journey to Special written and illustrated by Charise Mericle Harper.  Such a fun story – and great for 2nd graders, because they could slap their foreheads in frustration as the candle and the cupcake totally miss the obvious.  Then we read Not Last Night, But the Night Before by Colin McNaughton, illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark.  At first the kids thought it was too young for them, then they’d realize the subtle humor and the cameo appearances of fairytale characters, and then they’d smile and laugh and enjoy it.  Cool book, just right for 2nd grade.  And then we read Bad Bears Go Visiting by Daniel Pinkwater, illustrated by Jill Pinkwater.  This is a fun book, good n’ silly, and we all enjoyed it.  I just have one beef with this book:  Pinkwater overuses the word “says” in his dialogue, which isn’t too noxious on paper, but gets pretty tedious when reading out loud.  It’s weird, too, since it doesn’t go with the variety of the rest of Pinkwater’s writing.  Maybe he did it intentionally, but that doesn’t make me enjoy reading “says” out loud fifteen million times…

For the 3rd graders:  Timothy and the Strong Pajamas written and illustrated by Viviane Schwarz.  I LOVE this book, and the kids do, too.  It’s wise to start off with this book and end with quieter books, I’ve found, because the kids get pretty riled up by this story (a good thing, if you ask me).  Mid-way through the book, I usually mention that Monkey reminds me a bit of Yoda, and the kids go “Oh, yeah!!!!!”  Another favorite for the 3rd graders was Why Epossumondas Has No Hair On His Tail by Coleen Salley and illustrated by Janet Stevens.  The kids usually started off skeptical about this book (obviously thinking it was too young for them), then were transfixed by the end.  Then, if there was time, I also read Too Many Fairies: A Celtic Tale by Margaret Read MacDonald and illustrated by Susan Mitchell.  I love MacDonald’s books, but have to admit this is not my favorite of her works.  It’s ok, though, and the kids enjoyed it pretty well.

For the 4th graders:  A Giraffe Goes to Paris by Mary Tavener Holmes and John Harris, illustrated by John Cannell.  The kids loved that this was a true story, and it definitely kept those mature almost-fifth grade minds fully engaged.  They also loved Princess Hyacinth: The Surprising Story of a Girl Who Floated by Florence Parry Heide, illustrated by Lane Smith, which is just silly enough and mentions Royal Underwear just enough for this age group.  And, on Friday, I also read to them What Really Happened to Humpty: From the Files of a Hardboiled Detective by Jeanie Franz Ransom, illustrated by Stephen Axelsen.  I had held off on this book earlier in the week, because I thought perhaps it wouldn’t resonate with the kids, that they wouldn’t “get” the detective jargon, but in fact they loved it and laughed at all the sly allusions to fairy tales.  A big hit!

I didn’t get to see the 5th graders this year, sadly, because their schedules are too tight, and I’ll be seeing one of the Kindergarten classes next week (hopefully the other three Kindergarten classes too, we’ll see).  It’s been a lot of fun, and we’ve read a bunch of awesome books together.

Cats Dogs Plants Animals, Spare time - Culture

Pitter pat

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It’s raining on our tarp garden.  It’s very soothing, the sound of the rain bouncing off of that brown tarp, but it’s also reminded me that the tarp garden exists – something which I had forgotten.

Three years ago we ripped the vinyl siding off of our house, repaired and replaced the clapboards underneath, and painted the clapboards a cheery yellow.  The house looks great – huge improvement – but we never figured out what to do with the old vinyl siding, so we stacked it in a pile just behind the house and covered it with a brown tarp.  We weighed the tarp down with large brown plastic plant pots filled with dirt and kind of forgot about it.  Last time my brother visited he commented on the lovely field grass and clover we grow in those pots, and sometimes I hear the rain on the tarp, but otherwise it’s become part of the scenery.

And it will probably stay part of the scenery.  Jim tried once to recycle some of the siding at the local transfer station, but the transfer station booth attendant yelled at him that it wasn’t recyclable.  “So what can I do with it?” Jim asked him.  “Have the guy who did your siding get rid of it,” said the attendant.  “I’m the guy,” said Jim, which earned him some respect but no disposal options other than the suggestion to cut the siding into small pieces and put it in trash bags.  Which Jim tried, but soon discovered that cutting siding into pieces chews up your hands and takes forever.

Maybe someday we’ll get a dumpster and put the siding in there, along with some other home project detritus (the crappy cardboard bathroom and bedroom doors that are moldering in the shed come to mind), but dumpsters are so darn expensive these days – at least $500, more if you go overweight.  And first we need to do a few things like replace the leaky hot water heater and fix the crumbling bathroom floor.  After a year or so without major home projects, things are starting to catch up with us again.

Meanwhile, though, I’ll daydream a little today about how our yard would look with the line of hostas extended through the area where the tarp garden currently sits.  Someday, right?

Feltboard, Storytime

Dog’s Colorful Day by Emma Dodd

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One more of my favorite feltboard creations – the pieces for Emma Dodd’s Dog’s Colorful Day.  It’s a great silly story about a white dog with one black spot on his ear who goes out for a walk in the park and gets all kinds of  spot stains on his coat, including blue paint, green grass, yellow pollen, brown chocolate, pink ice cream…you get the idea.  When I present this story to the toddler storytime, each time I add a new spot to Dog’s coat I ask the kids to help me count the total number of spots on that white dog out loud.  We also talk about the colors of each spot as it’s added to the board.  Pictured here are the spots, as well as the items that caused the spots.  Down towards the bottom of the picture are the yellow sponge that Dog’s owner uses to wash him, as well as Dog’s purple bed that he goes to sleep in after his long day.  Click on image to enlarge:

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Library events, Summer reading

School visits today!

It’s a great day for me – today I begin the week-long school visits at the elementary school to promote the library’s summer reading program.  I already visited one class last Friday, a great group of fourth graders, but today begins the real deal.  I’ll see four classes today, three tomorrow, four on Thursday, and four on Friday.  Then a couple of more classes next week to finish these visits off.

At my visits, I read a story or two to each class, then talk to them about summer reading.  Then, depending on the availability of the computer lab and the age of the students, we might also go in to the computer lab and have each student log on to the library’s website and follow the link to the ReadsinMA page in order to create an online summer reading account to track each student’s reading hours.  Given this summer’s theme of “Go Green at Your Library,” these online accounts seem particularly appropriate this year…though obviously we’ll still have the clock-face paper logs still available (and I can’t deny the educational value of the clock faces for the younger children, since they help them visualize what fifteen minutes of reading looks like on the clock, and also help with those clock-reading skills – a skill with which today’s children seem to be struggling).

Speaking of that theme of “Go Green,” I have one gripe.  I had a GREAT idea of wearing a t-shirt with a big recycling symbol on it to each of my class visits, and ordered two shirts, one green and one black, from an online t-shirt company.  I had visions of making a real statement about the environmental message in this year’s program.  This seemed especially key, since I’m asking that attendees for the Ice Cream Social consider bringing their own non-disposable bowls, cups, and spoons to the Social in order to reduce the amount of trash created (with over 400 attendees at last year’s Social, I felt a little ill as I hauled away trash bag after trash bag of used styrofoam bowls, paper cups, and plastic spoons).  The cool t-shirt would really get the message across, as the recycling logo stared at the kids through the whole storytime and into my spiel about the summer program.

But, alas, apparently the women’s fitted t-shirts on this t-shirt site were made for a twelve-year-old girl and not an actual woman.  Even though I bought size large, I still could only barely squeeze into the shirts.  And it’s not like I’m a really big girl, either – maybe I need to lose seven pounds, but that’s no excuse.  It was a huge disappointment when the shirts arrived in the mail on Friday, too late to order replacements.  The only option now is to wear plain green shirts all week, which still works but isn’t nearly as cool.  In defense of this online t-shirt company, though, they sent me an email saying I will be credited for the full purchase price, and I can keep the two t-shirts.  Since the shirts don’t fit me, I think I’ll make them summer reading raffle prizes for the kids…

At any rate, I’m still very pumped for this week’s class visits, and I’d like to publicly thank Mrs. Harvey, the most awesome Media Specialist around, for making me welcome and putting up with the piles of summer reading bags all week.  Thanks, Mrs. Harvey!!