the importance of extra penguins

My first week as a children's librarian went very well.  It looks like I will have opportunities to use my art/crafty skills and help decorate our youth area.  This is something I didn't realize until my snow persons bulletin on the first day.  That's when it dawned on me of course there are opportunities to craft/make/build things in the children's area. That was definitely a great eureka moment.

When I was a clerk I enjoyed helping patrons, and sometimes I even loved it.  After working on the youth side for a few days, I can honestly say that I love most interactions, even when a snarky six-year-old rolls his eyes at my recommendations.

Besides content, I feel like there are other differences between adult readers advisory (RA for short) and kids RA.  The big difference is that adults generally have more patience, and if you are willing to have a conversation with them, they sometimes have even more patience while you help them find materials.  Children, however, really have no patience.  This is slightly terrifying because you have to know a lot of stuff off the top of your head, readalikes for example.  But I've found that if I meander through the stacks with them, they remain engaged while I'm chatting with them for more clues, and I can also spot stuff rather than think of it out of thin air.  If the interaction is successful, we both walk away from the stacks gaining something, a heap of books for the child, and a bit more RA knowledge for me.

I had a handful of interactions where a child asked for something vague - trucks for example.  After a few questions, it was usually discovered they meant something entirely different.  I also discovered that sweet old dog books do not equal puppy books.  My favorite interaction was with a little girl who wanted "nature" books.  "Nature" books really meant "books about cats," and though Dewey the library cat was acceptable, what she really wanted were books about "outdoor cats."  We then moved on to "rocks" and  somehow discovered that koalas were acceptable too.

This week I also helped kids find lots of movies and cherished favorites like Dr. Seuss and Ramona.  *Sigh* I love Beverly Cleary.  It always makes me so happy when kids love stuff I read when I was younger.  All the way on the other end of the age spectrum, I helped a college student get set up with Rosetta Stone. Another teenager pointed at my lanyard, which has both my name and the book I'm reading, and asked me if I liked my current book. I raved about it for a few seconds before she interrupted, "I just got my dad that book for Christmas because he's a writer!"  
I smiled at her enthusiasm and told her he was going to love it because it's perfect for a writer (it's called Light the Dark). She beamed, did a little dance, and scurried off to find her younger siblings.

Right now I am watching a brother and sister play "brother and sister" with the penguins from our velcro wall.  When my manager left for vacation, she showed me where to find extra penguins and velcro and I couldn't figure out why.  Shortly after that, a small boy grabbed a penguin off the wall and tore off through the library with it.  During my next free moment, I searched everywhere for it.  I never saw that penguin again.  Now I understand the importance of extra penguins.

I love the moment when the children's area is filled with laughter and noise and I'm getting peppered with questions left and right. But I also love the moment when it quiets down.  I'll finish helping someone and realize it is suddenly quiet.  I then walk through every section, straighten anything that needs to be tidied, and replenish the faceouts. I've affectionately started thinking of this as "the sweep."  I was pondering these two radically different moments earlier and realized it was a nice balance, and really quite ideal. Toss in a few crafty projects and I'm really quite pleased with this gig.

I spent a bit of time working on storytimes this week and have figured out the first two books I'm going to read.  Next week I develop my storytime slide show!