Another week....

Well. It's been a busy week.

Monday's storytime had only three kids (and two parents!) but we all had a marvelous time. The kids were great, they really participated in the songs and rhymes and interacted in the stories. We read stories about spring gardens and baseball. They included There Is a Bird on Your Head! (Elephant and Piggie) by Mo Willems which worked well for a spring themed storytime. The kids loved the absurdity of having birds build a nest on Elephant's head as well as the personalities of Piggie and Elephant and the interaction between them. We also read Quacky Baseballby Peter Abrahams, Frank Morrison (Illustrator) a story about Thumby Duckling, who is nervous about his first game on the Webbies baseball team. The text can be read in an "announcer" voice, which the kids at storytime enjoyed. At several points in the story, "the crowd goes wild" and the kids and their moms provided the cheering crowd noices. The illustrations are bright andcolorful and the humorous nature of the pictures and text had both moms and kids laughing out loud. Then there was another baseball read: Dino-Baseball by Lisa Wheeler, Barry Gott (Illustrator). Let's face it, kids love dinosaurs and kids love baseball - so they adored this rhyming book about the plant eating dinosaurs of the Green Sox vs the carnivores of the Rib-eye Reds, played at Jurassic Park, of course! With colorful illustrations and lots of baseball action (even a team manager who "throws his hat and kicks home plate...he calls the ump a nasty name and gets ejected from the game.) This is a book that appeals to very young kids because of the rhythm and rhyme, dinosaurplayers and bright, colorful illustrations. Because of the vocabulary and game descriptions it appeals to the adults in the group as well as preschoolers. Overall a verysuccessful storytime!

Our next storytime is a celebration of Moms in honor of Mother's Day. The hardest part, at least so far, is paring down all the wonderful stories for an about Mothers. We'll be reading several for Mothers (such as Five Minute's Peace by Jill Murphy and Seven Hungry Babies by Candace Fleming) and some around Mom's and their babies - human and animal. So many good stories! Next week I will post complete reviews.

In my regular job in the public libraries, I worked at two of my favorite branches and both days were rewarding and uneventful. My greatest victory involved a phone call from an angry, disgruntled patron who I talked through our online catalog. We finally hung up - after 30 minutes or so - with the patron much happier having a much greater understanding of our catalog and how to use it. She felt so good about our phone converstation, in fact, that she made a special trip down to the library the next day to express personal thanks. Of course, being a sub, I wasn't there! But thanks to a wonderful staff member who emailed me, I had the satisfaction of knowing that I had a positive impact on one person's life.