Children's book cover puzzle

 I finished this one in October - it was a quick one I put together in an hour or two.

Cobble Hill Nancy Drew Puzzle, 1,000 pcs

 I bought this in Chicago years ago and finally got around to doing it. I gave it to a colleague when I was done and it will probably eventually end up in the library's collection.

Birdcopia puzzle

 

Sandra Boynton puzzles

 I actually got these for review. Such a hardship... I simply HAD to put everything else aside and work on them.

Wooden kitten puzzle

 This was a new type of puzzle. It's wooden, not cardboard, and has letters on the back that you can also match up. Which you need, b/c the pieces fit together very tightly and the picture is rather muddy. It was ok to do, but I donated it to the library.

ALA Midwinter: my notes, experiences, meanderings, and lots more detail than you probably want but I'm putting it in anyways

 Originally published 1-17-10

It occurs to me I should have borrowed my friend's computer and written up my ALA notes earlier, because I felt wonderful all weekend, even though my friend's roommates have a cat (which I am allergic to but it must have been a hypoallergenic cat b/c I had practically no reaction at all) and then when I finally got on the plane to come home, I thought "hmm. I am sick." and so I was. I don't know how that happened. Anyways. Here is my ALA adventure, minus the books which will come later.

Friday

• I successfully navigated the Milwaukee airport and the Boston subway system, which is pretty cool, and arrived at my friend's apartment in Dorchester. Very cool top floor flat, like being in the Little Princess' attic! Much more comfortable, of course. I spent most of the afternoon wandering around Dorchester and doing a little knitting. Interesting town.
• We both trooped off to ALA Friday evening and seized tons of book loot.
• I met Melissa Stewart! I thought I'd blogged about her fascinating and excellent book, Under the Snow, but I guessed I just raved about it to my colleague, Miss Pattie. Anyways, we have ordered a copy and I was delighted to discover she has a similar book about rain out now and a frog book coming soon!
• Random fact: One of my friend's roommates works for Sarah Beth Durst! Is that not the ultimate in cool? She says she's very nice.
• We went to a Cape Verde restaurant for dinner, which was definitely new to me but delicious.

Saturday

• The big one! Sarah (my other library Sarah friend - I have several) took me on the subway to the Boston Public Library....what can I say? My childhood dreams were shattered. When I was a teenager, I used to imagine working at the BPL. I picked out the branches that looked the best. I browsed their catalog. I later applied to Simmons, but it was too expensive and for many other reasons I ended up going to library school in Champaign/Urbana. Which was good. Anyways, back to the BPL. The entrance was grand and imposing, the reading/reference room was gorgeous (and oddly similar to the reference room at UIUC). The general library....was so sad. I was so disappointed, especially in the children's room. Books piled higgledy-piggledy on shelves and on top of each other, dingy, worn, and icky-looking, antiquated and humongous spine labels covering half the spine, the whole children's area was just so.....sad. The teen room was much nicer, probably because it's newer. It felt a lot shinier and there were a couple friendly librarians in there (not that the children's librarian wasn't friendly. she was.) and it looked like they had quite a few programs. I guess they are having budget shortages probably and don't have enough pages or money to replace books. And my friend said lots of the neighborhood branches are really nice. But it was a cherished dream....broken. Sniff.
• So, to cheer me up, Sarah took me to find the ducks in the Boston Public Gardens. They still had their Christmas bows on and I got pictures of me and the ducks!
• Then we zipped down to the conference and I got into the HarperCollins preview just in time. It wasn't really new to me, because I read Betsy Bird's account of the preview on Fuse 8 and I'd already spent a lot of time at the HarperCollins booth, but it was interesting to hear their take on the books and made me take a second look at some I had dismissed earlier.
• More books
• Delicious Thai food cooked by my friend's roommate.

Sunday

• I went with my friend and her fiancee and her roommates to church. It's a very interesting building, a converted old Bostonian house, where different churches and groups meet on each floor. Very friendly people.
• Vietnamese sandwiches for lunch. My culinary experiences were widened quite a bit on this trip!
• Now is when things start getting sticky. After much cogitation and consultation of the post office online, I decided it would be cheaper to pack all my books into my duffel bag and pay to check it, then shove the books that didn't fit and my pajamas into my smaller canvas bag as a carry-on. However, I knew it was supposed to rain/snow on Monday and didn't think I could manage to get it all on the train, to the conference center (where I had decided I simply had to go on Monday for reasons I will explain later) and back onto the train and to the airport. So, my solution was to take my duffel and poster tube down on the train, check them into the bag check overnight, then come back Monday morning, mail the tube, grab the things I needed, and lug everything to the airport.
• Only one problem: my bag split on the way down there and the bag check didn't allow you to leave stuff overnight. What???
• My amazing friend, who is, as her fiancee says, Always Right, actually drove downtown and picked me up. Sniff. She was so sweet. We patched my bag with packing tape and staples and watched the second half of Elizabeth Gaskell's the Return to Crandon on Masterpiece Theater which I had never heard of but found fascinating.

Monday: In which a carefully planned operation mostly works

• So, I got up early and stuck my bags in Sarah's car. I then took the train down to the exhibition center and camped out in front of the doors for about half an hour until they opened, at which time I hurled myself towards the ABDO booth.....b/c I had been told on Saturday that they would be selling their massively excellent $20 library bound comics for $5!!! I achieved my goal and snatched the Scooby-Doo set....and they told me they weren't selling them until noon! Wail! Sad Puppy Dog Eyes! Sweet ABDO rep found another set to put on display and sold me the whole 8-volume set. Yay!
• I mailed my poster tube. I hastily bought socks. Hey, they were stripey! I ran for the bus. I missed it. I waited. I got on the bus. It started. It stopped. The driver got out. The driver got in.
• In the end, Sarah (with my luggage in her car) and I dead-heated each other to the airport and managed to hook up. I zipped up to the ticket counter, checked my taped and stapled bag, and the very nice lady said since I was intending to carry on my large canvas carry on I could check it for free (I never question falling out of the sky things like this) and....the flight was delayed.
• and delayed
• and delayed
• I finally got back a couple hours late, missed the program I was supposed to be doing, but my aide did an excellent job of covering for me, and now I am home, as I said, somewhat sick, and digging into my book bags!

Looking forward to my first ALA Midwinter!

 Originally published 1-12-10

I went to my first ALA last summer (just the exhibits). Now I am going to my first ALA Midwinter (just the exhibits). Hey, that's the good part, right? Plus, my budget just doesn't cover the actual conferencey part. This is partly a trip for the coolness of ALA, partly b/c I have always wanted to go to Boston, and partly to see some old friends, who are kindly letting me camp out at their place for a couple days. Otherwise my Boston dream would have to wait....oh, say 8 years into the future when I'd paid my student loans. Things I am hoping to do and see and get:

• A visit to the Boston Public Library. It was one of the places I dreamed of working at when I was a teen. Although I decided a big system wasn't for me (and sheesh, who can afford to live in Boston?) I still am very excited to see it!
• A visit to Terri Schmitz's book store, The Children's Book Shop. I read her articles in the Horn Book when I was a teen and decided we were kindred spirits. I am secretly hoping to see her in person! Maybe have her sign something....I tried to find a copy of the issue with my favorite of her articles "Safety in Numbers" but no luck.
• Lots of snazzy new posters. The ones I collected at ALA this summer are looking kinda dingy or kids have ripped them as they strolled by. I learned from last year and am taking a poster tube.
• I am hoping to snag an ARC of Dawn Lairamore's Ivy's Ever After. Sounds like a great debut fantasy but it's hard to tell just from publisher's descriptions....I want an ARC b/c, after I have reviewed it, it would make a perfect prize for a program I'm planning.

Other than that, I am just going to let things happen! (hopefully not things like getting lost when I drive to the airport at 4am, or when taking the Boston public transport to my friend's house, or....yeah, I get lost a lot)

2014 ALSC Institute

 Originally published 9-21-14

I have been wanting to go to the ALSC Institute, ever since I first discovered there was such a thing, two years ago. Two years of saving, the surprise agreement of my library to pay for the conference itself, and copious amounts of angst (which are involved in any traveling I do) and I was on my way! (No, I am not scared of flying. I have punctuality anxiety instilled in me by the horrible Austin public transportation system and my family's inability to get anywhere on time so I am always in "OMG I'm Going To Be Late" mode.) I also tend to have Conference Anxiety because I am Not Good at the social aspect and...I have issues.

However, I hoped the positives of the conference would outweigh the ANGST, I told myself I could play in my newly-arranged apartment when I came back, I spent several hours on Monday printing out maps and detailed schedules, and I set out. This is the story of what I did. If you are looking for detailed thoughts on sessions, they're here! Also my musings on author talks, emotional manipulation, the difference between "breakfast" and "continental breakfast" and the lust for artichokes.

Wednesday - Traveling! This involved driving, a bus, a plane, running across the Phoenix airport (I hate Phoenix. Phoenix hates me.) another plane, and a train. I arrived! I met people on the train that I knew and followed them! I determinedly took myself down to Happy Hour, despite the fact that A. I do not drink and B. I dislike noisy crowds, and was rewarded by meeting some new friends. After we determined that neither food nor drink would be forthcoming any time soon (and at this point I had definitely run through the banana and trail mix which were my sustenance that day) we adjourned to a pub down the street which had awesome food and was quiet enough to talk without yelling.

Thursday - My roommate arrived late Wednesday night (and she had a much more stressful traveling story - luckily we're at least remotely similar in size and I could lend her clothes) and we moseyed downstairs. I was all set to go seek out breakfast and then realized there was a Guerrilla Storytime going on! Storytime trumped breakfast, which was totally worth it, especially when someone demonstrated the Popcorn Train song for us, which I had never heard before and it was awesome. My kids are generally pretty shy but I think I can adapt it for the kindergarteners at least.

Session 1: Thinking outside the Storytime box: Building your preschool programming repertoire

• This was the BEST session of the entire Institute and really started things on a high note. Marge Loch-Wouters, Amy Koester, Mel Depper, and Amy Commers did this and they were amazing. Since I canceled my preschool storytime this fall and am regrouping and preparing to completely revamp preschool services next year, this was absolutely perfect. Tons of great ideas for unique programs and their organization was spot-on and hilarious, as they popped up and down to describe programs and give the early literacy research and even helpful tips on presenting programs to your administration for approval.

Session 2: Easy programming for Discerning Tweens

• Realistically, not every session is going to be amazing. This was probably the most disappointing session I attended, mostly because I had high expectations and it didn't meet them. I did pick up a few ideas, but mostly spent the session annoyed that the presenters seemed so...out of touch. Probably the best moment was when one said not to feel discouraged if you "only have 20 or 30 tweens at your book club" and the entire room broke out into spontaneous laughter. Although I'm not usually one who cares about such things, it did bother me that they talked about giving tweens ownership over their own content and the audience raised questions about copyright, but nobody questioned the videos of interviews with kids being shown. It did remind me to keep working on replacing the pictures of kids on my programming blog though, which is an ongoing project.

I then found my new friends from the night before and we went and found lunch! I have never actually been to a Quiznos btw. We had so much fun talking we were almost late back to the next sessions!

Session 3: Be a winner: Inspired Youth Grant Writing

• There were some good tips in this, but it was mostly far, far beyond the scale of my own grant writing. As the presenters mentioned, it's a ton of time and work. Honestly, for me, I am more in need of staff and time than money. We're not super well off in regards to $$, but we're not too bad. Most of the grants they talked about mounted well into the thousands - I usually write requests or mini grants for well under 1,000. Anyways, I did get a few good tips that I'll be using when I write a little garden grant for our children's garden this fall.

Session 4: STEAM power your library

• I've been to previous sessions with Amy Koester before, so most of her introductory "why STEAM at your library" remarks are familiar to me, but I always like to attend her sessions because she's very practical and I always get some new ideas to add to my steam programs, plus encouragement for what I'm already doing. I got several new ideas for Mad Scientists Club and also for a new program I'm thinking about called, tentatively, Mini Makers.

We had a fairly large break here - there was a book signing for some of the authors, but I've never seen the point in standing in book signing lines, or really getting book signed (I missed out on the fan gene completely) so I took myself off to have a look at the Oakland library. It was about a 30 minute walk and it was hot. The area felt a little iffy to me - tons of graffiti and I've lived away from the city so long that my urban instincts are pretty meh. I arrived and my first thought was that it was a clunky old building, obviously suffering budget issues as they had severely curtailed hours, there was no a/c...but as I wandered about I became more and more impressed. The library was PACKED. Every chair had someone reading, studying, or just sitting quietly. The teen area amazing, a very friendly staff person obviously knew the kids' names and they were behaving beautifully, all using the space to read or hang out. The kids area had a similarly welcoming, busy hum. I chatted with some of the librarians and they were extremely nice - told me a little about their Thatcher Hurd murals and made a few deprecatory remarks about the after school crowd, but I told them their teen space especially was far superior in behavior to my own! If my library had a mezzanine they would be throwing stuff off it constantly....anyways, it was a really nice library - I hope they get the funding to stay open or expand their hours, as they're obviously well-used.

Next, we had dinner. Someone speculated it would be chicken, rice and green beans and they were WRONG. It was chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans with carrots. I had fun chatting with some of my new friends, although the din was truly awful. Then the opening general session with Steve Sheinkin. I'm not generally much for author talks, but I really enjoyed this. He has a rather dry sense of humor which appeals to me and he was very funny and informative in talking about his path to writing, his books, the research that goes into them, and the importance of telling the stories that have been overlooked or censored. He talked primarily about Port Chicago 50, (which I did stand in line to get an ARC of last year) but it was really interesting to hear more about it.

There was a children's trivia thing at a pub, but that was it for me and I went to bed.

Friday
There was a breakfast buffet and then after you'd picked a table an author magically appeared. Mike Twohy was at our table - he's done some very cute picture books about animals but it was too noisy for anyone but the people sitting directly next to him to actually talk. Which was ok, b/c see previous remarks on my disinterest in authors in general. I listened to some interesting discussions with a couple librarians from Missouri, who live/work near Ferguson.

After breakfast, there was an author panel about diversity. It was moderated by Jamie Campbell Naidoo, whom I'd never heard of (academic apparently?) and consisted of Tim Federle, Pam Munoz Ryan, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Gene Luen Yang. They all told stories about their middle school and tween years. Rita Williams-Garcia talked about how she had nothing going for her in school but a "strong left hook" (she told hilarious stories about her mother dressing her in cast-off clothes that she picked up after funerals of old ladies!). Pam Munoz Ryan talked about the power of imagination to allow children to relate to stories whether or not they were about their own culture. Gene Luen Yang had some very funny things to say about his childhood and experiences with comics.

The two things that I enjoyed most about the breakfast, to be totally honest, was I was very excited when the authors were asked what they had coming out next, that Yang is doing a middle grade series!! I feel so much better about him being in the Comics Squad anthology now. Also, when they had all the authors stand up, I eye-marked Susan Blackaby and pounced on her before she could escape to tell her how much my library loves the Brownie Groundhog books. Ok, maybe I can be a little fan-ish. I do like telling authors that kids like their books or they work well in storytime.

Session 5: Inspired Collaboration: Early Childhood Partnerships

• This was three speakers explaining three massive, like full-city partnerships, they worked on. It wasn't super useful, but I did get a couple ideas I can scale down to my small town. I think a couple other people were a little disgruntled as well, as they pointed out that it's really difficult to go out and do outreach when you're the only person at the children's desk and none of the other staff want to cover the children's desk (I got over this difficult by just not staffing the children's desk, but other than providing a moment of humor, I don't think it's necessarily an option for a lot of libraries)

We had a lunch break and I went to the Oakland Farmer's Market. So, most of the time I like living in my small town in Wisconsin. But every once in a while I miss living in the city and I miss living in a more temperate climate. Omigosh the fruit and the vegetables and it was all SO AMAZING. City blocks and they do it ALL YEAR ROUND. I bought a whole tub of raspberries for myself and a nectarine to eat later, and a walnut-pear tart and dried apricots and nectarines (and they're good dried fruit, not those horrible washed out apricots, but the really delicious ones that are dark orange and tangy) and then I was overcome by the number of pomegranates. So firm and red and plump and then omigosh ARTICHOKES. They had BUCKETS OF THEM. Big and green and obviously completely ripe and super delicious.

I had to make myself leave and go back to my hotel room for a cold shower (sheesh, not like that, dirty minds you librarians have. I was dripping with sweat - Oakland is hot) and then lie down for a while to recover before I tried to take a bag of artichokes and pomegranates back on the plane which I didn't think would end well for anyone. Can artichokes be classified as offensive weapons?

Session 6: Making Advocacy Awesome: A workshop for the everyday advocate

• I was actually on my way to Tech Access On A Budget, but I was comparing notes with some of my new friends and they said that was more geared to writing grants and I'd already done one grant session. So, I picked this instead. I have kind of...mixed feelings about advocacy. On the one hand, yes, it's something that's vitally important. On the other hand, several years ago I decided that I couldn't be "on" all the time and maintain my sanity. Somewhere between the middle schoolers showing up at my front door to see where I lived and spending 20 minutes in Walmart answering questions about checking out ebooks from the library, I decided that when I was not at work...I was not at work. I know some people are constantly "on" especially those who work in embattled systems, and I respect and honor them, but I can't do that. I consider that it's my director's job to be the public face of the library and do those kinds of things. I do spend a lot of time working when I'm not at the library - collection development, networking online with other librarians, etc. and I have no problems telling people I'm a librarian, but other than that, no. I have been told that, because I choose not to promote the library at every possible moment, I am "not a real librarian" (person's name not given because I've forgotten). ANYWAYS. The point is, I have Anxiety about advocacy. I mean, I know Jenna Nemec-Loise and I didn't really think she was going to be like that, but still Anxiety. It turned out to be pretty awesome! Jenna gave some really good tips on language and reframing how you say things which I am going to use when asking for budget/programming things from my administration. Katie, who was from the Multnomah system, had some really practical advice about organizing and planning advocacy and even a FORM which is awesome and I'm going to use all their tips in presenting my new preschool out of the box programming for next year! Yay Katie and Jenna!!

The next thing was Fairyland. Throughout this whole trip, I was kind of amazed at all the children's literature-related things there were in Oakland. I vaguely associated it with crime (no, I don't know why) and I knew my Dad grew up around there (Walnut Creek) but that was all. But I kept running into these "oh yeah, that happened here, they're from around here" and it was kind of surrealistic. Anyways. I missed the first bus, into which librarians crammed to the detriment of life and limb and the obvious bewilderment and shock of the poor driver. So, by the time I caught the second bus and got to Fairyland I had missed the very beginning of the author panel but I don't think I missed much. Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, Jennifer Holm, and Mac Barnett were completely hilarious. I don't know that it was really an educational presentation, but it was side-splittingly funny. I also have to say I am sorry I didn't get to meet Mac Barnett in person because I am burning to tell him my Count the Monkeys story (long story short, I was reading it to three year olds and asked them for their plan to get rid of the lumberjacks and one angelic little boy pipes up "shoot them all!")

After the presentation, we all went to different break-out sessions (assigned previously and announced at Fairyland). I was given Hands-On Science with Deborah Lee Rose. I had never really thought of her as a science author, although I've enjoyed her picture books, but apparently she writes for a number of science presentations. I will admit that at this point I was feeling rather hot and headachy and felt a little tired of the whole "don't be scared to try science" thing, but of course she couldn't know how much STEM programming I've been doing for the past couple years! She did show a lot of interesting things from the How to Smile database, which I've never really used before, so that was really interesting. She was also very easy to listen to, which was nice given aforementioned headache. She wins for "Most soothing author voice" and I'd like to record her reading aloud bedtime stories for my next storytime (-:)

We had some time to wander about Fairyland, took pictures, and saw a little puppet show of Peter Pan with marionettes (and a rather grisly end for Captain Hook). I'm going to make our giant collaborative program in 2016 a fairy tale theme I think...and some snacks and I found my group of new friends again and we all trekked back to town. We went down to the Eat Real Festival, but most of us wanted to sit down to eat by that time and so we ended up going to a diner, Buttercup something, which was really good and we had an awesome time swapping stories and ideas and our cards.

Then I went back to the hotel and collapsed into bed, from which I was woken at about 11:30pm by my next door neighbors whooping it up - literally. My first, sleep-befuddled thought was "wha...librarians party in bars not hotel rooms. That's comic conventions." My next, clearer thought was "that's not librarians". My third, very clear, thought "I'm not dealing with this." So I stuck in my earplugs and went back to bed. Thus when my roommate came in several hours later, apparently her first thought was "how the heck is she asleep through that!?" and she complained and then everything was blissfully quiet.

Saturday
Apparently, the difference between "breakfast" and "continental breakfast" is eggs or the lack thereof. Huh. Being the dedicated individual I am, I went to an 8am session even though I didn't think I was really interested in (or had already attended) all the sessions offered.

Session 7: Dewey-Lite: A solution to the non-fiction problem

• I really didn't think I was going to get much out of this, since I have already put my picture book neighborhoods into place (although I am nowhere near done. Don't tell my director...) but I thought it would be fun to see what the Darien librarians had to say. I was really glad I went! First, it fired me up for eventually changing over the juvenile non-fiction (not yet! don't panic any staff reading this!) and secondly it gave me some good ideas for improving the picture book neighborhood process. Finally, it was fun!

Session 8: Science of Poetry

• I was kind of done at this point and I am really leary of poetry. I know a lot of people love it, but it just leaves me cold, in general. Yes, I wrote a lot of (bad) poetry (it's all online!) and I have lots of poetry in my head, but I was just pretty doubtful about it. It wasn't a bad session - more geared towards teachers, as they emphasized their "take 5" program which is aimed at schools. It did give me some things to think about using poetry more in storytimes and working science and poetry into some of my activity table plans though, so not bad in the end.

The closing session was with Andrea Davis Pinkney. She's an amazing speaker (and has a stunning singing voice) but I have to admit it kind of left me cold. Because of some things in my own background and my own personality, anything that even vaguely smacks of emotional manipulation puts my back up and "inspiration" is included in that. I know I'm really alone in that and it doesn't affect most people this way, but I get really uncomfortable when people talk about libraries "saving lives" or we're all singing inspirational spirituals or talking about how amazing we are. I mean, I think libraries are important. I love my job. I absolutely enjoy that moment when I hand the perfect book to a kid and their face lights up, or when I spend the time to talk to a parent about finding books for their child and they're grateful for my help. I do get a little teary-eyed when teens come back and tell me they're readers now, even though they never read a book before. But the rhetoric makes me really uncomfortable. It was interesting to hear about her writing process and how she works with Brian Pinkney, as well as the research and inspiration for her books, but I have to admit that I don't purchase her picture book biographies because they don't circulate so I was a little blase. Anyways. I do think it would be amusing to put her and Rita Williams-Garcia together - they're such opposite characters in their approach to civil rights in their historical fiction and in their personalities (as seen on the stage) and you could tell that idea was going through everyone's heads when Ms. Pinkney demonstrated some boxing moves from the classes she'd taken for one of her books....

And the conference was over. But the fun did not end! One of my new friends, fellow blogger and Cybilite Maureen, set out with me to see how much of Oakland we could walk over. She visits yarn shops wherever she goes and I think this is an awesome idea, especially if we throw bead shops in there, which we did. We grabbed some pizza at a corner shop which was deliciously greasy, and then we wandered all over the Eat Real Festival. I feasted on a chocolate hazelnut tartine, which was a sort of pastry thing, and a blueberry meyer lemon frozen yoghurt popsicle from the Fat Pig which was delicious and then bought jam and honey and we had dinner and traded many, many, many library stories.

I finally tore myself away and drifted back to my hotel room in a happy haze of jam, honey and yarn. Which I then had to pack in my bags.

Sunday I went back and forth on paying for another night and just sleeping in the airport, but I finally decided that I didn't want to finish off my conference sleeping in yet another airport (bus stations are one thing - you kind of expect to be uncomfortable, you know? Although I can recommend the Indianapolis Greyhound station). However, I met a completely random couple of people in the elevator at the hotel on Saturday night who were also leaving at 4am in the morning and so the taxi I had to take at that ungodly hour was waaaay cheaper! Then I did plane, (Phoenix again, where they were about to take off and then taxied back to the airport to let someone off. See above remarks about my relationship with Phoenix) then another plane, which was consequently just a tad late so I had to wait for the next bus, but I got in fast enough that I snagged a seat on the crammed bus, back to Beloit, picked up my car, and finally home! (with a stop at Walmart for something to eat)

Conclusion: This was the BEST conference I have ever been to. I have a ton of ideas, perfectly in time for the overhaul of my programming I am contemplating next spring and the projects I am working on now. It was super easy for me to meet and hang out with people and get places and I enjoyed the whole thing immensely. I also have a serious longing for artichokes now...and realized I have no way of telling which honey sticks are which, so I guess I'll just have to taste them all!

ALA Midwinter 2013: Financials and General List of Obsessively Detailed Stuff I did

 Originally published 1-29-13

This is what my conference cost me and what I did there. Please note this is not a criticism of anybody who could not afford to go, could afford to go, spent more than I did, spent less than I did, or did something different. This isn't even the same as what I did at the last two Midwinters I was able to attend (San Diego and Boston). For one thing, I had regular meals. Also, the Roosevelt Hotel where we stayed was AWESOME. My library gave me Friday and Monday off from work. I was not compensated for Saturday-Sunday or the half of Tuesday I spent traveling. I seem to fall midway between those who were paid every day they were traveling and conferencing and those who had to take vacation days for all of it, so I am content. This is what my library did before and I think it's reasonable.

Financials (because, admit it, you really want to know how much money I spent)

• $110 Membership in ALA and ALSC (This is the first year I've been a member - it gets more expensive)
• $333 Bundled registration for midwinter and annual (reimbursed by my library)
• $281 Air fare to and from Seattle
• $69 (roundtrip bus fare from airport to Beloit and fee for leaving my car in their park 'n' ride)
• $50 Checked bag both ways (first way it had my mini suitcase inside it, going back they were both full of books!)
• $27 (shuttle from airport to hotel and back again)
• $209 Hotel (my half - shared with Sara the Librarian)
• $28 (misc. items from a crochet hook to lollipops, toothpaste to nuts for the trip)
• $7 postage for posters (my library would have reimbursed me for this, but I cannot find the receipt anywhere!)
• $120 food. This was a bit more than I had hoped to spend, I was trying to keep it under $100, but it's not bad for the 8 meals I ate (I didn't bother with food other than some nuts after breakfast on Monday until I got home Tuesday afternoon.)
• $30 Purchase of books at conference (reimbursed by my library)

Now, as to what I did...

• We left around 6:15 on Friday morning and made our way to the O'Hare airport via bus at Beloit. It was snowing. We arrived in Seattle around 2, checked in, registered, and had a very late lunch or early dinner, depending on how you look at it, at the Cheesecake Factory. Then we explored the exhibits for the first time (really the first time for Sara the Librarian!)
• We went to dinner with my committee at Tango. We discussed our libraries, our lives, blogging and review copies, STEM, after school programs, and a little about the topics our committee would be tackling on Sunday. Later had a long discussion about choosing and joining committees and potential ALSC presidents as we walked back to our hotel with another committee member (clarification: Sara the Librarian is not on my committee, she just came to observe)

• On Saturday, we dragged ourselves out of bed (time change!) and got crepes for breakfast, then went to the discussion on Dewey vs. Genre. It was, however, VERY full. We decided we didn't feel like sitting on the floor. We went to a publisher Book Buzz instead (where they present their upcoming list) and then to the exhibits, where we lost each other. I had a long talk with Peachtree, one of my favorite small publishers, about upcoming easy nonfiction and after we found each other again we stopped off at Simply Read Books for a long time, they are a small publisher from Canada with much awesomeness. Spent a long time looking at the various Make kits, then we went and got lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.
• Yes, we are aware Seattle has much awesome food. Every time people asked where we were eating, I would say "I have a very tight budget" then they would recommend places where the appetizers cost my entire budget for a whole meal. Clearly, my idea of affordable is not the generally accepted one.
• We returned to the exhibits and spent some time at the small press exhibit talking to the OwlKids representative, who is a friend of Jean Little! Small moment of fan awesomeness here.
• We talked to Playaway about their View products (it's not for us, but I just smile and nod), introduced Sara to Zest Books, and went back to Make to discuss which kits my library needs.
• I spent the evening reviewing my committee information and websites, discussing our schedule for Sunday and Monday, and we had appetizers and dessert for dinner at, yes, the Cheesecake Factory (did I mention it was down the street?)

• Sunday was committee day! My committee didn't start until 9:30, so we had time for breakfast (oh the yumminess of crepes! Also the affordableness!)
• The committee was awesome. Sara observed, I took notes, lots of people stopped by, and we had the most fun committee ever! Also, we stayed longer than anyone else. A few ideas outside our committee work - putting new book posters in bathrooms, putting rhymes and fingerplays over changing tables, and lots of trading of ideas and information.
• We then went back to the exhibits, talked to Simply Read books again for a while, I did some networking for board books for review with a small publisher and about 3:00 we went for lunner (you know where). We missed most of the Penguin presentation (our waiter disappeared and it took us forever to find him and get out) but we came in time to get their massive catalogs. Then there was a presentation from Scholastic and I spent some time talking to them about their new Branch series for beginning readers.
• Sara and I had a ripping party with the Penguin catalogs, then she went to a showing of Fat Kid Rules the World and I transcribed my 7 1/2 pages of notes from the committee meeting.

• Monday! Last day! Going the awards is a LOT more fun when you go with people! We went with my committee and some bloggers I grabbed at the last minute to join us. BOMB DESERVES ALL THE SHINY, YAYYYYY!!! Then we went out to breakfast with some No Flying No Tights folks at Lola's (we were going to Dahlia Cafe, but I guess they are just a bakery or something) and friends. The ideas flowed like milk and many business cards were exchanged. I can't wait to get the info on the mini-weapons program!
• We zipped back to the hotel, then to the exhibits again, wandered through and got the last-minute free books, I mailed my posters, then we had a little sight-seeing. We went to See's Candy (lollipops for me!) and Evolution (their strawberry lemonade was vastly inferior to their grapefruit juice). Then we went back to the hotel and figured out our travel plans, then walked back to Dahlia for treats (for Sara). The awesome Dahlia people found me a sewing shop where I could find a crochet hook and I stopped at a World Market (no turkish delight, alas). We stopped by a Barnes and Noble and I snapped a bunch of pictures with my phone, then our trip was over.
• And I spent from 5:30pm on Monday to 12:15pm on Tuesday on planes, in airports, and on buses, but that's another story.

ALA: The conference

 Originally published 7-2-13

This is actually the first ALA where I really attended sessions. I had committee meetings at midwinter, but I was so stressed and couldn't figure out how the schedule worked, so I didn't really go to anything else. Anyways, bottom line: The stuff I went to was generally good and I enjoyed it, but I think people are right when they say that for actual "conference" stuff you should go to your state conference or ALSC Institute (which sounds awesome and I hope to go in 2014 if I have enough money). My personal preference for attending ALA for exhibits is Midwinter - Annual has too many authors! I know this sounds weird and contrary to what most people want, but I am really, really not a "celebrity author" fan and I want to talk to the publishers/publicists and look at the books that are forthcoming, not stand in line for a couple hours to get a scribbled signature on a book my library already owns. Annual is annoying in this respect (for me anyways) because the lines are in the way and the publicists won't talk to you, they're busy talking to the people in the signing line. I get that it's a money/marketing thing, but anyways Midwinter is my preference.

Friday

• We've had an extra-busy summer, so I finally grabbed an hour or two to print out maps and skim the schedule last Monday. Then on Thursday kindly friends informed me about the gazillions of people flooding into Chicago in celebration of hockey. Yay. So I decided to take a later train, worked Friday morning, got a ride to the train station, and arrived in Chicago around 3:30. I then walked over to my hotel, which turned out to be closer to 2 miles than 1 mile since I'd written down the wrong address. Oh well. After a little recovery time and an apple, I rode the shuttle down to register and dip my toes into the exhibit hall. Mostly just looked and then waited a looong time for the shuttle and went back to my hotel and ate crackers and cheese. (you wanted to know everything I ate, right?)

Saturday

• I got up at 7, drank some fruit, and went to catch the shuttle a little before 8. This was NOT enough time, as I didn't get to the conference center until 8:45 and missed half of the program I was going to attend. This was when I discovered that ending times on the scheduler are totally arbitrary. It said it was ending at 10:30 and it ended at 9. Anyways, lots of good ideas - it was 20 ideas for under $20 or something like that.
• Then I wandered around until I found the Scholastic Book Buzz. These lists of "what I did" don't include all the walking! Everything was at opposite ends of the conference center and I don't know how often I traversed it, but it was A LOT. Why do publicists always sound like they're reading a script? Shouldn't they be able to booktalk freestyle? I guess it's unreasonable to expect them to booktalk their titles the way I do at schools, but I bet you I could get people more excited. Anyways, I am definitely buying their latest multi-platform series, Spirit Animals (fantasy, kind of a rip-off of His Dark Materials sounds like) and although I will groan about it, I will buy the next 39 Clues series. They've also got several historical fiction, graphic novels, and nonfiction about war which will be popular.
• Then I went (other end of the exhibit hall of course) to another program idea session, Take 10 for Tweens and Teens or something like that. It was extremely crowded but I managed to get a standing spot near the door and got some good ideas. I left half-way through because the next presenter was too quiet to hear, especially with people holding the door open and carrying on their own conversations in my ear.
• Exhibit hall, was very excited to touch Nathan Hale's latest, about the Donner Party and I got a galley of the two newest Beaver Brothers adventures and Tamora Pierce's Battle Magic! That last was totally a fluke - I almost never pick up teen galleys and I certainly never ask for the really hot items but I happened to be standing there when they were handing them out.
• If you are missing lunch in here, it's b/c I didn't have any. I had some peanuts and a couple cheese sticks in my bag.
• I wanted to go to a couple poster sessions, but they really should have put Melissa Depper's early literacy poster on the outside - the crowd was impossible to get through. I did catch bits and pieces of it. The STEM storytimes display was interesting and I'm looking forward to getting the pdfs via email. I can see that being something I'd use in preschool interactive (after I've made radical changes to collaborate with the schools, see next session!)
• I was also really excited to see, as I drifted by the author signings that Steve Sheinkin has a new book! Pier 59 or something like that - it's in my camera (I decided the easiest way to keep track of new books I'm interested in that don't have galleys is to take pictures. Of course, I then have to remember to go through the pictures - I found some still on there from Midwinter last January!) I stopped at Lerner and had a discussion about their Graphic Universe line, especially why Mortensen didn't work for me or my library and whether there will be more Miss Annie (yes!)
• Next I went to Dynamic Duos: Building and Sustaining Public and School Library Connections. This was a little dry, but sparked a LOT of ideas for me, especially the first two presenters. The one from Stratford, CT talked about how they organized regular tours for all their 2nd and 6th grade classes and the other librarian talked about monthly visits to the high school during lunch time. The third speaker I kind of zoned out on, she was talking about educating librarians about collaboration and at the end got all choked up over her idea of every library having their own "Youth Literacy Consultant" I have still to convince my director to even consider a part-time teen librarian and I'm currently trying to get a part-time summer assistant for next year, so I kind of rolled my eyes on this. Anyways, I really enjoyed the first two speakers and have some new ideas for outreach.
• Then back to the exhibit hall, where I was excited to meet Anastasia Suen. We've "known" each other online in the blogging world and it was fun to connect in person. She has a beginning chapter cheerleader series that's cute, although I'm not adding anything new in this area at my library right now.
• I glimpsed James Preller from afar - I am really excited about his new Scary Stories series for young readers and will have a review up in October for my Read Scary series.
• I wanted to go to the Guerrilla Storytime, but first I couldn't figure out where it was, and then I discovered that the bag check (where I'd left my bag of books) and the departure gate (from whence my colleagues were leaving on a bus hopefully with my bag) were on opposite sides of the conference center, so I spent a while trudging to and fro. I did get to the program near the end and got to say hi to Melissa Depper and see some fun ideas, especially for music and movement.
• I then went to a book buzz for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, whose publicists are a little more animated. I don't really see the point of promoting things like David Wiesner's Mr. Wuffles - everybody is going to buy it anyways, right? However, they had some other things that looked interesting, like a new Catherine Jinks title.
• I got back to the exhibit hall in time to meet April Pulley Sayre before she left and had a nice chat with her about titles promoting healthy eating, and bought a signed copy of Here come the humpbacks, which I fortunately have not ordered yet. I also stopped by Albert Whitman to meet Kashmira Sheth and say how much we like her book, No Dogs Allowed Rule and she should write more *hint hint publisher*
• And that was it. The lights went off, I dragged my weary self homewards via shuttle bus, getting back to the hotel around 6pm, and it was just me, the crackers and cheese, and my notes and photos to transcribe. I do not know how people have the energy to go out again in the evening!

Sunday

• I drank some more fruit and left really, really early, determined not to be late. I got there 30 minutes early which was fine since I was going to the Calde-Tots program with my committee so we had time to chat. I wasn't sure if I'd actually enjoy this or not (see previous remarks about celebrity authors) but it turned out really good. I enjoyed listening to Eric Rohmann, Beth Krommes, and Chris Raschka (even if I'm not a huge fan of his art) and Megan Lambert from the Eric Carle Museum had many, many, AWESOME ideas. I have to keep reminding myself that my director said no more new programs (except my winter reading program and my Mad Scientists Club) because I had a great idea for an after school stories/art club.
• We'd forfeited our space in the all-committee meeting, so we then grabbed some chairs and had a committee meeting in the hallway. I'm sorry I could only be on the committee for a year because it was a really good experience and I actually enjoyed it (who knew committees could be fun?) but I just have two much work to do and not enough money to stay on. Anyways, what I got was good!
• I then went and had actual lunch with one of my committee members - we are the two small public librarians. I feel it forms a bond. Plus, we didn't have anything to attend until 1pm.
• This time, I managed to find the Preschool Discussion Group and it was great! Lots of great STEM ideas and I met a lot of people I only know online. Hmmm, definitely think I need STEM Storytime. I certainly have enough ideas...I had planned to go to another STEM presentation, but this was so interesting I stayed the whole time.
• Then back to the exhibit hall where I met SUSAN STOCKDALE. Ok, maybe I do like authors, I just don't like the big celebrity ones. Anyways, I got to tell her how we use her books over and over in storytime and I bought the board book versions to add to our collection. I also bought 2 more counting books from Alison Formento, who was wearing a very stylish fish hat.
• I was walking by another publisher and I was "is that..." and it WAS Cynthia Voigt and there was no line! I've been having trouble getting her older books to circulate, but I'm replacing them with the new covers and hope that will revive interest. Anyways, I bought a new copy of Solitary Blue for myself and got to talk to her for a few minutes about how much I loved it.
• Then I did a complete circuit of the exhibits hall. My director was here Saturday so if she wanted to add any new technology or anything (I think she was interested in a new self-check machine) I wanted to know what she was talking about, plus I like looking at the furniture, although the prices can be ridiculous. One place, I think it was Discover or something, had these kind of cool modular tables - train, lego, tinker toys, etc. and she casually tosses off that one table section starts at about $2,500. Eeek! My train table (plus train) cost about $200 and that was a stretch!
• I was drifting through the artists alley on my way out as things were closing down and I MET FAITH ERIC HICKS!!! Ok, maybe I am fangirlish about some authors. But she is supremely AWESOME! I bought a copy of Brain Camp for her to autograph. It's not my absolute favorite, but it's one I don't own yet (of course my library owns every one of her books and I have most of them, just not that one.) I have been a fan since Zombies Calling, so that was really cool. FAITH ERIN HICKS
• Got back to my hotel around 6 and me, the apple and the cheese sticks settled in to process the day and pack to be ready to leave tomorrow.

Monday

• Went out for breakfast at Yolk with my colleagues from No Flying No Tights and other like-minded individuals (if you're keeping track of my meals, you have probably figured out by now that my library is paying for two meals (-:)
• Then back to the hotel to pack up and check out, then down to the conference center where I checked all my bags. I had sort of planned to go to some stuff, but I was pretty conferenced-out by then, so I went to check that I could get to Ogilvie on the Metra from the conference center...and I couldn't. Arggh! Spent a lot of time wandering from information booth to information booth to figure out how I was getting myself and my bags back to the train station.
• Then I went to the exhibit hall. Publishers fall into two categories on the last day. Either they sell their books off at a discount or they let people into their booths a few at a time to pick free books. Unfortunately, they do not always advertise into which camp they are falling and people get confused. Generally, if there's a line (often starting at 10 or 11 for the giveaways at 12) the books will be free, if there's no line they are being sold. I refuse to stand in line forever for a couple free books, but I do highly recommend hitting the nonfiction publishers, especially Lerner and Abdo. You can get their books at a huge discount and if you're not paying shipping it's well worth it. I purchased a lot of books, picked up a few free books, and somehow accidentally got into a signing line for Steve Sheinkin, which was cool. I wanted the galley of his new book, but you had to buy a copy of his other title to get it and I gave in and bought a signed copy of Bomb to be a prize. I did stand in line at Capstone for about half an hour, but I was talking to a librarian from Wisconsin, so that was time well-spent.
• I went to one last session, Unprogramming for school-age audiences with Amy Koester and Marge Loch-Wouters which was good. Lots of ideas and Marge is always fun and inspiring to listen to. Personally, I've beat their unprogramming planning time of one hour - my after school clubs have to be set up in 30 minutes! Speed programming!
• I had intended to go to one last session on school/library collaboration to prevent summer slide, but they were telling everyone to sit at the tables and handing out pads and it was all too...school-ish. I just couldn't sit still any longer, so I took off.
• Collected my bags, repacked, waited for the shuttle, shuttle bus, taxi, metra, waited again (of course there was an accident blocking the small country road Sara the Librarian was coming on to get me), back to the library, picked up my car and finally got home at 9pm.

Final Notes

• Ignore all those blog posts about bringing sweaters because the conference center is sooo cold. It cannot be cold enough for me.
• I found grocery stories in Chicago, so next time I will know where to find food!
• I met everyone I wanted to meet, including old friends from school (all except for Meg Schmaus. Are you still out there Meg?) without going to any evening parties or bars. So THERE people who keep bugging me to be more "social" and gasping in horror that I don't go to anything after 6pm.

Gallison flower shop puzzle

 

Getting Lost in Waukesha: The Full Saga

 Originally published 2-6-2010

You've been waiting for this, right? Well, you're getting it anyways. So. Last Friday I attended a Summer Reading Program workshop in the vicinity of Waukesha. The way local conferences work is this: I drive (b/c Sara The Librarian hates to drive) and she navigates (b/c I get lost constantly and with hopeless regularity). All went well and we only got lost twice, and it was just little lostness, not my normal 30 minutes out of the way where on earth AM I? lostness.

After our amazing conference, during which we were inspired and instructed by Marge Loch-Wouters (and I am even now working on guilt-free programming for the summer and a whole new scheme for the library blog) someone said "you should go see the new children's department at the Waukesha library!"

"Hmm," said Sara The Librarian. "It's probably not a good idea. We don't have directions."

"Nonsense!" Said I, still in my enthusiastic post-Marge state. "There's a librarian from the Waukesha system who can give us directions. She's got a cool little ipod thing where you can look at maps. It's only three turns and less than five miles away!"

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, more left turns than I have made in my whole driving history, and we finally arrived. See, what no one had told us was that Waukesha's road grid was laid out by an insane architect 40 years ago.

Streets at intersections spread out like an octopus's arms and do not line up at all. When you are fortunate enough to encounter an actual street sign, it is half the size of normal street signs and strategically placed so that the only way you can see it is over your shoulder as you pass by it, thus discovering you are headed in the wrong direction. Different streets, which do not join up, have the same names. One way streets pop up without warning and disappear just as unnervingly. Streets change their names. Streets with names adhere closely to the Wisconsin-rule-of-street-naming; that all major streets in cities within 20 miles of each other must bear the same names.

But we made it! We arrived! We wandered through the children's department, which was rather nice, still dazed from our state of extended lostness. But we were smart. We were not about to fling ourselves back into the maw of Waukesha's streets without help. We went to the reference librarian for directions.

"One right turn, follow Grand Street, you'll come to the highway" She said.

We set off. Five blocks later, Grand Street ENDED in a street of a totally different name. Now, I do not bear this librarian any ill will. Three years later, there are probably people still hopelessly lost in Illinois from my stint in reference there. I cannot remember the names of the streets bordering my own library. I do not even attempt to give directions.

However, at the time we were quite unhappy about this. I saw a somewhat vacuous youth on the street.

"I'm going to ask" said I, with determination.

"That won't help," said Sara The Librarian. "That guy looks creepy."

"What are we, guys?" said I. "I'm going to ask for directions."

I rolled down my window. The guy looked at us blankly. "Highway 43?" I asked hopefully.

"Uh...."

At this point a car drove up. A much-earringed young woman stuck her head out the window, partially obscuring the bushy-haired and bearded guy in the passenger seat. "What do you want?" she asked somewhat aggressively.

Ah. My kind of people. (Hey, I grew up in Austin)

"Highway 43?"

"Do you know where Racine Ave. is?"

"No. We've never been here before."

"You've never been here before??" Looks of obvious shock that we had attempted to dare the horrors of Waukesha's streets. Shaking her head sadly, "Follow us."

And those amazing, lovely, obviously not-native-Waukeshians, led us through a short but complex maze of streets until we reached....

The highway!!

Needless to say, Waukesha has been added to the list Sara The Librarian and I keep of Places-We-Do-Not-Go.

On the bright side, I discovered at the Waukesha library that there are actual Geronimo Stilton comics. I had not known this and it is a good thing to know.

Ravensburger ocean puzzle

 I started this one months ago, but only finally finished it this week while listening to Dr. Thorndyke mysteries.

Stories from the library; or, Found in my storage room

 September 2008

empty fish aquarium (small)
empty lizard terrarium (small)
portable turntable (but no lps)
set of 10 mini rolling pins
authentic native american rain-maker (or so the tag says)
window cling balloons
2 small quilts made of squares children decorated
an old paper bag full of plastic cups
tons more pipe-cleaners than i thought i had
fingerpaint paper (so that's what was in that flat cardboard thing!)
and several lifetime supplies of tracing paper

[Updated October 2011 - I'm STILL using that tracing paper and it has not noticeably diminished]

Stories from the library: Always know your phone number; or, taxidermy and summer reading prizes

August 2008

 So, we had our end-of-summer-reading party last Tuesday. It was very well-attended, only one child broke down in tears, the face-painting was marvelous, and we ate all the cookies.

Next day, I had to call all those whose names were drawn for prizes but weren't present.

One slip said simply "Sophie" and a phone number.

I called the phone number...."Hello! This is the library, Sophie has won a prize!"

Pause.

"Who?"

"Um, Sophie? She won a prize in our summer reading contest?"

"This is a taxidermy shop. There's no Sophie here."

I never did find out who Sophie was.

Stories from the library: I win!

February 2010

 My "I've only read 3 books in my life" kid was back again today....obviously, Alex Rider didn't work for him. Too long. He spends almost every afternoon here - mostly sleeping. "You can't sleep here" I told him firmly. "I'm bored!" he said. "Read a book. There are thousands of books around you." "Reading makes my head hurt." "I will find you a book that does not make your head hurt."

Indiana Jones comics? No.

Josh Elder's Mail Order Ninja. No.

I had to go to storytime. I stuck my head out again....and he was reading Mail Order Ninja.

We all win!

Stories from the library: Happy little moments

 October 2010

This has been one crazy week. So far, we've had three visits from the police, a total program attendance hovering near the 250 mark, a huge glitch in our inventory process, and I've been out for two days. Yes, I took two days of vacation to clean my apartment and put together my new four poster bed from Ikea. Hey, it's a big bed!

In the midst of the craziness, it's nice to remember the small happy moments.

One of my little storytime girls showed up at the library yesterday morning, dressed in pastel leotard, tights, and tiara with her hair in a neat little bun. I asked if she was going to ballet, but no, mom said she was on her way to a princess tea party! Apparently the rest of her costume was in the car. I took a second look at her, and then hastily scooped Ella Bella Ballerina and the Sleeping Beauty by James Mayhew off the shelf. "I think you'll like this." She took one look at the cover - did I mention she looks a bit like Ella Bella? and then her whole face lit up, she shyly took it out of my hands and, clutching it tightly, trotted happily off to the circulation desk. Ella Bella never fails and I love handing it to the shy little girls in pink!

One of my twelve year olds has had his card blocked with fines for a while. I finally sat him down and instructed him to fill out the read off your fines form - NOW. We got his card unblocked and he went off to use the computer...then wandered back. "uh...is that Dragonbreath book on the shelf?" Score! I collected him for our teen (well, middle school) book club in early October and on the books I showed was Dragonbreath - he actually remembered the title and wanted to read it enough to ask about it almost three weeks later! This from a kid who says he "doesn't read at all".

Back to cleaning!

Stories from the library: This is Wednesday; or, Don't eat the daffodils!

May 2013:

This one is worthy of a post all to itself. So, Wednesday. Always a somewhat crazy day. I did storytime in the morning, with no cd player, then ran around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to finish all the other stuff I had to do before I went on the information desk at 2:30 and all the middle schoolers showed up. The following exchanges ensued:

Girls: Ms. Jennifer, we were looking for you, we have something for you!
*They present me with a daffodil*
Me: Aww, thanks
Girls: And you know what, they're edible too!
*produce more daffodils and start EATING THEM*
Me: WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU CRAZY THOSE ARE POISONOUS!!!
Girls: Uh...they are?
Me: I'm pretty sure, most bulbs are.
*Girls race off to bathroom to spit out petals and rinse their mouths with much panicked giggling*

Later...I go upstairs to check on the teen room

Me: Did you girls wash them all out, nobody actually ate any?
Girls: Yeah, we rinsed our mouths. But J ate a whole one.

(J is a high school freshman with poor impulse control, even for the average hs guy. He has just recently been allowed back in the library after being kicked out for an extended period of time b/c he annoyed our director beyond bearing by doing the Harlem Shake on one of our tables)

Me: WHAT
J: Uh...are they really poisonous?
Me: Yes. I googled it.
J: I didn't actually eat it. Much. I rinsed my mouth out.
Me: If you feel sick, go outside. I am not cleaning up vomit again.

Later...director kicks out J and other boys.

*Boys wander out, jostling each other and using inappropriate language (which is probably why they got kicked out in the first place)*
Me: Don't let J go off by himself in case he has convulsions!
Boys: Yeah, sure.
Other patrons: *stare at the crazy librarian*

Then I had a lengthy conversation with the same group of girls about why they had to wear shoes in the library, culminating in my tried and true response "If I have to explain why it's not allowed, you're not mature enough to be in the library by yourself" and I added that we were like a restaurant - no shirt, no shoes, no service. Which was a bad idea b/c they immediately wanted to know how much they had to be wearing for it to qualify as a shirt. I finally just laughed and told them to leave, so they went out and hung out on the back steps of the library, which lead to the staff entrance, so when I was leaving we somehow ended up discussing eating kool-aid and the Cinnamon Test and why we weren't going to do it at the next Middle School Madness.

And that was Wednesday.

[Addendum. Really shouldn't have said that about the no shirt no shoes no service, b/c a bunch of the boys showed up with no shoes on Thursday, reference assistant told them they couldn't come in without shoes, and apparently the girls had passed on what I said and this somehow inspired them to all start stripping off in the lobby. Well, just their shirts, but combining the skinniness of the guys and the fashion in low-riding pants...so I had to go yell at them that THE LOBBY IS NOT A LOCKER GO CHANGE IN THE RESTROOM which is five feet away. Oy. And then we called the police, but that was a different group of teens.]

Stories from the library

Nine-year-old girl: "Oh no, I lost my nail clippers!"
Me: "Why did you bring nail clippers to Mad Scientists Club?"
Girl: "Because they have a tiny knife on them."
Me: "And you need this because...?"
Girl, giving me a look of ultimate scorn, "in case I get kidnapped and tied up and have to cut my way free."
Me: "ah. It's good to be prepared."
Girl: "Yep, that's what I think."

They moved to Montana later - I hope Montana was prepared for the force of nature that was arriving.

Stories from the library

April 2018

Middle schooler: "Why are you always so serious?"
Me, straight face: "Dealing with you has deadened my soul."
Middle schooler: "You came to our school and you were smiling! You looked all excited and happy!"
Me: "That was fake."

Sarcasm is an important communication genre. Also, this middle schooler had been playing weird sound apps on their phone all week and every time I told them to knock it off, they declared I couldn't hear it because the sounds couldn't be heard by old people.

Stories from the library

April 2018

Listening to the beep of the self-checkout, I realized I was hearing a little voice accompanying it. I looked over and saw a little curly head peeking over the top of the desk. 

Every time their parent swiped a book across the pad, they were announcing "TA-DA!"

RFID is endlessly entertaining.

The follow-up story to this is that I got so used to the "TA-DA!" when showing kids how to use the self-checkout that when I went to vote, slid my ballot into the machine and it beeped I automatically said "TA-DA!" Fortunately for my (minimal) dignity, the election volunteer sitting there is mostly deaf.

Stories from the library

 April 2018

Toddler to mom "Candy?"

Mom "there is no candy!"

Me "umm.... I'm eating peppermints"

Toddler "Want peppermints!"

Me "sorry, the last one is in my mouth"

*life is full of disappointments*

Stories from the library

March 2018

I am reading John Himmelman's Chickens to the rescue to the four year olds at school. We all really REALLY enjoy pumping our fists and yelling "chickens toooo the RESCUUUUE!!!"

But then I realize that most of them won't know what a watch is. So, when Farmer Greenstalk drops his watch down the well, I change it to "dropped his cellphone down the well." 

Then a small voice from the back pipes up "what's a well?"

Stories from the library

May 2018

Looking out the window at our insect water dish, a shallow bowl with glass marbles...

Kid: "Is that weird dish for the bees?"

Me: "Yep, it's like a birdbath but for bees and other insects. The pebbles are in there so they can get a drink without drowning."

Kid's parent, with interest: "I didn't know that. I told Kid they were a liar."

Me....

Well, we all learned something today?

Stories from the library

June 2018

 Me to 2nd grader, "I can't wait to see your class for their field trip at the library! We're going to do a really cool and messy art project."

2nd grader, looks at me dubiously, "I don't like messy things. Or anything that gets my hands messy. Or art projects that make a mess. I don't like getting clean afterwards either."

Me, "so basically you like to preserve your equilibrium at all times"

2nd grader, "what?"

Me, "you don't like to change"

2nd grader, still dubious now that I have been revealed as the creator of mess and not just the purveyor of awesome books "can I just read a book instead?"

Stories from the library

 June 2018

A middle school kid tried to con me out of a fine amnesty coupon for a friend (who was not in the age bracket for the coupons). 

I said, "No, you're just going to give it to your friend."

Kid gives me a shocked look, "You don't know that!"

Me, "Yes, I do. I can read you like a book."

Dramatic pause

"Because I am a librarian!"

(Yes, the older friend did get their fines taken care of.)

Stories from the library

 July 2018

Visiting a young fours class. I had distributed beading bags, with a few beads and a piece of string. I'd also brought pipe cleaners, which are easier for little hands.

One young miscreant, having strung his beads on his two striped pipe cleaners, announced he was going to put them in his backpack.

Me "Let's twist the ends so the beads don't fall off. What is this going to be? A crown? A necklace?"

Kid, looks thoughtfully at his pipe cleaners in either hand and STICKS THEM IN HIS EARS

Kid "ouch!"

Me "what did you expect??"

Kid "I wanted to have donkey ears"

Asian pattern skirt for Sara

 I made this skirt for a friend - my mom did the basting and gathering of the tiers, b/c I don't like doing that part, but her arthritis makes it hard for her to do it, so she might not want to do it again. I did have the wrong measurements at first and had to take apart and add to the waistband and first tier.

Felt hearts

 Project for book club in February