The Weed Read

Perhaps the goal is unattainable, due to all the books I keep adding to our collection, but I have decided to give it my best shot.

The goal: Read all of the books in our temporary library's children's rooms (which have considerably less books) while we renovate. Check each book for condition, relevance, appropriateness, etc., keeping in mind our collection policies.

Time frame: September 6, 2016 - February ?, 2017

Current progress:

All the board books are now read and the section is weeded. As a result of the weeding, twelve popular titles are being replaced and many more have been weeded, with newer books covering the same topics on order. See the evolution of my board book collection in the pictures below.

About ten books in the picture book section and five books in the juvenile fiction section have been checked. This leaves a LOT of books yet to be touched!

What I've found thus far - I love reading board books! They are so cute and fun to handle. So many have neat features, like die-cut shapes, touch-and-feel, or scratch-and-sniff, or flaps to lift and fun, rhyming text.

Cam Jansen books are so quick and fun to read! They take so little time from start to finish, but satisfy that mystery-solving part of me who silently pats myself on the back for solving a mystery meant for a grade-schooler. I don't care - they are great. On to Alcott next! Keep up on my progress and book ratings on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/45810402-valetta-cannon.

Originally, our board books were kept in the turtle sandbox in the children's room. Finding a particular book was very challenging, as was keeping the books in decent shape when they were often tossed into the turtle and shoved harshly about.

 

Many of these books were missing half a spine or were stained, water damaged, torn, and/or outdated. Miss Val to the rescue! 

Most remaining books have intact spines and are clean, in good condition.

Miss Val's Craft for Jumpstart's Read for the Record

Bears. Sandwiches. Dittos. Those blah blah words kept swimming through my mind as I tried to rack my brain for the perfect craft for our library's upcoming event to celebrate Jumpstart's Read for the Record and accompany this year's featured book, "The Bear Ate Your Sandwich" by Julia Sarcone-Roach. Today, I found it - the craft I think will be uniquely perfect for this special event. Perhaps you'll be inspired as I was and make your own version.

Where I got the idea: eHow Crafts Blog via Pinterest.

No Bears Paper Plate Picnic Basket

Supplies Needed:

• White paper plates
• Scissors
• Markers
• No Bears Allowed signs (do a Google search for images, print & cut)
• Tape or glue
• Stapler

Directions:

     Follow the eHow Crafts Blog link above to see where to cut your paper plate for the basket. I felt the handle instructions were a bit vague, so here are mine: measure a 3/4" deep line into the edge of your plate. Draw along that line all the way around the inside of your plate, forming a circle. Draw 3 lines, equally spaced, straight down from the edge of your plate to the inner circle you've drawn. Cut out the three handles for three picnic baskets. Fold the basket and staple the handle as shown at the link above.

Glue or tape the no bears allowed sign onto the front of your basket, and decorate with markers. You may also use stickers, crayons, paint, etc. Due to my planned half hour for the program, I will keep my craft simple. 

Planned Snack: Little lunchmeat sandwiches, with Chocolate Chip Teddy Grahams for sweets. 

Planned Activity: I bought this awesome Melissa and Doug felt sandwich kit so the kids can assemble fake sandwiches of their own. They may choose to carry them around in their little picnic baskets. I may also use the early literacy kit from the Jumpstart website to do some early literacy activities. So excited to put this plan into action!

More Display & Booth Ideas

     For the children's librarian who, like myself, enjoys taking inspiration from others' ideas and crafting their own displays, here are some of my personal takes on online finds, with a few of my original ideas mixed in. Hope they inspire you!

     Found on a fellow librarian's blog, the "Genre Dating Game" pairs nicely with the "Blind date with a book" idea found all around the web. Two things I'd like to change: the brown wrapping is awfully plain...I'm considering adding a little flair, if I find the time. Also, on a plain brown table the display is not so cute as I'd imagined. A pretty table cloth or even a runner could make it so much better!

     

     Borrowing again from the ideas of others, I made a "bookman" named Rustly. My personal touches: I added a scarf, paper snowballs, and a fabric snow blanket, surrounded him with snowman books, and (since he was created at the end of a December) a party hat with "Happy New Year!" written on it. Fun display that's generated a lot of interest.

     

     

     For Star Wars Reads Day and again for the new movie's premier, I decorated our children's room table with books from all children's reading levels, worksheets, finger puppets, signs, and finally, green sparkly tissue paper. The only drawback to my first display (pictured above) was that the books kept getting knocked over, which of course created a domino effect. For my second display, I laid them all down and had much better luck.

     Probably due in part to its location in the library, this Halloween YA display did not generate a lot of interest. It was up for about a month, and in that time probably only resulted in about five check-outs, max. It was fun to make and I loved the premise, but if I tried it again I would probably place the voting box on the main circ desk and then point any interested patrons to the display.

     

     Inspired by our local video store's "favorite movie" signs, I created this display, featuring local teachers' favorite books. I rotate them once the book checks out or after a few weeks of not checking it out. The teachers are happy to participate, and my children were excited to see teachers they know in the displays. Unfortunately, beyond lots of hits from posting and tagging the displays on Facebook, the displays have not resulted in as much interest (in the form of actually checking out older books with low circulation) as I'd like. I really enjoy the community connection though, and plan to continue the display.

     Finally, some words on community event booths: This was from the children's fair at our local hospital. Keep in mind I had just started my job as youth librarian, and threw this together in a short amount of time. Still, it generated a lot of interest and I connected with most of the event-goers, from what I could tell. Included in the display: library pamphlets and a story time flyer, some of my kids' stuffed bears (the upcoming story time theme was "Teddy Bear Picnic"), plain lunch bags with cute library-themed bag tags to color and glue on, crayons, glue, and craft trays, children's and adult books related to the story time theme, stickers, temporary tattoos, bookmarks, coloring books, and coloring pages for kids to take home, and a sign made by my predecessor, using a huge heavy poster board and picture book dust jackets. 

Please feel free to share your own display ideas in the comments!

Valentine's Display Ideas

     Prepping for Valentine's Day with a variety of book display groupings has reminded me just how far the holiday's theme can reach! Not only is it a time to celebrate love for adults, but it's also a perfect opportunity to dust off books on parent-offspring and grandparent-grandchild love, kisses, hugs, chocolate, and fairy tale originals and remakes.

   Visitors to my children's room also have ample opportunities for hugging the soft stuffed storybook characters, as I've paired several of my Valentine's books with their plush stars. 

 
      A simple, quick way to add hearts to any Valentine's Display is by using foam heart shapes in various sizes. Just tape or glue them together in a size-toggled format, like in the picture below, and randomly place them. Easy and cute!