The Loopy Librarian

Go to martinlutherking.org and you will find offensive and inflammatory material written by Klan sympathizers.  Countless students will no doubt discover this page quite innocently as they prepare to do school reports.  This web-page is a blatant example of why Google is not a replacement for libraries.  Students often think that whatever material they find [...]

I supervise four library assistants, and I encourage them to read as many children’s books as possible.  My rule about reading on the job is simple: If we are slow, by all means read a book; but, it must be a children’s book.  One of my assistants is a college-aged girl who recently discovered Skippyjon [...]

Recently, a mother came up to the desk with her third-grade daughter.  The daughter had selected a book about horses that she seemed very eager to read.  The mother asked me if it was on the Accelerated Reader list.  It was not.  “Well,” she said, “there’s no point in my daughter reading this book if [...]

The Trap by John Smelcergrabbed my attention because of it’s cover.  Drops of blood on the snow near an animal trap led me to want to learn more about the story.  Survival stories can be quite riveting, and I was in the mood for a fast-paced and gripping read.  The story, set in Alaska among a Native [...]

A few months ago, Allie recommended that I get some audio-books to help me pass the time while commuting to and from work each day.  She selected the prequel to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time Series, but neglected to mention that it was the beginning of a very long series.   The next thing I knew, I was [...]

As an undergraduate, I majored in English literature.  Except for the grammar classes, I loved every minute of it.  I read books I never would have read otherwise, like Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.  At first, I dearly hated that book.  It was, I thought, impossible to read, but I pressed on.  Today, I [...]

A chicken walked in to the library, went up to the librarian, flapped her wings and said, “Bok! Bok!”  The librarian reached behind her, grabbed a book, and placed it under the chicken’s wing. And, out the door, the chicken waddled. A few minutes later, the chicken returned.  She placed the book on the counter, looked [...]

Recently, I had the pleasure of hosting a class of kindergartners for a story-time and a tour of the library.  I was reading the book, Curious George Goes to the Library by H. A. Rey.  At one point in the story, Curious George rides a book-cart into a stack of encyclopedias.  He goes flying up [...]

The Spiderwick Chronicles  makes a very interesting audio-book in which they have many adventures that you’ll never be able to guess because of the way they tell the story.  The story is about a kid who always got into trouble in school, and one day they move into a very old house where their aunt lets [...]

Yesterday my friend Dakota, age 3, stopped by the library.  He, his mother and baby sister, are faithful story-time attenders, and Dakota had been singing the Gingerbread Man’s infamous “Can’t catch me” chant ever since hearing it in a story-time 2 weeks prior.  Now he and his mother wanted to check-out the version of the [...]