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?

Attention Parent Friends:The Case for Summer Reading

Google image search: "Summer". Checks out.

A lot of times, my main audience is library staff, specifically in Youth Services. Sometimes, though, I like to talk to the public in general. This post is inspired by my non-librarian friends all over the country who love to tell me when they’ve connected to their local libraries—and right now I'm getting at least weekly messages that people are signing up for Summer Reading!



PARENTS: Sign yourself and your (possibly still in utero) children up for your local library’s Summer Reading Program!

What is Summer Reading?
Summer Reading is an ongoing drop-in program happening throughout the summer across the United States (and across the northern hemisphere currently, if you want to get technical). Public libraries everywhere encourage children and families to read and engage in enriching literacy- and learning-based activities throughout the summer.  Many programs involve a reading log or game card with which your child or family can track their reading and other activities throughout the summer. At intervals throughout the summer (minutes or books read, or sheets turned in), small prizes may be awarded, sometimes with the possibility of raffles for larger prizes. Many libraries choose to giveaway a book as a final prize or even as a sign up incentive.

Throughout the summer there also fun events to attend. Think parties, carnivals, concerts, programming series with a weekly “summer camp” feel… all at your public library!

Many libraries offer Summer Reading for ages 0-adult; meaning that it starts at age zero (obviously a read-to-me program). Adults can read for prizes and/or glory too!

As with the vast majority of public library programming, funding for Summer Reading comes from general programming funds or fundraising from the Friends of the Library group, so you pay nothing to join!

Why should my family join Summer Reading?

Crafting a Parent Presentation

Today you can find me at the ALSC blog talking about potential partnership opportunities with schools.Since it's written, I figured I'd share here an alternative post on something I do a lot in my job: talking to parents about the library.

Your local PTO or parent group meeting is a great place to reach local families who may not be regular library patrons.  It’s important that we librarians are able to break down the jargon and make the library an accessible community asset, as parent meetings are a great place to make connections with residents who may never have set foot in a library—or had a bad experience, and have since been scared to return.

Here are my four main components to every parent meeting presentation:

Holidays and Libraries: Rethinking Our Programming

UPDATE 11/2019 to address some related comments:
One thing I want to make clear, and may add this to the post, is that it isn't intended to, say, shame a library asst who's been told they'll lose their job if they don't have a Santa program.


Safety =/= comfort, but stay safe.

There are small things we can all do to work toward/into inclusion. It's important that fear of a little pushback doesn't immobilize us. It's important to distinguish feelings of discomfort and literally placing yourself in an unsafe scenario--which can be difficult, especially if you've have a background in trauma. We all need to find our own way forward. These are just some ideas of mine.


This week I was honored to present at the New Jersey Library Association Conference in Atlantic City. I have a few posts mulling around in my head about it, including at least one more really heavy one. For ease of posting something soon, however, I'd like to share my contribution to the panel "Rethinking Holidays & Cultural Celebrations in Libraries" that I presented with the lovely Dr. LaShauna Dean, Assistant Professor of Mental Health and Addiction Counseling at William Paterson University. 

This will probably read harsher than many of my other posts, but understand I am very passionate about the topic of inclusion.

I do not celebrate holidays in the library and do not suggest running holiday programming.

I know how I sound to some of you: I’m no fun, and I don’t like whimsy, and I Scrooge around shushing carolers.

Awesome New-to-Me Blogs

I'm celebrating 5 years of this blog, albeit a little late (even though I sincerely thought that my blog's birthday was tomorrow. I swear).

I really can't tell you how much your following my blog means to me. I've lately been revisiting some of my older posts, and how much has changed around here has quite frankly been ridiculous. Thanks, reader, for hanging around! And thanks to everyone who creates their own corners of the web to share what works for them. Putting yourself out there isn't the easiest thing to do, and I appreciate the hell outta you for it.

Last year, when I actually remembered my blog's birthday, I shared my favorite new-to-me blogs. I thought I would do the same this year. Last year's post focused mainly on programming blogs, and this year I've widened my librarianing scope a bit. Here's a snapshot of my new favorites:

What is a Librarian: An Unsolicited Rant

Yesterday I checked my phone in the morning to find that Book Riot posted an article on non-degreed librarians, and how they have value as humans.

As I read it, that’s what this article was about.

I was disappointed, but not surprised, at the number of negative comments that this article received.

I could write here the many arguments I’ve had when this topic comes up and the comment section explodes: about the process to become a brewmaster and how there are people who run breweries or make beer who are NOT brewmasters, technically (they are usually called head brewers). Or I could talk about the one time a child ran me down in a grocery store calling for her “library teacher” and how I said hi to her rather than explaining that my teacher certification lapsed years ago (and even then, I was never certified to teach in THAT state). Or even how people who are nurses for their entire careers have to take an updated test every few years to prove that they can still Be a Nurse Good; so please stop with “librarians are the doctors/para-professionals are the nurses” because last time I checked it was not a universal requirement for even librarians to keep up with certifications (I mean, it may be that April will arrive and I will have spent 5 years in libraries and I will be summoned to engage in a Hunger Games-style competition using only the Dublin Core, so stay tuned). But instead I want to hit a bit closer to home here, parking this officially in Unsolicited Rant territory.

This was not the only thing I saw shared on social media yesterday. Another widely shared link was to a Libraries Transform post. The supporting text, when shared by ALA, that accompanies this post is “Librarians are early literacy experts!” This was shared on Facebook, at the time of this writing, 496 times. That many shares tells me that a lot of librarians agree with it. And before I recognized the funny juxtaposition that inspired this post, I was kinda pissed.

Quick tips: Daily Vroom Early Literacy App

Yesterday was the first day of the second run of Child Development, Library Space and Behavior. Every week of the course, I include one "quick tip" video that can be used right away to help with behavior.

This is also the beginning of an otherwise busy season for me, but I want to keep writing as it has done me good and will do me good; and I say, god bless it! (...any other Christmas Carol nerds out there in cyberland? Any RENT nerds chuckle at my use of the word "cyberland"?) So I figured where I can I'll share a "quick tip" that's been useful to me lately at work.

Today I want to share a wonderful app that you and your family patrons can access for free: Daily Vroom.

Building Relationships from the Ground Up: An Interview with a Natural

In my last post, I came to the conclusion that one foundation of self-care is creating and maintaining healthy boundaries in working relationships.

Having moved across the country in the past year, I’m in the process of creating and maintaining an all-new set of relationships. And if my social media newsfeeds are to be believed, making IRL friends as an adult is something that a lot of people struggle with.

Three people throwing their fists in the air in unison.
Text reads, "Team friendship!"

To help me start with this reflection, I looked to the person in my life that is probably the best relationship-builder I know: my spouse, Caleb. Nearly all the people I now call friends are people I’ve met through Caleb. He has been asked to stand at weddings several times and he’s a godfather to two. His best friends are those he’s been friends with since FOREVER. And their friendships are not just of convenience, since we’ve moved so far from his hometown in Florida and they still keep in touch frequently. He tells basically every FB friend “happy birthday” and while I don’t understand it he sees is as an important Facebook Friend Role.

Healthy Boundaries in Work Relationships: Self Care times a Million

“I’ll be what you want until I can’t be that anymore.”

A person in a sparkly green jacket.
Text reads, "Tell me what you want."

I long ago figured out that this was like my motto in romantic-type relationships before I met my spouse. In December 2005, I had recently recovered from an 8 month relationship (that we ridiculously drug out to over a year) followed closely by a three week relationship. The timetables were different, but the arc of the relationship was painfully the same: Figure out what you want me to be, try to be that, get exhausted being that, force a breakup.

Then I met Caleb. I was tentative at first, not trusting myself. And while that sounds terrible as a romantic comedy plot, it actually helped me create the boundaries I didn’t know I needed for us to get to know each other at a slower pace, and form a more lasting relationship.

I’ve held a few different positions in my 11 professional years, and some working relationships have looked similar to my old romantic habits. The feeling that comes up when I examine any dissatisfying or failed relationships is the feeling of being consumed. And when I have attempted to set boundaries once that feeling starts to happen, there are hurt feelings and broken trust.

And I’ve been doing lots of examining lately, because I’m in the first year of a new job again. And as the old demotivational poster goes:

Valentines for Homebound Outreach

I share an office with 8 other people spanning two departments. Funnily enough (or “understandably enough”, still undecided) three people who are technically in the same library department as me make up Homebound Services. Together, seven of us are Outreach and Youth Services (or “Outreach”, for short).

If you were to visit our office on any given day, you might catch one of our Homebound staff members reading aloud a list of available romance novels, describing each cover. Or they might read summary after summary of movies a patron might want (I like to play the game of “guess the title” to myself). Their reader’s advisory phone calls are peppered with conversations about their patron’s daily lives.

And sometimes, you might overhear them say something that sparks this particularly popular, caps-locked tweet.

Bryce Does 'Play'! A Babies Need Words Every Day Blog Tour post

I’m so happy to post my contribution to The Babies Need Words Every Day Blog Tour! Babies Need Words Every Day is an initiative by the Association for Library Service to Children through The Early Childhood Programs and Services Committee. There are posters and book lists in English and Spanish, as well as a media kit to help your form and strengthen early literacy partnerships in your community. The beautiful artwork was illustrated by Il Sung Na, author of A Book of Babies (2014) and others. Check out the rest of the roundup here!

Today, I get to talk about PLAY! But first I want to talk a little more about how BNWED is used in our libraries.