So even though I don't get to read as much as I'd like or feel like I should, I still thought it would be fun to put together a quick list of some of my favorite reads of this year. Just keep in mind that these are just my personal favorites from a relatively small selection, I'm not by any means suggesting these are necessarily the best of the best. Most of these came out in the last year or two, but there may be a couple of older titles in the mix.
Back in 2019 I had the opportunity to do something I'd always wanted to do - a mini 'gingerbread' house program inspired by the graham cracker 'gingerbread' houses I used to make with my daughter. I eschewed what apparently has become common practice of pre-assembling the houses or using cartons/boxes to build them on in favor of an open-ended STEAM approach, allowing kids to fully express their creativity and empowering them to use their engineering and problem-solving skills. It turned out to be a huge success, and I was really looking forward to making it an annual program.
I finally had the chance to do Dinovember again! I had the opportunity first way back in 2018, and it was a huge success and a whole lot of fun (to see what I did then, go to my "Dinovember Reflection" post). Even though it was very successful, I wasn't able to repeat it until now due to not having a good social media partner, job changes, relocating, etc. This time, marketing youth services and materials is part of my job, and I am able to post to social media myself, so did not have to rely on convincing and coordinating with someone else to get the events publicized and get the stage photos posted, with the captions that I wanted.
For those who may be new to "Dinovember",
I'm finally getting around writing up my Halloween programs from last month! I have been super busy and super exhausted for the last two months, and feeling rather uninspired. But, here they are, finally.
The programming survey I conducted at the end of the summer indicated that people really wanted more holiday and seasonal special programs, so I planned a "Boo Bash" for the 5 & under crowd. My co-worker was also doing a Halloween program for the teens and tweens, so I decided to add a "Spooky Stories" program for the elementary kids, so there would be something for every age.
The way I organized summer reading and programming was very different from what my predecessor had done, but more in line with what most libraries seem to do.
Since I had booked the local herpetarium for this last week of summer programming, I decided to use aquatic reptiles as the theme for this week's programs, including both oceanic reptiles and the freshwater reptiles that live in our land-locked area.
Last week was all about boats and buoyancy! Even though we are nowhere near the ocean, we still have plenty of lakes, rivers, and streams for boating.
This week had a general ocean/fish theme, with some fun books and activities.
I had mixed feelings about doing a pirate theme, but I knew the kids would have fun with it, and an idea for a program came to me that I really liked, so I decided to embrace it and focus on the treasure-hunting part.
As a land-locked state we really weren't able to bring in many guest performers, speakers, or animals that really tied to the CLSP theme of "Oceans of Possibilities", so I just focused on ones that I knew would draw a crowd and people would enjoy. This week we had a petting zoo with farm animals, and while none of them were sea creatures, most of them were mammals, so I decided to make this week's theme "Marine Mammals".
As I explained previously, though I didn't really plan on doing weekly themes, it just kind of ended up that way, and for week 2 I focused on mythical sea creatures. And that of course mean mermaids and sea monsters (but NOT narwhals; narwhals are real).
You know, if there was any good to come from this terrible pandemic, I would have thought it would have gotten us as a profession to kick this ridiculous sense of vocational awe to the curb. You know, the idea that libraries are sacred and that librarianship is a virtuous calling we must be willing to sacrifice ourselves for. The feeling that we have to be all things to all people, fill all the cracks in society that people inevitably slip through, give of ourselves until it hurts. I think this idea is the most pervasive in the area of youth services.
Vocational awe leads to mission creep, overworking, understaffing, and people that are underemployed and/or underpaid (among other issues).
So there is always ongoing discussion in youth services about themes, usually in relation to storytime, but also in relation to summer reading. Many libraries follow CSLP or iREAD themes, some come up with their own, and some don't really have a theme, other than "summer at the library". I've always said themes are optional, and sometimes can be fun and make it easier to plan, and sometimes can be too restrictive and make it more difficult.
Most of the libraries in my state follow CSLP, as does mine, so our theme is "Oceans of Possibilities". This was a very easy theme to decorate around, and I thought would be pretty easy to program around, but I found it harder than expected. I ended up picking several activities I wanted to do, looking at when I had scheduled guest performers, and what movies I had planned to show, and picking weekly themes to loosely follow to give me some direction [however, I am thinking more and more of moving away from themes, especially after looking at the CSLP themes for next year]. For the first week, I decided on a loose "beach" theme, with sand-based activities.
....Summer Readin', Are We Having A Blast??
Over the last few years I had noticed a growing trend to make dioramas using Peeps. Love them or hate them, there is no denying the little sugar bombs are adorably cute, especially when portraying your favorite characters. Once I had seen them, I knew I wanted to host a library event some day, and this year I had my chance.
Initially I wasn't planning on doing anything during Spring Break other than my usual storytime (which I had just resumed the week prior) and self-directed activities because I was told that everyone travels and it's always been dead at the library during spring break, and I *really* needed to work on planning summer reading. But, with high gas prices and all the problems with airline cancellations, I thought more people would be staying home than usual, and with the cold, wet weather expected most of the week they would need something to do.
So I decided to plan some very simple family programs that (1) would not cost a lot, (2) would not involve a lot of preparation, (3) would not involve a lot of staff time during the event, (4) most supplies purchased could be saved and reused, and (5) would work for a fairly large age-range; basically programs that could easily accommodate a crowd, but wouldn't be a waste of time and materials if no one showed up. Since it was also Library Week, I incorporated that theme in some of them. Here is what I came up with:
My director wanted to make a big deal out of National Library Week, partly to acknowledge the staff for all the hard work they do, partly to remind people of all the library does for the community, and partly to get more people coming back in. So I planned for a "Library" themed storytime, which is always fun because there are several funny and cute books about libraries for kids.
I started this job in December, just as the Omicron variant of Covid was hitting, so decided not to do in-person programming for a while. In January I started putting together take-home STEAM kits that were a combination of STEM activities and arts & craft activities, generally designed for ages 5-10, but some may skew slightly older or younger, and adult assistance/supervision is recommended for some activities, particularly with kids at the younger end.
January's was a re-mix of the Snowflake Science & Icy Experiments I did last year as a hybrid program, but decided to drop the video portion as no one seems to be interested in virtual programs anymore. In February, I combined the foam heart collage activity inspired by Michael Hall's My Heart Is Like a Zoo that I included in a previous early literacy kit, and the "conversation heart chemistry" experiments from the last in-person STEM program I did before the pandemic hit.
I took the inspiration for the March kit from the old saying, "March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb". The change from winter to spring often brings blustery, windy weather as warm and cold fronts battle it out, so I decided to include activities related to wind and air flow.
If you've followed my blog, know me from the various library-related Facebook groups, or know me IRL, you may have picked up on some of my soapbox issues: reading levels, "one right way" thinking, people presenting penguins as Arctic animals, reading levels, snowflakes that are anything but 6-sided, library school, reading levels... Well, I've discovered a new one - collection maintenance and development!
