Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

Lately I feel like there's just not enough time in the day. I try really hard to stick to my 40 hour week, but last week I worked closer to 50 hours, which is ok, except I haven't worked out since before I moved and haven't been cooking as much as I should and dammit, my pants are fitting a little snugger! I love my job, I just wish the days were longer, or could go by a little slower so I could everything I needed to done. I guess if that's the worst complaint after my first month and a half, I am good. :) So, what have I been doing lately? A lot. I am really proud of all I've accomplished since I started! And the team I work with is phenomenal and always so willing. Lately I've: Weeded the Reference collections, Adult's and Children's, because do we really need 13 dictionaries? Fortunately I was able to donate a set of encyclopedias to the local high school, since the set I wanted to get rid of is more current than theirs. Also, I learned from St...

Today besides my usual Babies storytime, I also read to two groups of 3-4 year olds at a nearby pre-school. The first storytime group in the morning was very receptive. Our theme was underwater life so I brought in Eric Carle's Mister Seahorse , which is cool because it has clear plastic sheets that cover up some of the fish, sea life, etc., and which the kids love because they try and guess what's behind it, etc. I also brought along a pop-up book about sea creatures, which I had "Wally the Whale" (a puppet) help us read--he turned the pages while I read the story, etc., except Wally liked to try and eat the pages. (The kids loved this). It was fun and another "I love my job moment," that is until one little girl started acting like a cat and "meowing" at me, and then decided to lick my pant legs...umm? On my lunch break I went to the local, WONDERFUL deli and was eating my sandwich and reading Pride & Prejudice when a woman came up to me...

Seriously, I love being a Children's Librarian. I did a reading a couple weeks back at one of the local elementary schools. I read books to 2nd graders for about a half an hour. I carefully chose my books, trying to get crowd pleasers that would show the kids that, "reading is fun," etc., so I wound up taking: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (my favorite) Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steg The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton (an oldy, but still a favorite story of mine!) (Also any Librarian might notice that I am also trying to innundate the little monsters with award winners: Where the Wild Things Are, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and The Little House are all Caldecott Medal Winners . Anyway, I was a little intimidated at first--reading to 60+ staring eyes--but once I started reading things went great and the kids seemed interested. Anyway, today I received a stack of Thank-you lett...

This will be short since I am one break for only 20 minutes more. The library gig--I AM LOVING IT! I love, love, love what I do. I was really panicking at the end of Grad School, thinking that I couldn't believe that I had chosen a career that would put me around people all day, working customer service. But I love it! I smile at children, I am polite to old people, I help people get things, I even smile when people are crochety...who have I turned into!?? This is not the normal Monster. Finishing Grad School and putting behind me the loads of reading and papers and working too many hours with not even sleep has transformed me; this caterpillar has fallen from the cocoon. I am so glad I picked this career field, I love what I do, and I am even thinking that being a Children's Librarian is fun--a thought that I could not stomach when I was still in school. This might just be the honeymoon phase my friend warned, and that may be true, but I am savoring it! Worked the Reference De...