Updated Links! Get your library tour and outreach scripts here

It is an honor, though a little weird, that after all this time library staff still use my blog for field trips/tours and school outreach ideas here! I'm glad to help a little, and I intend to post more "here's something that might be useful" stuff that I'm no longer using. I know especially right now we are in an interesting spot where if you became a youth services librar* in the past three years, you may be facing a learning curve. While I hope you're able to innovate passed what I could 10 years ago, I know having some sort of starting point can mean the difference between an idea getting off the ground or staying in your head.

One thing that has happened, though, is that Google Drive updated their security settings. This means that if you ever accessed my files before around 2020, you can still access them no problem. If you click through links on my older posts for the first time now, though, it requires me to give you permission. I try to give permission ASAP, but have also been thinking about new readers who may not feel comfortable requesting. Hopefully this post will make access easy for everyone.

I figured this might also be a good opportunity to get some more favorites out of my archives for new eyes. :) I hope you find something useful!

If you find yourself taking something from the options below and running with it (new characters/books, changes to models, etc) please email me at bryce kozla at gmail so that others may benefit. Thanks!

FIELD TRIPS/LIBRARY TOURS

Tween Scavenger Hunt: based on Adventure Time (omg please update the pop culture in this), this hunt is also educational about the library. Here's the direct link to the files.

First grade room hunt script:  Based on Elephant and Piggie

Interactive Field Trip Grades 2 (Spring), 3, and 4 (Fall): 2nd grade Library Stars Scripts

Interactive Field Trip Grades 4K/VPK and K: Kindergarten Library Sneakers Scripts

More explanation as to how the interactive field trip files were used can be accessed here  (if "a slidedeck of Chuck Norris memes" doesn't tell you how much this stuff is begging for a refresh....)

OUTREACH TO CLASSROOMS/TABLING EVENTS

Illusionology: 3rd/4th grade outreach (direct link to files)

Tips for outreach I learned from brewfests (really)

Prizeless prize wheel: my new favorite outreach tool!

Robots vs. Aliens: 2nd grade-ish outreach : here's the direct link to the script and files

K-1 Class visit featuring The Book with No Pictures: this summer I gave my nephew, who just started first grade, his first ever reading of this book. Gotta say 6-7 is the PERFECT age for "Book w no pic" (ahem...the quote is a YS Internet Library joke from 2015 about the ubiquitousness of using and suggesting the book, but hey. What I lack in up-to-date jokes I make up for by writing in excess of one or fewer blog posts every year). Here are the direct files!

Tic-Tac-Toe/Simon Says Mashup Game

Early Literacy for Elected Officials with Research

I've written up a lot more programs through the years,which again, are debatedly outdated AF (except for my guest posters and former intern Jennifer, you are all eternal)  but could be a great stepping stone for getting into event programs for your library.

It's here! Fostering Readers, a FREE Toolkit to Support Beginning Readers

[Bryce note: everyone, I AM PUMPED. After some dreaming and scheming over email and in a coffee shop in NE Portland back in 2016, my coworker Katie and I have been co-project-managers on an LSTA grant-funded initiative to help library and afterschool staff all over boost their programming, support, and confidence with beginning readers in grades K-3 (learn more about our story and our amazing team here). 

I cannot even tell you what this means to me.

So here is the official press release.]

Washington County Cooperative Library Services (WCCLS) and OregonASK are thrilled to announce the Fostering Readers resources are available to download and use in whatever way that makes sense for your library. These resources are designed to help you plan and implement fun research-based literacy programs for children in K-3rd grade who are learning to read.

We recruited two children’s librarians and two elementary reading specialists, two of whom are bilingual, to develop the Fostering Readers resources. The materials were tested and updated through a pilot project. All the resources are available at no cost to you on the Fostering Readers website. Resources include:

 Pre-made activity plans to get you started supporting K-3rd grade beginning readers

Ideas for passive programming and storytimes and book clubs for beginning readers

Handouts for parents and caregivers to encourage reading at home

Videos that introduce research-based key elements and key strategies to enrich your K-3 activities with literacy

An extensive research review with easily digestible key findings and implications

…and more!

To accommodate our large and growing population of Spanish-speakers, Fostering Readers handouts are available in both English and Spanish. In the materials, library and afterschool staff will find tips for working with families who speak languages other than English, and Spanish vocabulary to use with the activities.

 Preview some of the research-based key elements and strategies with these video playlists (just kidding they don't link to the playlists here they are:
Key Strategies
Key Elements):

We hope that these materials will help library and afterschool staff:

Increase their knowledge of the reading process
Feel more confident in supporting children who are learning to read and their families
Plan, implement, and evaluate fun research-based literacy programs for children in K-3rd grade

Libraries and afterschool programs are essential community partners in the effort to increase the number of children reading at grade level by the end of third grade, which is a key indicator for high school graduation.

We are proud to provide you with Fostering Readers materials to champion this important work.


Fostering Readers is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the State Library of Oregon.

A Rambling Ode to Summer Reading

Summer Reading starts here this weekend! My job doesn't include staffing a public service desk or anything, so I mostly spend my summer working on special projects to clear out to-do lists and set us up well for Quarter 2, which starts in September. I'll also do the occasional storytime subbing or tabling event.

I cannot WAIT to tell you about what this screenshot is from
(I also figured out alt-text on Blogger!)

This year I am PRETTY PUMPED because my coworkers and I recently opened a request form for the local libraries to have us visit for whatever they'd like to talk about or show us and our local staff BROUGHT IT. So far, we've talked about collection development and dreamed big about scalable projects. This summer, I'll get to staff a station at a reading camp (stations-based programming was my jam for awhile) and help at other events. Next Friday I'm even shadowing a floor shift afterschool during Summer Reading.

One weird thing about my job: it's great for someone who loves youth services librarianship but doesn't like anything about actually being a youth services librarian. I don't think I'll ever be there, and I still miss a lot about SRP. I figured I'd share here something I wrote about it last year. It was in one, long, rambling comment, so I'm breaking it up:

Favorite Program Posts from the Archives!

This past spring as I was starting to make the move from my old blog space to this one, Courtney from the Public Programs Office of ALA reached out to me about being featured on a post of "favorite programming blogs" on ALA's Programming Librarian website.

While I was honored, the timing was tricky and I didn't want to muddy the waters and direct lots of new people to my old address when I was just intending on abandoning it. Also, I love programming, but aside from the occasional storytime sub opportunity that's not really part of my job anymore.

So, how humbling and hilarious was it that five out of the nine authors who ended up being featured named my old blog as one of their favorites?

Granted, I'm Internet Friends with each of them and we've been part of a shared blogging community for awhile (I know at least that I've been blogging about library stuff for 7.5 YEARS now...what?!). I've been incredibly fortunate that something I basically started as notes to myself (okay, a very terrible book blog that THEN turned into notes to myself that THEN turned into stuff people read sometimes) to be received so well by people I respect so much.

For a couple of years I used my blogging anniversary to lift up newer programming blogs, and then newer-to-me-blogs in general. I'm out of practice with it but I need to get back in the game. That's why, when this space is fully up-and-running, I'll be writing a post with a whole bunch of new-to-me programming blogs to add to your feeds. 

If you've started a blog that I don't know about it, please comment here so I can feature you, too! If you'd like to start collecting your programming thoughts in a place that's shareable, a blog is still a good place for that! Know that it's a lot of work, but you'd probably be doing it anyway for your own files, so might as well share your great ideas and maybe meet a few people along the way!

Bryce with some Internet Friends sitting round a restaurant table
and smiles for a picture at ALA Midwinter 2018

(From left to right those pictured are Soraya (Admin at Storytime Underground), Mary (of Storytime Underground and Miss Merry Liberry), Rebecca (of Hafuboti), Melissa (of Mel's Desk), me (of here), and Anna (of Everyday Diversity and Future Librarian Superhero).

In sum: I'm Nobody and You Can Be Too. Email me if you need encouragement! 

Anyway, wasn't I posting programs from the archives? Here you go (there may be some links that still need updating, but it'll send you right back here to the corresponding post):

Story Action Pod: Election Edition: Shark and Train face off in this passive program

Ninjago Library Party: At over 100 people between two branches, this was possibly the most successful active program I made with junk and hope.

Mythbusters for Elementary Kids: I completely forgot I did this, but there's four weeks of weekly plans for you.

Library-sponsored LEGO track at the Pinewood Derby: it was fun.

Spy School at the Library: those Ology programs were some of my favorites!

Tween Scavenger Hunt in the Library: great for class visits or other group trips.

Tic-Tac-Toe/Simon Says Mashup Game: one of my last inspired activities as a frontline staff member.

Library LEGO Checkout Club: one of my most-shared posts ever! Super easy.

A Fresh Take on Book Brackets: An Outreach Event Series!

This post was written by Jennifer Johnson, my 2018 blog intern. You can read more programming posts by her here.

One of my favorite things about my job is that I am fortunate enough to do not only public programs, but outreach programs as well. This month, I want to share an opportunity that I had to do a program with an outreach group that worked better in their setting than it ever would have as an in-house library program.

For years, I’d wanted to do a Battle of the Books at our library, but we had very spotty participation with the public, and anything we tried along those lines just sort of fizzled out. From August to December 2017, I had conducted a weekly book club with an after-school group at one of our local schools. They were the first to invite me to do this and I was very excited about the possibilities. For that first semester, we read one middle grade novel, going through it in small chunks each week. But for this spring, starting in January and ending a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to try a Battle of the Books with them. I was excited to do this because not only would it be fun, it would also expose the kids to several books that they might not otherwise pick up. I also viewed it as a chance for them to begin building a summer reading list with title suggestions from our brackets. The kids involved in this program were second through fourth graders. The Battle was a hit from start to finish and here’s how we did it.

T-Rex Tea Party at the Library!

This post was authored by Jennifer Johnson, my amazing 2018 blog intern. Check out the rest of her programming posts here.

Happy spring! This month’s program is a perfect mesh of high-interest topics for kids from all walks of life. If your young patrons love tea parties, dinosaurs and/or free snacks, then this program is sure to be a hit! And what’s great is that I was fortunate enough to be able to take it on the road as an outreach program as well. Are you ready to dine with the dinosaurs? Here we go!

Person wearing an inflatable T-rex costume waving at children sitting at a table

Magic Tree House Library Party!

This post is authored by Jennifer Johnson, blog intern. See the rest of her posts here.

National Library Week is coming up next month, and I always try to do at least one or two special literature-based programs for kids during that week. Last year, we hosted a Magic Tree House program and it was a huge hit with our young patrons! The program I’m going to talk about today was based on the first four books, but we had patrons request more programs to keep going through the rest of the series! This was an hour and a half program, so I knew I wanted to have at least one activity for each of the four books, plus snacks and a photo booth, which ended up filling the time quite nicely.

THE TREE HOUSE

The activities here are super simple, but I spent a lot of time on the logistics of the tree house. The activities totally work without it; the payoff for the kids was pretty amazing though.

two wooden doors, each decorated like a tree.

Our meeting room can be split in two with a partition wall that, when not in use, is pushed into a storage area between the two sides of the room. I knew that I wanted to make that storage area our treehouse and have the kids go inside it and emerge into each story. And somehow, amazingly, we pulled it off. I had the dinosaur side of the room ready to go before the kids arrived, on the other side of the partition wall that they couldn’t see when they entered the front half of the room.

Jennifer dressed in a red velvet dress and a white wig, posing with Pete the Cat (who was there for another program!)

I dressed as Morgan le Fay and acted as their guide, taking them all into the “tree house.” The decorations for the tree house were a collaborative effort between our teens (the leafy tree part at the top) and our maintenance staff (the carefully measured wood grain strips and windows). The inner décor was from a Magic Tree House program several years prior, and the painted bookshelf was repurposed from an escape room program. I brought the string lights from home since the storage nook has no lighting of its own, and I also brought a fan for some wind effects. I put real books in the tree house as well, and pulled one out each time we went inside for one of the children to point to and take us to our next destination.

inside the Tree House: storage room decorated with a string of lights, a painted on book shelf and painted on window.

When we emerged into the time of dinosaurs for our relay, the room was decorated with some fake plants and toy dinosaurs I had brought from home. I even had a dinosaur costume that one of my teen volunteers wore (this good-natured girl switched props every time we switched activities, which was about every 15-20 minutes. She wore a helmet and carried a sword for the knights, wore a paper Egyptian headdress for the hieroglyphics, and wore a swashbuckling hat and eye patch for the pirates.) While the dinosaur relay was going on, my other two teen volunteers were working their magic on the other side of the room, putting out the supplies for the jousting and throwing up some simple decorations (felt flags and knight action figures I’d brought from home). This way, when we went back into the tree house and emerged on the other side of the room, it had been transformed into a different time and place! The same happened while we were jousting. The two behind-the-scenes volunteers took down the dino decorations and set up for the hieroglyphic activity so that when we came back through the Magic Tree House, we had been transported once again and so on. This was really complicated to coordinate, but the kids loved actually getting to go inside the tree house and see the room transformed each time. I’m really glad I did it that way, but I think for the next one, I may just have the tree house be a part of the room that the kids can interact with, and put all these stations in the same room to let them peruse at their own pace rather than taking the whole group through each activity at the same time. It certainly is fun to have that wow factor though if you are able to do it!

ACTIVITIES

Dinosaurs Before Dark Dinosaur Stomp Relay: I put tape on the floor for a starting and turn around point (one for each team) and split the kids into two teams to race against each other. I didn’t provide prizes; the glory of being the winning team is reward enough! Each team was given two sets of dinosaur feet, but you could do it with one set for each team. On my signal, the kids would race down to the turn-around point on their dinosaur feet, then race back and pass the feet on to the next person to race, and so on. You may want to stress that this is more of a race of endurance rather than speed because if they try to go too fast on the stompers, they may hurt themselves.

A young child dressed in pink standing on top of plastic dinosaur feet

The Knight at Dawn Jousting Competition: Again, there was no prize for this other than the glory, but the challenge was for the kids to see if they could spear a ring on their lances. I borrowed stick horses from various staff members’ children and my mom was kind enough to make a few for me out of pool noodles. I also made ring holders so that myself and my volunteers wouldn’t have to hold them in our hands and risk getting speared (with a pool noodle, but still). I hot glued clothespins on the ends of dowel rods to clasp the rings in place. The rings were paper plates with the middles cut out. The kids would choose their steeds and lances (also made from pool noodles and lovingly crafted by my mother), then line up to take their turns at attempting to spear the ring. I was fortunate to have a teen volunteer helping me, so we were able to let four kids joust at once if we each held a ring out to both sides. We tried to let each of the children have at least two or three passes at the rings. Unfortunately, to this day, this is still the activity that I regret not getting pictures of the most! The kids had a great time with it, but it was impossible for me to hold the rings and take pictures at the same time! Mummies in the Morning Hieroglyph Messages: I made copies of a hieroglyphic alphabet pulled from National Geographic for Kids, laid them out on tables with different colored paper, crayons, and coloring pencils, and let the kids create their own signs, letters, etc. using the hieroglyphic alphabet. This was so easy to do and I got some very interesting messages! (One of them translated to “Poop is cool.”)

Several children sitting at a desk, writing on colored paper

Pirates Past Noon Pirate Bean Bag Toss and Walk the Plank: The bean bag toss was something I created years ago for a summer reading finale that I pulled back out for this program. The kids could take turns at the toss, and they could take turns at walking the plank, which was a piece of wood I borrowed from our maintenance department laid out on a large blue piece of paper. I made three-dimensional shark fins out of cardstock and hot glued them to the paper as if they were circling around the plank. These activities were incredibly easy for my volunteers to supervise which gave me a chance to set out the snacks we had prepared.

Large cardboard box decorated like a treasure map. Several holes are cut in it for the bean bag toss.

Child walking carefully on a wooden board placed in the middle of a large piece of blue paper, simulating water. 

Snacks
Dinosaur Eggs: This program was right around Easter, so we were able to buy several bags of chocolate eggs fairly cheap!
Pretzel Swords: I bought the large, thick pretzel rods and put a Lifesaver Gummy around the end of each one to make a hilt. Super easy and the kids loved them!
Cheese Pyramid: I simply bought a variety of cheese cube flavors and stacked them into a pyramid. No fuss!
Fish and Chips: This one is a great example of my dad joke humor at its finest. I bought potato chips and Goldfish crackers and tossed them together almost like Chex Mix.

We also had a photo area with a Jack and Annie standee that I won at a conference that year (it was fate!) and an adorable knight/horse photo prop that one of our very talented clerks had painted for an outreach event. I called in a lot of favors and reused a lot of old things for this program. Without the help of our teen volunteers, all that razzle dazzle with the tree house would not have been possible. I borrowed a lot of props from my mom because she and I love going to the local Renaissance Festival every year and she’s built up quite a stash. I commissioned a lot of help creating new things from our volunteers and other staff members because I was out of town at a conference the week before the program. But I think it’s important to make use of the talents of the people around you when they are willing to help. We all want to be Super Librarian, but you don’t have to do it all yourself. That’s the great thing about library services! We are all in it together!

I hope some of these ideas are useful and inspire you to have a Magic Tree House program at your library! One thing’s for certain, these books don’t seem to be losing popularity any time soon!

The Importance of Deliberate Play Opportunities for School-age Kids and Teens

In the spirit of Summer Reading, this post will be filled with completely unrelated galaxy cats.

I’ve talked about the power of play in relation to early literacy and the Babies Need Words Every Day campaign. Today, I want to talk about the importance of the deliberate use of play with school-age children and adolescents.

When we talk about play and creativity in the library, we often talk about young children. And why not? Play is one of Every Child Ready to Read’s five practices. Once children hit kindergarten, though, we talk about makerspaces. We talk about STEM. Even though these are steeped in self-discovery in the library, the overt goal is to educate. Or, at least, add to our evidence that the library helps children “learn” by the academic definition. And for good reason:  It’s clear that libraries have resonated with stake holders about their role in early literacy education. The next obvious step is to show that we make an academic difference with school-age children. Some libraries do pre- and post-tests to prove Summer Reading helps prevent the Summer Slide. I’ve created outreach with measurable alignment to State Standards.

But it’s important not to lose the very real fact that play has non-academic benefits. If you’ve been following this blog for a while you may notice that even saying this signals a huge shift in my thinking over the past year or so. Down to the deepest parts of my heart and soul, I am an educator who was born out of the public school system and for all its faults I will defend what is considered a public school classroom until at least the end of this sentence, and probably after that. I will give you that it’s not for every single individual; but public education has never been about The Single Individual, anyway.

That’s why I think it may feel so critical to me that I separate the library from its possible academic benefits here.  Play has so many additional benefits, especially for school-age children and adolescents who come from backgrounds in trauma: those who live with food insecurity or transiency, those who live with toxic stress, those who live in volatile or neglectful environments. Those who may not have a space to play. Basically, a lot of the kids and teens who come into our libraries whether we’re aware of it or not.

If we wanted more deliberately center our school-age and teen programming around play in a non-academic way, what could we say to justify it?

The True Meaning of that Christmas-Related Reference Question

Alternate title: In Search of the Perfect Reference Interview: In which Bryce asks more questions than she has answers for.

Note; All gifs in this post are from the movie "Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas", which is unequivocally the best otter-based holiday film to date. They are not at all related to the text.

The Storytime Underground Facebook Group is a great place to share successes and get all-around support from the global Youth Services community. Occasionally, there will be a question whose answers are so varied and possibly polarizing that I get sucked in and can't stop thinking about it. Last week there was a question like that:

Thrive Thursday Roundup: November 2015

Happy Thrive Thursday everyone! This is a Very Special Episode of Thrive Thursday, because it's Thrive Thursday's 2nd birthday! Yay!

Thrive Thursday is a monthly roundup of some great school-age ideas for the library. The roundup has a blog-hop format, hosted by a different blog every month.

Want to know more about Thrive Thursday created by Lisa Shaia? Check out past round ups at Thrive After Three. Make sure you don't miss a thing by following the Pinterest Board and Facebook group!

Now, let's get started with the roundup!

Ask Away #2: Field Trips are an Advocacy Tool

So I'm sure I'll talk about it more sometime (yeah, right, just like I'll catch up on my programming posts sometime, right? I'm The Worst), but for now I'll just say I couldn't ask for a better group of colleagues to come together, reflect on current practice, and tackle scenario-based questions for my inaugural go at Iron Fist: The Class. Nothing brings a group of people together like talking about when we've felt most vulnerable and/or empowered for six weeks in a row, I guess. I'm ecstatic to hear from them, because why don't we just all hang out forever now?

So I was happy to hear that Brittany Gitzlaff, youth services director at Waunakee Public Library in WI, agreed to my featuring a recent email conversation of ours! Here's her question:

"After the success of my first few 4K field trips, due in large part to yours and your coworker Brooke's blogs, I was wondering if you had any advice or tricks on writing field trips and tours... Basically, I just don't want them to come in and think that I or the library are completely boring. :)"

Dinosaurology!

This is not my first nor will it be my last Denver
picture on this blog.

Okay, I obviously love to put the word "-ology" in the title of all my programs because the kids just keep coming to everything with "ology" in it.

I also unabashedly love dinosaurs.

So when I put together a program that invited kids to geek out about dinosaurs, I was not at all playing.

And once I got to talking with the kids who attended, I knew I made the right decision.

This school year I've held more programming on after school and early-release days, and so I've kind of taken my programming in a new direction: fewer stations, more OMFG-this-is-so-crazy-let's-talk-about-this-information-together. And since the programming has happened on days when the kids HAVEN'T been sitting in one spot for six hours, and I can build in some regulation activities, I can give the kids what they want without worrying they'll fall asleep on me. And they want info, because brains are wired to seek it out.

So here's how Dinosaurology went!

Grossology!

So for awhile we've been talking in my department about running a grossology program, but I've been shying away from it. Mostly because my gross-out factor is really, really, really high. I mean, I guess it depends. For instance, I can talk bodily functions and other stuff people might think is gross for days. I've explained too many extremely gross  jokes in a clinical fashion to in-laws to count; and for that I'm happy that my husband's threshold for mortification is incredibly high. But, play an episode of a show that has a vomit gag, even a cartoon one, and I'm gone.

At any rate, I set out to put together a grossology program that was not at all gross to me and yet possibly gross to other people; and after I planned it, I ran it by Kelsey to make sure it was gross enough. Her face as I was describing it said it all-- it was!

So yeah, here's how the "grossest" grossology program I could get myself to do went:

After School Book Exploration: A STEM Shared Experience

This weekend I was lucky to attend The Wisconsin After School Association Conference. If you've never been, the WAA Annual Conference is a great place to connect with other community members statewide who work with youth. I learned about epigenetics, which is completely fascinating. Seriously everyone, watch that video. I'm sure I'll be writing more about it as I wrap my brain around what this could mean for library service. It's fairly inexpensive professional development, at $50 for 4 sessions and a half-day pre-conference. Another great thing I learned about was Spark PE, a research-based physical education program. You can download free plans here that you can adapt to library programming, surely.

I also got to present at one of the session times! I wanted to connect a few high--quality (read: my personal favorite) books to fun things kids can do after school, and talk a little about why that's important.

Here's some highlights:

Kindergarten/1st grade Librarian Class Visit

Newspaper clipping of Grandpa Simpson shaking his fist.
Headline reads "Old Man Yells at Cloud".

In November, a K-1 split teacher at a local parochial school wanted a tour of the North community branch library, which is about a half-mile away and therefore walking distance for the small class.

Except, you know, when the high is 17 degrees.

After the class rescheduled twice and cancelled at basically the last minute once, we probably could have just said, "hey, we'll see you in the Spring." But truthfully, this wasn't one of our "regular field trip patron" classes and I really wanted to seize the momentum, not letting them forget about us. So, with the promise that they would in fact schedule a tour in the Spring, I went about concocting an engaging visit that would get a bunch of kindergarten and first graders sufficiently pumped about the library without them actually getting to go to the library, where many of them had never been before. They didn't even have a library at school!

Top Five Takeaways: #ALSC14

I was so frickin' lucky to get to go to the ALSC Institute in Oakland, CA, everyone. And you're pretty lucky if you didn't get to go because I'm gonna lay out for you the top five things I learned at this conference (you I know both know that ten would be all TL;DR). Because if there's one thing I know, conferences are hella expensive (the thing about ALSC was that they actually fed you without you paying extra, so that was cool). Not just monetarily, but in your own time and the time of your library.

But that's all right. As my banner motto says, "it takes a village, but it's nice to have a blog." I've got you covered, as much as animated GIFs will allow.
So buckle up, throw out all your liquids over 3 ounces, put your phone on airplane mode, and keep your seat in an upright and locked position (you entitled jerk), because here we go to Oakland!

Summer Reading Game Cards!

The kids are safely back in school. We all need to give ourselves a big pat on the back, because for all the blood, sweat, tears, and hives (no joke I literally got hives this summer, and I'm on every allergy medication known to man)... it's done. The school year has started, and we're gearing up for yet another ridiculously crazy time (namely, the entire school year), but it's crazy in a different way. You know what I mean. But before I dive head first into fall programming (yes, and finishing my write-ups of summer stand-alone programs. It'll be fine and I won't leave you hanging too long), I want to give some insight into the creation of our Summer Reading Game Cards.

Marge wrote about going prizeless, which turned out fine and our participation stayed strong. I was over-the-top happy that we trusted ourselves and our kids enough to encourage reading as a positive expected behavior throughout the summer rather than rewarding it in little bits like a chore. It's important to remember that going prizeless means placing a higher value on your kid patrons' intrinsic motivation, AND on yourselves. Going prizeless means you've placed a high enough value on your well-developed collection, your awesome reader's advisory, your kick-ass programs, and your welcoming environment to know that those mean more to kids than a wooden boat. That's some heavy shizz right there, and I commend Marge and our library director for taking that leap (it's been years in the making. Seriously, please give them a round of applause in GIF form like NOW).

I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916!

When my dad got his BA back in the 70s,
he was probably imagining that one day
he'd have a child who'd have to
free-hand a large shark.

This Spring, Sarah at YA Librarian Tales and me both had the same idea for a summer program: playing into the wild success of the I Survived series by Lauren Tarshis at our libraries! We had a discussion on Twitter about it that many librarians joined, including the kid-culture-programming maven Angie at Fat Girl Reading. The conundrum: Which book could I feature that meets this criteria: 1) is exciting, and  2) will not bum out everyone attending, especially the adults.

The three that were definitely out for me right away were The Attacks on September 11, 2001, Hurricane Katrina, 2005, and The Battle of Gettysburg, 1863. After a pretty rousing discussion on Twitter, Sarah and I came to the same decision: to tackle The Shark Attacks of 1916. If anything, my decision was dependent on 2 factors here: 1) sharks are cool, and it is super-interesting that they were once thought to be as docile as a bunny rabbit; and 2) the death count was relatively low, so the chances that someone in attendance would say that a family member died in these incidents was slim, nationally.

P.U.F.F.IN Library Lab: Light Painting!

The first PUFFIN Library Lab in July was the brainchild of my LPL colleague Lindsay. It was a cross-department program, and she rocked it!

You know what? I'll just let her tell it. I'll even let her call me by my legal name because what type of jerk changes their first name when they get married for Internet purposes and doesn't tell anyone IRL about it. I mean, honestly. I'm the worst. --Bryce

Hi, everybody! Lindsay the Technology Librarian, here. Last month, Sara and I ran a super fun light painting program for elementary school aged kids. I first learned about light painting at an ILEAD conference last year, where I saw a couple of librarians testing it out. The idea percolated in the back of my head until Sara invited me to join the Fizz Boom Read fun this summer. As a kid, what could be more fun than standing around in a dark room waving flashlights around while your picture is taken? Sara agreed, and the fun began.

This might be a good time to point out that I've really mostly worked with adults over the past 7 years. I teach adult computer classes and do adult Reference. Suffice it to say, I was pretty nervous about this program. Does anybody else out there get the jitters when challenged to work with an age group outside of your comfort zone? Here’s what worked for me: rehearsing the general flow of what I wanted to say, being prepared for different levels of learning, and just owning what makes me, me. (A potential fourth: making sure any tech equipment works!) The first two can take some time and thought. The 3^rd one has taken me years and is still a work in progress. So what if I stumble over words sometimes or crack lame jokes about cats during classes? That’s me. I’m human. Adults seem to take it in stride, so I told myself kids would too. And if all else fails? I pretend I’m super-outgoing Lindsay and not binge-watch-Star-Trek-on-Friday-nights Lindsay. What do you all do to ease your nerves?

I shouldn’t have worried so much; the program was a blast! 

PUFFIN Library Lab: Sasquatch Escape!

Basically one of my favorite movies of all time.

This summer, we decided to work WITH at least one of the many groups that visit our library each week to help make the experience more positive and delay/prevent teacher burn-out. One local group was known for coming into the library for one hour, then bringing in a second group for another hour, sometimes with the same teachers. Needless to say, eventually during the summer the kids would run out of favorite books to read, and teachers would get sick of helping their students make good choices.

To fill a pretty big need the size of everyone's sanity, P.U.F.F.IN Library Lab (Pop Up Free Fun IN the Library) was born. One program done twice every Tuesday (one for each group that visited), the topic of which announced to the public day-of over Facebook. And damn, did it work out well!

Marge held two PUFFIN labs in June, while I took July. My first program was inspired by Ariel's Monster Party. My rendition of a monster party was based on the book Imaginary Veterinary #1: The Sasquatch Escape by Suzanne Selfors.

As you might remember, I'm kinda into cryptozoology, so I'll basically talk about it whenever I get a chance.