Category Archives: Librarianship

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.

Librarianship, Summer reading

Before you know it…

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…also known as “Oh, &*%*$*@!!!”

My first school class visit is THIS FRIDAY afternoon.  Then the class visits begin for real – the big time – next Tuesday morning, June 1.  Yikes.  I’m sitting at home right now finalizing the summer calendar, parent letter, and summer reading guidelines, all of which need to be photocopied en masse and stuffed into the summer reading bags before I visit the school.  And if all that photocopying weren’t enough to give me heartburn, there’s also all the tweaking of the ReadsinMA website that needs to happen, the printing of posters for summer events, the creation of sign-up sheets for the summer events, the ordering of the summer prizes, the donation request letters, calling Firefighter O. to ask if the fire truck can visit the summer reading finale picnic in August, the creation and printing of the donation voting tickets, the en masse copying of the old-fashioned paper clock face time sheets, the purchasing of multiple cases of bottled water for movie nights, the purchasing of lots and lots and lots of bags of popcorn for movie nights, the shopping for all the fixin’s for the Ice Cream Social (not to mention the purchasing of and storage of the actual ice cream, which gives me heart palpitations), the choosing of some great new stories to read at my class visits…if I don’t stop there, I might totally freak out.

Oh, and now I can’t have lunch with my dad on Friday, which bums me out.  (Hey, Dad, can we reschedule for Monday?)

Wish me luck – I’ll need it to get through the next couple of weeks.  Though you know I’ll be having a good time despite being a stress-bucket.

Librarianship, Spare time - Culture

Calendars and such

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No post of any substance today, or probably all week:  summer reading is fast approaching, and I’m spending all of my free time finishing off the summer calendar (which takes a huge amount of work, believe it or not), ordering the summer reading prizes, writing the summer raffle donation request letters, and reading book reviews.  We’ve just been phenomenally busy at the library in the last few months, and I’m literally unable to complete any task that requires concentration while I’m there.  So I have been trying to console myself about the loss of my free time to work by drinking lots of Arnold Palmer iced tea, listening to fun CDs (right now it’s Adam Lambert’s CD – and I guarantee Jim will be mortified that I’m admitting that we both own Adam’s CD AND listen to it), and taking cat-ear-scratching breaks.  And no, this at-home work is not on the clock, for anyone who wonders.  🙂

Here’s a thought: we should play music at the library.  Background music, you know?  A little “Whataya Want From Me” would make the day go faster.  And I bet the little kids would love to bop around to it…

Children's literature, Librarianship

Jealousy, thy name is Abby

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Yesterday the newest issue of School Library Journal arrived in my mailbox, and I felt a strong surge of an emotion I thought I’d kind of outgrown: jealousy.

Everywhere you look in the children’s literature world, you see the name of Elizabeth Bird and her blog, “A Fuse #8 Production.”  I’d decided that I hated her a long time ago simply based upon how often I see her name, but yesterday the (admittedly baseless) hatred turned to jealousy when I saw the cover photo of children’s literature bloggers, with Elizabeth Bird front and center.  Not only is the woman a big deal in my work world, she’s also cute, young, pretty, and well-dressed.  And she looks like someone I’d probably want to have as a friend.  Bah humbug. 

Like many of us, I had lots of visions of grandeur growing up and going through college and graduate school; I was sure that I was wicked special and that I’d make a splash somewhere, sometime.  But, let’s face it, fame and fortune are far away from the little town in which I work.  No disrespect intended towards the town, but it’s small potatoes compared to New York City and the New York Public Library, which is where Ms. Bird works.  Logically I know I’m making an impact where I am, but I’m not too likely to meet Important Children’s Authors and Illustrators in my rural library.  Nor will I be invited to serve on the Newbery Award Committee, or write articles for the Horn Book magazine.  (I barely survived six months of writing entry-level reviews for the Horn Book Guide – what a slog that was.)  I imagine that Elizabeth Bird probably bumps into famous authors and illustrators just buying her morning coffee before work.  There’s no place to buy coffee in the town in which I work – no downtown, really, other than the library and the schools and the churches – and no money to buy that coffee, anyway.

I’d also love to know how the object of my friendly jealousy manages to find the time to write intelligent blog posts every day, and read lots and lots of current children’s books, while working as a children’s librarian.  Surely she must have a staff at her disposal?  Surely she’s mostly responsible for the big picture stuff, not all the nitty gritty details of storytimes and patron service?  Because I’m a pretty energetic person, and I come home at the end of a work day drained and with little creativity left to write a blog post.  Not to mention that I rarely feel like looking at a computer screen in the evenings after having spent an entire day working in front of a computer.

Or maybe she’s able to write her blog posts at work?  Could it be that she even gets to read children’s books at work?  That would be a dream come true for me.  Though I truly love what I do at my job, I do feel like I’m becoming further and further removed from the analytical and theoretical side of children’s books that I so loved in graduate school.  In recent days I’ve spent more time applying copious amounts of hand sanitizer than I have thinking about Reader Response theory.  Actually, I don’t think that Reader Response theory has entered my mind more than once or twice in the last year.  But I’ve thought a lot about how to project my voice at storytime or keep the kids in my book groups focused or how to locate the books that kids have been burying in odd places in the stacks.

So I guess it’s official: I’m jealous because I know that my chance to Be All That has passed me by.  And it surely doesn’t help things at all that I didn’t make good use of my internship at the Horn Book to make connections with people there like Roger Sutton.  Like most professions, to “be someone” in the children’s literature world you have to work someplace important, like New York City, and you have to have powerful friends in the business.  In my hidden little corner of the world, I’m never going to make headlines.

But at least I’m a rock star to the kids who come to my library.  And if I were smart and mature, I’d be happy with that.

Librarianship

Nightmare

The other morning I woke up from a nightmare with my heart pounding, feeling as though I were screaming.  Here’s the dream:

I was at the library, and my coworkers and some library patrons were throwing a small party for me, to wish me well in my new job.  My new job was to be the receptionist at a wildlife sanctuary, the same wildlife sanctuary where I worked as a receptionist when I was twenty or so; my going-away gifts included a gift certificate to the gift shop at the wildlife sanctuary.  One of my favorite library patrons had made me a scrapbook with pictures and memories from my time at the library (it was quite lovely), and as I was looking at it, I thought:  “But I don’t WANT to leave!  I LOVE my job!!  Why do I have to go to this other job???  I want to stay HERE!!!!  NOOOOOOOO!!!!  I want to stay here!!!!  I WANT TO STAY HERE!!!  I LOVE MY JOB!!!!!!!”

And then I woke up.

I’m guessing that this dream stems from the state budget uncertainty these days.  I’ve finally found my niche, the job that makes me happy AND I’m pretty good at, and when I allow myself (which I try not to), I worry that in a year or two I won’t be able to continue in this career anymore.  Hence the nightmare.

In my conscious hours, though, I’m trying to just enjoy my working life as it is now.  And do the best job that I can do.  These days, no one has any guarantees in their job: somehow, we’ve all got to find a way to survive the next few years with our sanity.  And let’s hope that it’s just the next few years, or less…

Librarianship, Storytime

surreal

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Tuesday morning I had a moment in the midst of storytime.  We were doing a lap bounce (“The Grand Old Duke of York”) and somehow I went on autopilot while leading the group and took in the scene as if I were an outsider.  A semicircle of adults around the room, singing while bouncing and lifting their children in unison, following my lead and my rhythm as I demonstrated the lap bounce with Pepper the border collie puppet in my own lap.  How frickin’ surreal.  I mean, seriously.  Five years ago I would have laughed if you had told me I’d be leading a large group in song while bouncing a dog puppet in my lap.  And here were all these sincere faces following along with me.  Not a single person on the verge of laughing.  Seriously.  Part of me wants to videotape myself leading one of these storytimes, just to see what it’s all about, really; but I know that any confidence I currently have would be totally shattered by watching a video of myself.  So I’ll leave my observations of myself to the odd surreal out-of-body moments like yesterday’s.

And then, fast forward to this evening, at my first meditation class: we had just finished a walking meditation around the room, and had eased back to our chairs.  “Stand in front of your chair,” said our instructor, “but don’t sit down yet.”  Which is what I say as a lead-in to “Handy Spandy” in the infant storytime.  It was all I could do to hold back from launching into the rhyme: “Handy Spandy, sugary candy, we all jump IN.  Handy Spandy, sugary candy, we all jump OUT.  Handy Spandy sugary candy, we all jump UP.  Handy Spandy, sugary candy, we all sit down.”  Thankfully, I was able to restrain myself, but how odd that my first reaction in that situation was to want to take charge and lead a sit-down action rhyme.

***************

[For those of you who might be wondering, I LOVE my meditation class.  LOVE IT.  A great bunch of people (we shared a huge laugh together, which is the best kind of bonding experience), and, most importantly, meditation actually seems to work for me.  Yay.]

Librarianship, Storytime

How to stay healthy?

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With all the scary talk about the H1N1 virus, I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep myself healthy in the face of the onslaught of germs that comes my way, especially during storytimes. 

I’ve toyed with the idea of adding a little note to the library’s published calendar that says something like, “Please help our community – and your children’s librarian – stay healthy, and don’t come to storytimes if either you or your child are sick.”  But I can’t come up with wording that says what I want to say in a way that’s friendly and kind, not obnoxious.  So for now I’ve followed the suggestion of a library patron, and bought an enormous jug of hand sanitizer that I put outside the door to the story room.  On the way in to the story room for each storytime, I’m encouraging attendees to use the hand sanitizer if they’d like or if they think they should.

Logically, I know that hand sanitizer won’t solve the issue of germs being spread at storytimes, since I know for a fact that every time that I’ve gotten sick recently it has been from airborne germs (I never, never, never touch my eyes or mouth or nose while at work).  But hopefully the mere presence of the hand sanitizer will remind people that germs spread quickly in the confined space of the story room, and hopefully anyone who’s sick or has a sick child will choose to stay home.  Hopefully.  And maybe I’ll be able to find a gentle way to let patrons know that when the children’s librarian gets sick, everyone loses, because then there are no storytimes until she gets better.  And given her tendency to nasty bronchial infections, it could take her a long time to get better if she does get sick. 

And I’ll definitely be getting my flu shot as soon as I’m able.  Definitely.

Librarianship

Mid summer & goals

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Today counts as the exact half-way point of my summer reading program.  It’s going well, with some great performers, a couple of good library-run programs, and lots of enthusiastic summer readers.

Today is also the day that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my three goals for fiscal year ’10.  Each year we’re required to come up with three specific goals, and we are then evaluated at the end of the fiscal year for our ability to fulfill those goals.

Here are the three goals that first popped into my mind:

  • Keep my head above water – don’t drown in the ocean of work to be done.
  • Keep smiling.  Keep smiling.  Keep smiling.  (Even if the teeth are clenched.)
  • Try to maintain a broad, philosophical perspective on my job.  Don’t let myself get bogged down in the minutia.

But, obviously, those can’t be my written goals.  (Though they are pretty reasonable goals, really.)  So I’ve been thinking hard today about what I’ll put down as what I want to and need to achieve this year.  Here’s what I have at the moment:

  • Finish 16 more Toddler Storytime lesson plans, which include: typed handouts with theme-based book lists for parents (each list should have at least 20 titles), fingerplays and songs, follow-up activities, and a craft idea; detailed lesson plans for me to use, with thoughts on how to introduce each theme and creative ways to present the theme throughout the storytime; and feltboard stories (made at home, of course) to enrich each storytime.  The completion of these 16 lesson plans will bring my total library of Toddler Storytime plans up to 50, enough for a full year and some change (since storytimes don’t run every single week of the year).
  • Further development of the Preschool Storytime, including feltboard stories that are more sophisticated for this age.  Also investigate additional process art projects to use with this age group, since it has been proved that the “splashy” art projects are by far the most popular.  Sigh.
  • Given the popularity of the first annual Lego Expo, research and brainstorm to see if I can come up with another community-based program that is similar.  In other words, the success of the Lego Expo was due entirely to its participants, not to a performer, and I’d like to see if it is possible to create another program that emphasizes childrens’ creativity and innovation.
  • Read more children’s and young adult books.  This obviously has to be done in my spare time, but one major impact of the budget cuts in our town is that my schedule has become odd – very odd some weeks – and I’ve dropped off on my reading.  It is vitally essential that I read as many books as possible in order to be effective at my job.  This MUST be a priority.
  • Be more regular about writing on this blog.  I love that writing entries for my blog helps me to focus my thoughts and energy.  Writing blog entries also helps me to process events at work, and evaluate what worked and what didn’t.  The blog has been yet another casualty of my odd schedule.

That’s more than three goals, isn’t it?  I like the idea of goals, but in some ways they’re a bad idea for someone like me – I’m already a workaholic overachiever, and when writing goals I end up creating way more work for myself than I would otherwise.  Hmmmm.

Etc., Librarianship

Another big thank-you…

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This time to Lizzie, who made me really smile for the first time in a while!

Today I opened our mailbox, and found a padded envelope addressed to:  “Abby Kingsbury, Librarian Extraordinaire.”  From Lizzie, of course!  I grinned and laughed out loud, because I knew right away what Lizzie had sent me – even before I saw the big red stamp saying “Perishable.”  Lizzie sent me dark chocolate!  Not just any dark chocolate – she sent the really good stuff.

Thanks, Lizzie!  You are truly the best!

(And if you’re not quite sure why Lizzie sent me chocolate, look back at this post.  And to make things even more special, Lizzie lives in Maine, not Massachusetts, and has only been to my library a couple of times over the years  :)  )

Librarianship

The hidden things

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Though the public side of my job involves helping children find books, running storytimes and book groups, and generally being a welcoming face in the children’s room, there are hidden aspects of my job that take up a lot of time and seem worth mentioning here once in a while.

There’s the event planner part of my job description – coordinating volunteers and resources and figuring out how to run an ice cream party for over four hundred, or working with Lisa to plan a tie dye party for an as-yet-undisclosed number of drop-in attendees.  Event planning seems to be most intense when an outdoor event is involved, because that requires much studying of weather forecasts and weather radar and sweating over whether to postpone or go for it.  So far it seems as though rain has been a factor in every single outdoor event I’ve planned, and believe me, it’s a challenge to know what decision to make:  rain date or original date.  This year we went for the original date for the ice cream social, and it worked out well – cloudy but no rain, and tons of rain on the two rain dates.  The tie dye party was a tougher call (I’m writing this Wednesday night, with no knowledge of how Thursday’s weather will turn out): the tie dye event was scheduled for 3:00 PM on Wednesday, and the morning was beautiful and sunny.  “Oh no,” I stressed, “Maybe I shouldn’t have moved the program to the rain date…”  But then the heavens opened up at 2:30, complete with booming thunder, and I felt much better.  We’ll see how Thursday’s weather pans out.

Another hidden part of my job is the shopping.  Sometimes, especially in the summer, I feel like a professional shopper.  Popcorn and water for movie nights, ice cream and toppings for the ice cream social, craft supplies for storytimes, tie dying supplies for (yup) tie dying, bagels and juice and cream cheese for book groups, felt for my storytimes (always bought with my own money, that felt) – the list goes on and on.  It’s really hard to keep track of time that I spend shopping for supplies, so I usually chalk all that shopping up to being a good person and don’t bother putting those shopping hours on my time sheet.  I like to tell myself that the good karma will keep me going for a while.

Another hidden aspect of my job is the time I spend making feltboard stories for my storytimes.  As I’ve written here ad-nauseum, I spend my own money for the felt I use and use my own time to make the feltboard figures, so that those feltboard figures belong to me free and clear.  Which is all good, but we shouldn’t ignore the fact that making those figures takes a lot of time and creative energy.  And my storytimes are WAY better for those figures.

Also in my free, unpublic time: book group prep.  It’s impossible to read a book at the library when I’m on duty, so I don’t even try anymore.  All that prep is done at home on the weekends, which is why I insist on picking a lot of new books for the book groups (keeps me up to date on what’s being published, and keeps me interested).

And then there’s something hidden that goes on while I’m at working: book ordering.  I’ve come to realize that most of the library’s patrons don’t know that I order every single book that’s placed in the children’s room.  And ordering books requires careful reading of reviews and meticulous tracking of series so that we’re never missing the next great series installment.  It’s really hard to read reviews while I’m sitting at the main children’s desk, because many a raised eyebrow is aimed my way when I do.  Review journals look like cheap magazines, and it really does look as though I’m reading People or US Weekly while on the job – but I’m actually working.  Not to mention that it’s hard to read reviews in the face of constant interruptions.  So I keep my review reading for my rare office hours, or I bring those review journals home and chip away at reading reviews in my own, off the clock time.

The only reason I mention all of these hidden parts of my job is because most non-librarians really don’t have a sense of how time-consuming the job is.  We all know that teachers put in tons of hours of their own time preparing lesson plans and such, but few know that librarians work the same way, and year-round, too – no summer breaks for librarians.  I do my job because I LOVE it – passionately, happily, thoroughly LOVE IT – but I’d also love for the world to know how hard I work.  And, I never thought I’d say this, but I also miss those “teacher gifts” I used to get at the end of each school year and at Christmas.  Yes, I have way too many mugs now, but it was also kinda cool to be given tangible expressions of thanks twice a year.  (I do love dark chocolate, by the way!)