Category Archives: Library events

Children's literature, Library events, Young adult literature

Author Visit

You read it here first – it’s official:  T.A. Barron will be visiting the library in which I work in April!!

T.A. Barron is the author of children’s and young adult books, including The Lost Years of Merlin epic and The Great Tree of Avalon trilogy.  He also lived in the town in which I work up through the fifth grade, before moving to Colorado, which will make his visit to the library that much more exciting!  Mr. Barron will be talking about the influence that the town had upon him as a writer, so the program should be particularly fascinating for all town residents.  If you live in town, keep an eye out for the date and time of the program, which will be posted very soon in the children’s room.

Book groups, Library events, Storytime

Busy busy busy

This was an unusually busy week – four storytimes, two book groups, Game Hour, and a special Halloween program with Greg McAdams.  Which is really only two more programs than a usual week, but it felt like a lot more than that!

Jennifer is on vacation this week (I hope you’re having a great few days off, Jennifer!), so we decided that I would meet with her 4th grade book group so that they could have a meeting in October.  They are a terrific bunch of kids, and we had a very productive discussion about Patrick Carman’s The Dark Hills Divide.  The kids and I agreed that the first half of the book is a bit slow, a bit tedious, and a bit boring, but the second half of the book gets creative, fast-paced, and interesting.  Personally, I felt like the book was an awfully tough slog, but the kids seemed to mostly like it.

That was Monday’s book group – Tuesday’s book group was the 5th graders, and we discussed E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It.  I’ve used Five Children and It for book group discussions before, partly because I enjoy introducing kids to an author they most likely won’t discover on their own, and partly because the book generates great discussion.  For this meeting, I also played a portion of the movie of Five Children and It (starring Kenneth Branagh and Freddy Highmore), and we spent a fair amount of time talking about why the movie people changed the plot and setting of the story so much from the original.  This 5th grade group is another terrific bunch of kids, and I really enjoyed hearing their thoughts on this book and literature in general.

Then there were the storytimes…  I’ve been mixing in new Toddler Storytimes here and there with the ones I’ve already created (usually four weeks of established lesson plans, then one week of a new plan, then back to old plans), and somehow I managed to schedule a new Toddler Storytime for this week, when I already had two book groups to prepare for and only Sunday off.  Bad planning, which resulted in me working all day Sunday and then skipping my drawing class on Monday night.  But in the end, this Circus storytime worked out quite well, though there was an added element that day: an early intervention teacher came to storytime to observe one of her students.  I wasn’t bothered by her presence, but I found myself observing this teacher while she observed her student, which distracted me a wee bit. 

Tuesday’s Infant Storytime was full to bursting, and it was one of those storytimes where I finished really feeling like I was on my game, that I had turned out a pretty successful program.  There was a lot of positive energy in the room that day, and most of the kids were about the same age, which always makes the program run more smoothly.  Not to mention that there was a great bunch of grownups in the room who stayed on top of monitoring their small charges.  I really appreciate it when the other adults in the room keep the kids from crossing my “invisible line” that runs just in front of my feet, because it is SO hard to stay focused on my presentation when there is an adorable little person trying to dig one of my stuffed animals or musical instruments out of the bags by my chair.  Thank you, everyone!

Wednesday’s infant storytime wasn’t such a success, though.  I don’t know what it was, maybe it was leftover migraine ditziness from the afternoon before, but I was just not as good as I’d like.  Same exact lesson plan as Tuesday, but I didn’t do as well with the material as I did on Tuesday.  Go figure.

And then there was the Preschool Storytime on Thursday.  Usually I have a good sized crowd for this storytime, and since it was week three of my rotation – the most popular week, art week – I thought I’d have a full house.  But the weather was unseasonably lovely, and I think everyone decided to go to the playground.  In the end, only one family attended: two siblings of the right age for the storytime, a much younger sibling, and their nanny.  The nanny, who I’ve gotten to know in the past few weeks (she’s new to the family, but clearly not new to being a nanny), did a great job of sitting with the youngest sibling through the stories, then subtly removing him and herself from the room once it was time for art.  And the other two siblings and I had such a giggly good time creating “Pumpkin Mystery Faces” from MaryAnn Kohl’s book.  First I showed them how we could play around with the pumpkin’s features by using my felt board (I had figured this would be the best way to introduce the art project to the group without prejudicing their art, since felt is definitely different from paper), then we moved over to the tables and cut out black construction paper eyes, noses, and other shapes.  I had already primed our bucket full of paper shapes, so once the kids were ready to move on to the actual project, it was easy enough for them to root around in the bucket (no peeking!) and pull out shapes to plop down on their orange paper circles.  We laughed and laughed at the funny faces we made, and then eventually I brought out the glue so that each child could take a pumpkin face home.  The sister, who is five, made a very recognizable jack o’ lantern, but the boy, who is just four, had a massively good time layering on as much glue and black paper as he could, until the orange circle was heavy with both.

Game Hour was run by four fabulous teen volunteers, so that I only had to keep an ear and eye out for the group to make sure that everything was going well in there.  We’re getting quite a group of Game Hour regulars, and boy do they have a great time playing games together.

And last, but certainly not least, Greg McAdams came on Wednesday to present his Halloween Magic Safety Show.  Greg has come to the library two other times in my tenure, and each time I’ve been very impressed by his ability to establish good behavior ground rules in a way that is firm yet funny.  And I love that Greg mixes in a healthy dose of humor and talk about books and libraries with his magic.  I had wondered how Greg would mix Halloween safety messages into his show – would it be too didactic? – but his talk about safety was very subtle and spot-on.  I saw a lot of parents nodding happily when he talked about staying with your group when you’re trick-or-treating, letting your parents check your candy before you eat any of it, using a flashlight, and not talking to strangers.  Thanks Greg – you did an awesome job!

Of course there was a lot more to my week than these eight programs, but it’s almost eight and I haven’t had dinner, so you’ll just have to wait for the funny and cute stories from the rest of my week.

Library events

A big thank you to Alyson & the rest of the volunteers

We’ve had a lot of fantastic volunteers helping out this summer (and this past year, too), and I owe personal thank-yous to every one of those volunteers.  But I thought I’d devote a blog entry to a thank-you to Alyson, former page extraordinaire, who went above and beyond last Thursday at the Tie Dye event.  [For those of you who aren’t librarians, a page is not just a piece of paper in a book – it’s also the job title of those dedicated students who work at the library reshelving books and who also stamp and cover new books prior to circulation.]

So Alyson was our library’s page extraordinaire, and now she’s half way through college, but still regularly comes back to visit with us and to provide invaluable volunteer assistance.  Lisa was the staff member who worked with Alyson at the Tie Dye, and Lisa told me after the event was over that we really owed Alyson a BIG thank you, because she “worked her ass off.”  Lisa rinsed every one of the t-shirts that came her way (we estimate 200 people attended the tie dye program), and Alyson lugged the millions of buckets of rinse water across the driveway, down a brutal slope, and into a storm drain.  I hear tell that she even wiped out once going down the slope, but she still had good humor about it.

Thank you, Alyson – you’re the best!  And thank you to every single volunteer who helped out last Thursday.  We could not have run this event without your help.  I really, really appreciate all that you did!!!

Cats Dogs Plants Animals, Library events, Summer reading

Winston the therapy dog

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Today was the first visit from Winston the therapy dog at the library.  He did a great job, and two very happy families got to hang out with this gorgeous and sweet pooch.  Winston is a golden doodle, and he’s very tall and very soft and (despite the golden) pitch black.  He’s one of the coolest looking dogs I’ve ever met, and he is very, very well behaved.

In case you’re not familiar with the use of therapy dogs in libraries, the idea is to provide children with a non-judgemental listener to whom the children can read aloud.  Dogs don’t speak English, and they certainly don’t read, so they don’t know if their child reader friend has just mis-read a line from the book.  All the dog knows is that he or she is happy to hang out with his or her young literary fans.  And the kids who read to a therapy dog come out smiling and happy and with renewed reading confidence.

It’s a terrific program, and I’m so glad that Julie, Winston’s owner and handler, came to me with the proposal of doing a program at the library.  And I’m really looking forward to the remaining four “Paws and Read” sessions that are scheduled for this summer.

Library events, Summer reading

Summer update

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So the Ice Cream Social was a huge success, with over four hundred people attending and enjoying the ice cream and the fun stuff to do.  I was beyond tired that night, but man was it a good tired.  Slept like a rock, too.  And now I’m already plotting what we could do a bit differently next year…with the sudden increase in volunteers, maybe we could add some games like sack racing or jumproping or maybe put a few Frisbees in the mix.  I don’t want to go overboard next year, but it would be cool to add a few things that are new and different.  And I’d like to see if we can encourage people to bring their own bowls and spoons and cut down on the amount of disposable dishes that we use.

The summer reading prizes went out the day after the Ice Cream Social; so far quite a few kids have come in to collect these incentives, and it seems like my toy choices are pretty ok.  Happily, the one toy that I felt I was taking a bit of a risk on has turned out to be quite popular: pinwheels.  I was worried that pinwheels were too low-tech for today’s kids, but now I’m very glad that I did end up ordering them.

This week’s big program is Wednesday’s Tie Dye Bonanza.  I have a feeling it’s going to be insanely popular (weather permitting), but some great volunteers have popped up to help out with hauling hot water and controlling the chaos.  And my dear sister just gave me these wise words of advice to calm me down as I stressed about doing tie dye:  “Oh, come on.  If stoned hippies can tie dye, so can you.”  She’s a smart one, my sister.

And, most of all, I’ve been learning how big an effect being out sick for a week at the end of May can have.  I’m just now starting to feel like I’m catching up.  I shudder to think where I’d be if I weren’t compulsively organized.

Library events, Summer reading

Ice Cream Social

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Looks like it will be today!  Weather forecasts predict some chances of afternoon rain, but it appears that the pop-up showers will mostly be west of Worcester, so we should be safe.

I’ve been busy with the last minute details for the Social, so I’ll write more once this giant event is over.

Library events, Summer reading

June? Already? ~ Summer preview

Thankfully, school in the town in which I work is running through June 26 this year, because something strange happened to May – it disappeared almost before it started.  Being out sick, quite unexpectedly, for a week certainly didn’t help my summer planning any, but also it does feel like May skipped by a bit too fast this year.

With June almost here, I’m in my usual pre-summer reading frenzy: ordering prizes, asking for donations for raffle items (not a job I relish this year, in this economy), and prettying up the summer calendar before printing out and folding a million copies of that calendar.  On top of my usual summer planning, I also now have some additional planning to tackle: I’ve decided to run storytimes through the summer this year, and that means creating a summer’s worth of new storytime plans and feltboard stories to match.

For all the work, though, I realized yesterday that it’s going to be a great summer.  We have the acclaimed magician Bonaparte coming for a performance; musician and early childhood educator Hugh Hanley (Hugh is a local favorite) will give a “Circle of Songs” singalong; Jim Cruise, aka the Spoon Man, who has a fabulous national reputation, will “spoon” the crowd; the Boston Museum of Science will be visiting with their “Science Magic” program; and the Massachusetts Audubon Society will be visiting with two mystery guest animals to present a program on Wild Animals of the Farm.  And, of course there will be library-run book groups, storytimes (infant, toddler, preschool, pajama, and Saturday storytimes), movie nights (5 family movies this summer:  Bolt, Inkheart, Hotel for Dogs, Oliver and Company, and Madagascar Escape 2 Africa), an all ages Tie Dye event, and the Ice Cream Social and Finale Picnic.  Very busy, and LOTS of fun stuff.

So those of you who are patrons of my library now have a sneak preview of what’s coming this summer!  A nice little bonus for reading my blog – you know things that the rest of town won’t know until my first school visit on June 11!  Happy almost summer!

Library events

Lego Expo, part two

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After all those months of planning and preparation, the Expo itself went remarkably well.  The volunteers were fantastic and took over the nitty-gritty details, leaving me free to chat with kids and their parents and assist the judges.  The judges were equally fantastic, taking their job very seriously while having a great time talking with each child and viewing their models.  The kids and their parents were terrific, enjoying each other’s models while loving the moments of unadultered attention as a judge listened to the story behind their model.

The first age group, the 3 to 5 year olds, was small and manageable, allowing the judges to really give personal attention to each of these tender young Lego artists.  Lots of great models here: a tricked out Duplo mini-van, Stretchy Frogs Super Agent Spy Mobiles, a rocket, an amusement park, and others that I (unfortunately!) can’t remember.  For this age group, it’s more about the story behind the model than the model itself, and the judges (Marc and Tina) did a wonderful job listening to each child and remembering key points about each model when it came time to present the Certificates of Achievement.  Marc and Tina quite wisely decided to forgo place ribbons for this group, and instead placed the emphasis on giving each child a moment in the spotlight; everyone got a round of applause and knew that his or her model had been seen and appreciated.  There were some tears when I drew the raffle winner, though, which made me think I need to do that age group’s raffle drawing differently, either altering my announcement to warn that only one child will win, or drawing the winner after the Expo, or perhaps eliminating the raffle item entirely.  Something to chew on…

The next age group, the 5 to 9 year olds, was enormous and enthusiastic.  The judges for this group, Bess, Marc, Rob, and David, were a bit overwhelmed by the volume of entries and the verbosity of the model builders, putting my careful plans way behind schedule.  Once again, I’ll have to make changes for next year here.  I think the best route will be to divide this group into two groups, which I can do based upon the ages of the attendees on Saturday (Excel spreadsheet, here we come!).  But even though the judging was long and involved here, I think that the judges still enjoyed themselves.  This age group is the “sweet spot” for Legos, brimming over with joy and creativity and storytelling.  There were Lego museums, Lego spaceships, Lego wars, Lego recycling centers, and even a Lego rainbow (my favorite).  And, happily, a mix of boys and girls participating.  The judges did award place ribbons here, though there were multiple 1st place winners, and multiple 2nd and 3rd place winners.  This age expected competition, and no one was distressed by the awarding of ribbons.  Likewise, I prefaced my drawing of the raffle Lego set with some sort of garbled statement that only one person would win, please no one be upset, yadda yadda yadda. 

The oldest age group, ages 9 – 12+, turned out to be only 10 and 11 year old boys.  (What happens to the girls?  How sad!)  This group was more focused on mechanics and engineering, with lots of remote controlled models and cool mechanical design.  The judges for this group, Bess, Rob, and Bart, had an easier time making the rounds, but a much, much harder time picking winners.  How to compare a lobsterboat setup with a remote-controlled car?  How to measure conceptual design versus technical expertise?  Ultimately, they wisely decided to award 2 of each ribbon, negotiating amongst themselves as they narrowed the field down.   And the raffle drawing was painless and happy.

Though exhausting, it was a wonderful, wonderful day.  So many happy kids, so much community spirit and good will in the room.  And it was terrific to be part of something that emphasized childrens’ creativity with their hands and their minds – no t.v., no computers. 

I’ll be sending out personal thank-yous to each volunteer and judge, but I’d also like to print here a very heartfelt expression of gratitude to this special group of people.  Without them, there wouldn’t have been a Lego Expo.  Thank you.

Library events

The Lego Expo

Saturday was the event that’s been consuming my attention for the last four months – the Lego Expo.  In my past life as a speciality toy retail manager at the Toy Shop in Concord I got to be the store owner’s right-hand girl and helped plan and run several Lego Expos, so I’ve had a dream of running a Lego Expo at the library since I started there three and a half years ago.  This year it was finally possible: we have the space now, and we’ve been settled into the new building long enough for me to have the time to organize such a large event.  And somewhere in those crashed and lost and deleted email files, I had an email from Lego giving me their blessing, if not their direct support, to run the event.

What’s a Lego Expo, you’re asking?  Kids bring in creative Lego models that they’ve made at home for display at the library.  Judges from the community view all the models and talk with the kids who made the models.  Everyone receives a certificate of achievement, and some kids receive 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place ribbons.  The kids are divided into three age groups (3 to 5, 5 to 9, and 9 to 12+).  At the end of each age group, I draw a raffle winner (each child gets one raffle ticket), and that raffle winner gets a nice big Lego set paid for by the Friends of the Library.  It’s a bit chaotic, a lot creative, and enormously fun.

And a lot of work.  A LOT of work.  After four months of planning and stress, I’m seriously exhausted today (if it weren’t for those two huge cups of coffee, I’d be asleep right now – I’m writing this on Sunday, by the way!).  But it’s a good exhausted, and it’s tired with the knowledge that next year’s Lego Expo won’t be nearly so much work or nearly so tiring.

So for you children’s librarians who are intrigued by this idea, here’s what I did to prepare for the Expo:

  1. I publicized the event four months before its scheduled date, even before I’d done any planning, to allow kids plenty of time to create their models and spread the word amongst their friends about the event.
  2. Part of this publicity was creating a sheet of guidelines that kids and parents could pick up in the children’s room.  On the sheet was the date of the Expo, the times for the age groups, and information about creating your own unique Lego model (don’t just make the model on the front of the box).  I also explicitly stated that there would be “gentle judging,” and that some kids would receive 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place ribbons.  And I explained that there would be a raffle in each age group for a new Lego set.
  3. Then it was time to start asking around about potential judges.  My ideal was to have just three judges for the whole day like we did back in those Toy Shop expos, but it didn’t work out that way.  Ultimately, I had nine judges lined up and spread amongst the three age groups (though when the date of the Expo changed due to a sad event, three of those nine had to bow out).  For judges, I wanted a variety of expertise: artists, designers, Lego aficionados, architects, cabinet makers, and a mix of men and women.
  4. Then it was time to put out the plea for volunteers for the event.  Since I work in a small town, I wanted to keep the registration for the event completely open, which meant lining up a lot of volunteers to handle any possible attendance scenario.  (If I worked in a larger town, I’d require pre-registration and limit enrollment to keep things manageable.)  The volunteers were a variety of ages, including some fifth grade and up kids who didn’t want to show a model but who wanted to be a part of the event, many teen volunteers (most of whom volunteered for the entire day, wow), and several adult volunteers.
  5. Then it was time to create materials for the event.  These included: guidelines and timeline for the judges; judging sheets with space for the judges to make notes; directions for the volunteers so that they could operate independently and not feel they had to ask me what to do; check-in sheets for the volunteers to enter each child’s name and age and whether the child was a resident of the town; tent cards for the kids to identify their models – who made the model, their age, and the name of the model; Certificates of Achievement; raffle tickets and a sign for the raffle bucket.
  6. Then I assembled all of these materials into boxes and on clipboards where appropriate, ready to go for the day of the event.  In these boxes I also put multiple Sharpie markers for volunteers to use to write the children’s names on the Certificates of Achievement; ballpoint pens, pencils and a pencil sharpener; name badges for the volunteers and judges; and my own folder with its list of judges and volunteers and notes to myself.
  7. Last but not least, I bought snacks to feed the volunteers and judges (cheese and crackers and cookies and juice and seltzer and coffee), brought some small folding tables from home to use for the raffle bucket, tested the sound system, and carefully planned out the layout of the tables in the program room to optimize space usage and traffic flow.

Like I said, a LOT of work.  But now all of these materials are created, and with a little tweaking from lessons learned, useable again next year. 

Tune in tomorrow for a run-down of how the event went!

Library events

Alex the Jester

Thursday night the library hosted a great act – Alex the Jester, an internationally known court jester.  Alex put on a fabulous show, keeping the audience riveted and in stitches for a very happy evening hour.  I enjoyed his performance immensely, and laughing that hard was extremely welcome after the less-than-stellar week I’d had. 

To see a video of Alex performing, visit his website at www.alexthejester.com.    To all those children’s librarians out there – or schools, or whoever is in the market for a great performer to bring to your venue – Alex is a class act, professional and easy to work with, and totally delivers a terrific show.  This comment from one of the library’s patrons sums it up best:  “We all had a great time…the kids say that on a scale of 1 to 10, Alex is ‘off the charts!'”