A Rant in the Key of C

Here is the thing. I do care about my patrons and their happiness. But I also have a respect for rules and fairness. A HUGE respect. Problem is, not all patrons share this love. Exceptions must always be made for those who feel they are special or more worthy than the next guy. I do not have patience for that. So please, do not try to guilt trip me into letting your child into the music program, ahead of a 15 people on a waiting list simply because little Bobby "loves music so much" or "adores the teacher" or "would simply be so upset if he missed this class". Listen sister, Bobby is 2 years old. You don't tell him he didn't get into the program, he won't know. He might even get it if you do tell him he didn't get it. And guess what? Suzy and Jane and Connor all loves music, too. So why does your son need to get priority over all these other children? Exactly, they don't. So go play your violin somewhere else, cuz I, unlike Bobby, am not a lover of such music.

Librarians Have All the Time in the World

The past two days I have gotten two different parents ask me the same question. During the summer reading club, the kids hand-write all their books into a paper log that we keep in here until the end of the summer. We give them back so they have a record of all they have read. Both these parents misplaced their logs and wanted to know if we had a print-out of the books their kids read. Tell me readers, who the hell has time to transcibe 300 reading logs (and thousands of book titles) into an excel spreadsheet? They seemed slightly incredulous that we had no back up of this information. People, we can only do so much, take some responsibility. However, this has made me start thinking of online logs, which could be accessed forever and ever. This will never, ever happen in my library, but here's hoping!

Guilted into Blogging

So here I am going through my web pages and I see that my dear librarian friend Kate has updated her blog. Which means, here I am looking at my blog and feeling like a failure. So, here we go...

My reasons for not blogging as of late are similar to Kate's. Our summer reading club has left little energy or desire to blog. We did have a great turnout this year, and only a few REALLY crazy patrons. Also, this summer every single one of my friends has gotten married (well, ok not every single one, but alot of them)so that has happily taken up some of my free time. An FYI - I think I was born to be in weddings. They are awesome and always fun.

Anyway, ALRN. Our new project here in the children's room is WEEDING. ALL. OF. NONFICTION. YAY!! I actually am very excited about this, as many of the sections probably have not been weeded in decades. Which means there are a lot of really fun titles you come across. My two favorites titles right now have been:

The Crusty Ones (book about lobsters)
Lobsters: Gangsters of the Sea (I'll admit, I kept this book....shhhh)

I will keep you posted on fun, old, horrible books!

Questionable

I live for the reviews in SB and F (Science Books and Films) that are listed as "Q" or "Questionable content". It's just funny to me. Although, as a whole, I don't enjoy reading the reviews in this journal because some of them are incredibly tedious and awful to read.

An example: A book titled "A Head Start on Science: Encouraging a Sense of Wonder: 89Activities for Children Ages 3-7" has a review that states, "This title helps adults facilitate young children's learning while the two work as partners to explore the world with a sense of wonder." Hmmm. Wow. Really? That's, um, so useful to me. I'm snobby....sigh.

Lack of Motion

So I wake up on Sunday morning and my neck is KILLING me. I can hardly move it and I cannot complete simple tasks like drying my own hair (though I did get some help with that!) I went to the chircopracter Monday morning and he tells me my neck is indeed locked up and tense. Yes, thank you for that accessment. He is doing his fixing thing and he tells me I should ask myself a question when this thing occurs, "What caused this? Lack of motion? Too much toxicity?" In my head I am thinking, "Um, I was sleeping." He decides it was indeed lack of motion that was the problem. Ok...um....So I should move more when I sleep? Like, do pilates at 2 am?

Witches

"I don't like witches"

This comment came from one my most favorite little 3 year old patrons. She was pointing to a little reading scarecrow we have up as part of my Read-to-Me Preschool Reading club decor.

Me: "Oh, its not a witch sweetheart. It's a scarecrow."
Cutie: "What is dat?"
Me: "It goes up to keep the birds away from the farm. But this is one very nice, it is smiling and reading a book!"
Cutie: "What is this?" (pointing to the straw body)
Me: "It's made of straw."
Cutie: "I don't like witches. There is a witch in there."

There was also a long story which I can only assume was about a witch she saw somewhere, but there was too much preschool talk in there for me to get it lol It was so cute, though! And then she came in today and I wondered if she would remember and sure enough she walked right over to it and told me,

"I don't like witches".

Check!

Do you what is very hard to find? Cheap chess boards! I have been looking to replace our old library chess club boards for a while. but let me tell you, they don't make 'em like they used to. I searched Toys R Us, Target, Christmas Tree Shop, all the other usual suspects and all I found were board that were $20 and up! Or marble. Or Simpson's. Or Magnetic/146 Game Combo/Travel Extravaganza! We finally found a decent one in an online board game store, but that was after looking at online chess board stores who wanted to sell me weird vinyl roll up boards that looked like they wouldn't hold up or store very well. Also added a few chess/checkers combos. I did this because I have had several requests to play checkers, which we don't have. I have tried to improvise by giving them chess boards and Connect Four game pieces, but they kept eventually playing Connect Four which is actually a very loud and annoying game to have in the library.

Anywho, the kids will be very pleased with the new boards. We have a long standing Chess Club for Grades 4-8 which is nice group of mostly boys. I thought I would not really like working with middle school boys, but it turns out we have a pretty good relationship after all. It's really very similar to working with 2 year olds, which I love to do. Same silly behavior, same listening issues, same want for all type of attention, good or bad. I do like them though, they are generally very nice group of kids. Watch out when the competition gets fierce though!! Who knew chess could turn into a very loud spectator sport?

On a similar note, these kids are such good kids that I recruited them to teach younger kids how to play. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade chess club (called 1-2-3 Chess!) was the first time we had tried a chess club for a younger set, but I had gotten requests for it so I thought I would give it a try. It was a huge success! The older kids are really good teachers and some of the kids who had never played before we playing each other by the 2nd week! I was actually really impressed by the teaching skills of a few of the kids. It's amazing to watch. They are so patient and have great strategy in teaching them step by step and making sure they are really learning. I don't really know how to play chess (I know, I know, how can I run the clubs if I don't know how to play. Shut it!) so I wouldn't know how to teach it, That's why having these kids volunteer was so crucial. But they all come every week and I had more kids asking to help teach every week. I was up to a one-to-one ratio pretty quickly! It's also a great mentor program, as some kids asked to work with the same child every week. You could see them really bonding and talking as they played. I'm going to get a bit teary now lol So I must now try to find a way to reward all my volunteers, so I'm off to the store! Checkmate!