Last summer we repeated one of our popular standalone programs – DINOS! It had been a few years since we did this program and, as many of you know, I recycle these themed programs at least every 2-3 years. (unless it’s something very pop culture-y that has dated. But that’s a rarity.) Since last summer…
In a way, this event exemplifies everything I think these one day stand-alone programs can be: no matter what you might see, you don’t have to spend a TON of money and endless staff hours creating something that looks like it came out of a party planning book. You don’t have to limit attendance just…
WE DID IT. We survived summer! Ah summer! The most exciting and exhausting time in a public youth services librarian’s life. Even when you’re pulling your hair out, every day has a moment or two that reminds you why you’re doing this whole thing. This summer I decided I wanted to make some BIG and…
It all started with Little Melba! Little Melba and Her Big Trombone was one of my favorite books of 2014! This swinging picture book biography (winner of a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor for Frank Morrison, yay!) tells the story of Melba Liston, a girl in the 1930s who was told little girls couldn’t play…
There’s no way to escape Frozen. And hey, why would you want to? Of all Disney products, it’s not the worst. In fact, there’s some pretty great parts. What’s not to love about a heroine with ice powers and another heroine who saves her? The idea for this program really started growing when I noticed a…
As many of you know, especially if you follow me on Twitter, one of my greatest fears in life is that all these cool and amazing programs we have – especially the ones during summer – miss out on working parents. Everything we have starts at 2 PM? Well, what about if you don’t have…
Summer is already in swing at my library. We are having great return numbers on our reading logs, we had a HUGE crowd for our kick-off show (easily over 300 people), and even our regular programs have had an attendance surge. We launched our Lego Club to FANTASTIC numbers of almost all boys aged 7-14…
And I mean it. Fellow YS librarians! I know that this is our most stressful time of year: this lead-up to summer reading when all things converge into one mass of school visits, school tours, preparing publicity, lining up programs and getting ready for the crush of all those endless days of patrons, programs, and mayhem….
The key to unlocking American Girl was understanding that I had to understand the material AND that I should let the material guide me and guide the program. And not just the material as in American Girl but the material as in the specific girl I’d chosen: Rebecca. In reading the Rebecca books (I’m speaking here of…
Does your library host an American Girl program? For many years, our library has run American Girl during the summer. It was as close to a core program as our library has ever had hosted and certainly the closest to a core program for school-age. And yet. I watched as year after year it spiraled out of…
