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!