Ones storytime, Thursday, July 9, and Baby Lapsit, Friday, July 10

I’ve tried to start this post a few different ways, with jokes, or profanities, but there’s just really no other way than to be straight up with it: this week has been a personal and professional health disaster.

I was fine on Monday. On Tuesday I woke up with a worse than usual sore throat, earache, body aches, etc. (I usually get a mild sore throat to indicate that a cold is coming down the pike, but this was a rager. It even hurt when I wasn’t swallowing.) So I took my very first sick day since joining the library, stayed home and slept all day, and then decided to go to the Urgent Care clinic for a strep test, just in case. (It was negative.)

Wednesday I went in with a developing cough and no sore throat or earache. “Hey, maybe the worst is behind me,” I thought naively.

Oh, no. HA. HAAAAAAA. Ha ha ha diddly ha.

Because on Thursday it turned into laryngitis. I have no voice. Well, I do. A little one. It’s scratchy and raspy and it’s just enough to get by, but not enough to do storytime.

But guess who did storytime anyway? Guess who’s a glutton for punishment? (It’s not like my coworkers didn’t offer to take my storytimes. They’re lovely. I naively thought I could just muddle through and be fine.)

And I was fine, but I just wondered why I didn’t accept their offer.

This was my first Ones down in the Great Hall of our library, in front of SIXTY one-year-olds and their adults. I introduced myself as Annabelle the Frog (which got a laugh), because I had a frog in my throat, and I just battled through the best I could. It was wretched.

And why, oh why, didn’t I switch out a song book (the terrific Wheels on the Bus by Jane Cabrera) for something else?

Today wasn’t as bad – it was my baby lapsit and I had a nice, small crowd – but I still sounded like a dying donkey.

These were both new books  – This Jazz Man and Only You – and I can’t wait to use them again when I can do them both justice.

Note to self: next time, just accept someone’s offer graciously when they ask if I want to give up my storytime.

Links!

In the top spot: I admire this young woman almost more than anyone on the planet – truly.

I love this. The times, they are a-changin’.

And you all know how I feel about Ramona Q. (I still have the tape, yes, tape, with all the TV episodes.)

The rule is that you ALWAYS read before watching. ALWAYS.

American Girls: kicking ass and taking names!

From Friend D:

I would in a second, depending how haunted it is. Very? Sign me up!

Because Norton Juster has synesthesia! Just like the main character in A Mango-Shaped Space, which, really, everyone should read, because it’s awesome.

I got 9/26, because I don’t cook or bake.

“Baaaaaaalzac!” #themusicman

Some of NYC’s most secret libraries.

Death and the Brontes go hand in hand. This is a fascinating article about those two topics (and hair jewelry, which is intriguing, I promise).

A quiet life, would be my guess.

From Friend J:

It’s about time we saw more racial diversity.

From Friend P:

When librarians go to war, they go to war. And look at those snazzy uniforms.

From Mama Bear:

OF COURSE THEY HAVE NAMES.

Yes. So much yes to this amazing book, and we will not discuss the sequel.

So Mama Bear sent Sister A and me a picture of a red wheelbarrow in their garage and texted, “Okay, what’s the joke?” and I wrote back, “So much depends upon it…” and then I thought how lucky I am to have at least one parent who thinks like I do.

“Happened to all of us,” Mama Bear wrote in her email to me. But I can’t help feeling there’s something wrong with me. Why did everyone love it and I didn’t?

A charming piece about Harper Lee and family.

Look, I don’t like slagging on other librarians (we’re a family), but they were dead wrong in this case.

I love this building, but it’s about time.

Adorbs! But please don’t put them in library books.

From Sister A:

This is the ultimate literary road trip!

And here are some literary maps along the same theme.

In What’s Annabelle Reading, I finished the odd but compulsively readable The Library at Mount Char, which I swiped off the ARC cart at work.  Then I found at a local Little Free Library (yay!) hardback of Jenny Lawson’s (The Bloggess) Let’s Pretend This Never Happened and could not stop laughing. Two quite different books back to back, no? Finally, in another attempt to whittle down my ARC pile, I read – and enjoyed quite a bit – The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon.

Toddler Storytime, Thursday, August 7

I feel like my toddler storytimes have been getting better and better since I’ve been researching developmental milestones for them. I’ve been choosing books and songs more carefully.

So I chose books with lots of repetition (I had the kids shout “NO” each time the pigeon asked to drive the bus, for instance.) I chose songs with repetition (we sang the basic verse of BINGO twice). They were really, really strong, and the kids participated MUCH more than in the past. Good times.

How about some links….

This comes first, because it is THE WORST IDEA EVER.

Lost Seussicles!

This could be a lot of fun, especially if they break out into song during the support group scenes.

If I had been a kid and you offered me a novel in verse, I would have laughed at you. But they’re becoming more popular now, and are really, really good. My favorite, mentioned in the article, is Love That Dog.

You can actually see “Reader, I married him.”

Sent this to Mama Bear with the subject line “Happy birthday to me.”

I read in bars, the bus, and bed.

Weird.

From Mama Bear:

That is class.

A difficult job, rarely accomplished well.

In What’s Annabelle Reading, I wish there had been more to What Has Become of You, because it was an interesting premise, but not deep enough into certain parts of the storyline. Too bad. I also finished the unsatisfying Codex.

Please call ahead to make a reservation

Why is it that during the summer, our class visits skyrocket? Not during the school year – we have some, but not a huge amount – but today we had two; one surprise one (I’ll get to that in a minute), and one that was planned.

The surprise one was first thing in the morning, in teens, and surprise class visits really throw me off my game. What do they need? Computers? A lecture? A tour? How many? Will they behave? Will the teacher be useful? Will the teacher sit in the corner and not do anything? Are the teachers and students aware of the rules, and will the teacher enforce them? 

Please, if you’re reading this, don’t just bring a class into a library. CALL FIRST and make a reservation, preferably a week in advance at the very least. Let us know what you need – whether it’s just our computers or if we can talk about researching and using the catalog. 

Our other class was good. They were split up into two groups – one half was with me in teens, learning to use the databases, and the other half was in the computer lab downstairs. Then they switched. It was just what a visit should be. 

Now, on to links:

Don’t you talk to the Brontes that way!

Pulled this off FB (possibly the most useful of all the links today, for you parents with young kids).

We are all Ramonas.

This is going to be terribly awesome, or awesomely terrible. 

And along the same lines….

Another Neil Gaiman adaptation is coming our way!

Damn, these are clever. I say that about all in this series, but… wow.

Cats + Shakespeare = my dream world.

Yeah, what she said.

It’s called providing a public service, people.

Hee, an Ethel!

I’m really embarrassed to admit this, but I didn’t even know Hilary Knight was still alive. He’s just the coolest.

Sister A’s library has done something similar, with dogs, I think. This is just a great idea, and I wish we could do it in our library.

GRRRRRR.

I never really got into Legos as a kid. If I’d had sets like these, well, maybe I would have.

For me, it’s It. I can’t even keep it in my house, let alone read it again.

From Library School Friend D: You guys know how I feel about grammar…

That’s all for today, chickadees. Keep reading.

Preschool Storytime – Wedesday, January 15

Yesterday’s preschool storytime was about 25-strong, with a bunch of wiggly little ones, eager to contribute, though not always at the most opportune moments, bless them. It went quite well.

I started off with “Hello, How Are You?” as I have with the toddlers, and jumped right into the books.

We recited Humpty Dumpty, and then I read them Humpty Dumpty Climbs Again, which was the most successful of the three. It was funny, and really well-received, particularly because Humpty is in his tighty-whities for most of it. Underwear will break ’em up, every time.

Then we had a quick clinic on the three bears, and reading Me and You, which is a good participatory book. The bears are on one side of the pages, and Goldilocks on the other. So I would ask them to raise their hands and tell me what Goldilocks was doing.

I broke up the books by using a Five Little Monkeys felt that coworker C made and generously lets us use. They were very enthusiastic in singing the last line of each verse!

Finally, my little ones were getting restless, and I moved quickly through Falling for Rapunzel, which was my favorite, but had lots of big words and I think confused them a bit.

By this time, they were getting antsy, and some of the groups had to leave – and we weren’t even running long, I felt like Dame Nellie Melba on this week’s episode of Downton Abbey, with people getting up and down all the time, and don’t even get me started on the rest of the episode – so I sort of felt rushed going through the closing rhyme, “Our Hands Say Thank You” and the closing song, “We Wave Goodbye Like This.”

(Sing it to “The Farmer in the Dell”):

We wave goodbye like this,
We wave goodbye like this,
We clap our hands for all our friends,
We wave goodbye like this.

And that was that. So now I’ve done one of each storytime! Next Friday I’ll be doing another babytime, which I do love.

Today I nailed a teen who tried to get into the recording studio by giving me a false name, who turned out to be too old. Then he gave me his real name, and he hasn’t gone through the orientation, so he’s not allowed to go into the studio anyway. Nice try, buddy, but remember that I am the adult and I am going to win every argument, just as I dreamed I would when I was a child.

How ’bout some links? Okay!

I own three full-size Billys and a half-size, but nothing as cool as these.

When Kirsten gives you advice about avoiding cholera, you take it.

Better Book Titles is one of my favorite blogs, and here’s a whole YA post full of hilarity.

Just because you were Scully doesn’t mean you can write, Gillian Anderson. But I will try anything once. [See: William Shatner  and John Barrowman (any excuse to reference Captain Jack)]

Poor Ron often gets short shrift. Give a ginger some love, yeah?

I’ve been saving my citation thank-you to Mama Bear for this one. She hears Sister A and me talk about John Green all the time (we are not above begging her to read The Fault in Our Stars), and has patiently put up with me telling her multiple times that he and I have the same birthday and me showing her the Tweet he sent me wishing me a happy birthday (ME FTW), but I don’t know who she was picturing. So when she sent me this link, she wrote, “The same John Green!?!?!” (punctuation intact). I responded, “Did I also mention that he’s really hot?” YA authors born on August 24 can be really hot, Mama Bear. Just saying.

This is hilariously brilliant. So up my alley.

What the flying monkeys is this crap?

#5 is the best short story ever written, period.

I was hoping that this article would reference specific punctuation marks, but it did not. #ilovetheinterrobang. (Also, the location of the photo was pure luck, I swear.)

What did I say in the past post about slashfic? Yup.

Finally, this year’s Edgar nominees.

And that’s all for now.

Oh, sadly, I wore my Jane Eyre tshirt to my exercise class tonight, and no one got it. Sigh. (Can’t find a picture, but it says “Lowood Institution Lacrosse” on the front and I assure you that it’s the height of cleverness.)