It's a Forever Book

The Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving Break were parent conference days at my school.  Normally the library would be pretty quiet during conferences - a time to catch up on the always overflowing shelving or spine label repair.  Not this time though.

"Are you the librarian?"

"We brought our ticket."

"They said you had a book for us?"


December marks the beginning of our 5th One School, One Book celebration.  If you're not familiar with One School One Book - it is a family literacy program where every family and staff member receive a copy of same book during the same time period.  It's like nightly reading, only better.

For the next three weeks we will be reading and sharing Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle with our school community.  I love this program.  It's a pretty amazing feeling to hand a student or a family a book, and explain, " It's a gift, a forever book.  You don't have to return it."

Five boxes just like this - ready to go!

Books sorted by class

We do lots of things to encourage students to read from the book each night with their families.  We introduced the coming book to families during a literacy night with a staff skit.  There's nothing quite like wearing paper mouse ears  and singing "Three blind mice" in front of your school community to make you feel like a celebrity during lunch duty the next day!

I'm lucky to work with some amazingly supportive colleagues!

During parent conferences families received a ticket that could be brought to the library in exchange for a copy of the book.  What an incredible experience.  I've never had the chance to talk with so many families about reading to their kids before.  Over two days I was able to personally encourage nightly reading with almost 150 families. AMAZING!  During these conversations I also shared a reading calendar that marks out how the book will be read and explained that daily trivia questions that go along with the reading would be announced every morning over the intercom.  It was great to see how many parents had fond memories of reading this same book when they were younger and watch them exclaim to their child that "They'll love this book!"  It was even better to watch them walk out with the book in hand and smiles on faces.

To help pique interest I always create a display outside the library that goes along with the book.  This year I'll be posting pictures of trivia winners on the display as well.  When we finish reading, we'll celebrate the end of the book by hosting a Family Movie Night and we'll show The Mouse and the Motorcycle movie (Yep  - 1986, Fred Savage, stop-motion - the very one and the same!)

Best of all though, will be the conversations over the next three weeks.  The discussions that will happen as we read the book.  The chance to laugh together about a character's antics or shake our heads collectively in disbelief at the turn of events. It's about building a community of readers and the forever habit of reading.  This is what it's all about.

A Shelf Full of Ikigai

"I love what I do.  I am a librarian."

I find myself voicing this refrain pretty regularly.  It comes up in conversations with friends, family members who call to see how it's going, and coworkers who comment on my upbeat nature.  Until just recently I didn't really have a good way to explain it - I'd gush about the books, literacy, working with kids - everything.   A simple question of "How are you doing?"  would end 20 minutes later with me still bubbling over with joyous explanations and the asker smiling and slowly..backing.. away....

But now I have a new response.

"Ikigai"

I learned about this word just yesterday. My son and I were working in the garage and listening to a holiday radio show.  In between choruses of "Jingle Bells" and "Frosty the Snowman" the radio DJ would come on and share different facts and interesting articles.  During one of these pauses the DJ talked about research that looked at how some people live to be 100.  There were of course the tips about eating less meat and moving more naturally.  But there was also ikigai.  Pronounced ee-key-guy, this is the Japanese concept for "Why I wake up in the morning", or more simply "Reason for being".  I was struck by the simplicity of the word and and enormity of all that it means, and then it hit me -  a library is full of ikigai.

You'll see it in quotes all over the internet about libraries and how they have been the link to happiness:

"I always felt, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK."

- Maya Angelou

"Without libraries what do we have?  We have no past and no future."

-Ray Bradbury

"When I got my library card, that's when my life began."

-Rita Mae Brown

What an amazing thing to be a part of.  Every day when the readers come there is this possibility.  There is this chance that inside this space, inside a book, there is a reason for being for each of us. 

This. 

This is why I love my job.  I have found my ikigai.  And part of what I do helps others find their ikigai too.

We Are the Curators of Curiosity - the Guardians of Imagination

It's a week past Halloween.  The sugary dance of children who have raided and consumed sweets from their goodie bags on the way to school has tempered, their pockets now emptied of secretly stashed bite size chocolates.  As an adult it's easy to be sidelined by the sugar rush associated with this holiday - to focus solely on the loot and not the story behind the outstretched hands at your door.

My school manages Halloween each year by inviting students to celebrate through a storybook parade.  Students are encouraged to come dressed as their favorite character.  Now, as librarians we know that there are little, if any, desired characters or costumes that can't be linked back to a literacy source of some kind.  This is where our mad skills as librarians, the curators of curiosity and guardians of imagination come into play.

Students typically fall into two categories in October:

• those who love the story and know exactly which character they will be
• those who love an idea/character and haven't yet met the story

It is this second category of student I'm particularly interested in. I relish this conversation starter,

"Mrs. G, do you have any books about......"   

(Here is my opportunity to connect a reader! My librarian heart is all a-twitter.......)

"So, you want to be a zombie hunter for Halloween?  Hmmmm, have you seen this poetry book called Zombies: Evacuate the School! ?"

Zombies! Evacuate the School! by Sara Holbrook

"Mrs. G, I want to be Red Riding Hood for Halloween."

(Internal Squeal! I know the perfect book.....)

"Really?  Well, have you seen this new book?  It's based on Little Red...."

Little Red Writing by Joan Holub

 When Halloween finally sidles up and knocks on our door I'm thrilled to see the story book characters that parade around our school. Fairy tales and adventures, sci-fi and fantasy, each has it's own representative.  My work here has just begun though.  As the storybook parade winds down and the Draculas return to 2nd grade spelling, a student approached me

 "Mrs. G, I couldn't get a costume for today."

I looked at this student and replied, 

"You know what? Imagination is the best costume. Who are you today?"

The student paused for a minute and then proceeded to tell me in detail about his super hero character.  As he explained each detail, the cape and protective armor, the designs on his shoes, I nodded in understanding.

"I can see it!  Every bit!  And you know what?  I have the perfect book for you...."