A.K.A. Jane's first ALA Conference

Time to write the blog! That's what I want...time to write the blog!
A.K.A. Jane's first time attending ALA

Perhaps I could borrow this giant squid from the Boston Convention Center - eight arms just might get the job of "catching up"done.   Or not.  

Last week, this children's specialist clip-clopped to Boston for the 2016 ALA Midwinter Conference.  #Amazing  And now I find myself overwhelmed with ideas and barely a second to play with them.  Oh the plight of the children's librarian...story time, ref desk, circ desk...but I just want to play with ideas and send out clever tweets to all my newly minted friends.  Oh, and have champagne and cake each day at 3pm.  Calgon...take me back to ALA!  There were nice warm shuttles that brought one to and from the conference each day  A girl could get used to chauffeur service!  Possibly a library benefit at the 20 year mark? Whaddyathink? (Oh, just say yes!)

Early in the planning, we decided that the little black lab, Piper, would stay home and that Mr Horse would come to Boston.  It's the clip-clop thing!  We picked up friends along the way because... "the more we get together the happier we'll be"  And we took pictures because... we volunteered to snap a few for LibrarianWardrobe.  

Opening night of the exhibits and I was feeling a bit like Dorothy..."oh Mr Horse, we're not in Kansas Connecticut anymore."  Look!  It sparkled and twinkled the whole time!  True story!

We stayed at the best hotel.  Mr Horse was a bit of a ham, but there is not much I can do about that.  I've learned to "let go" of the reins.  My front desk friend, Brendin, corralled Mr Horse on Sunday night.  I think Mr Horse was out and about while I was swimming.  (hotel pool!) Whew!

We stayed at the Westin Copley Place where the inimitable Matt checked us in, took great care to make sure we were comfortable and even posed for photos.  I know he was trying to rock the #librarianwardrobe.  But alas, Matt - even with my many ribbons and your professional desk service skills you are.. most wonderfully...#hotelwardrobe.  What can I say?  Come work in my library!!

This is #librarianwardrobe (and she's from England aka... our mother country!)

BTW here's something brilliant!  My hotel had a Starbucks where, obviously, everyone knew my name!  This was quite lovely because I had my venti NF Chai every morning and evening and that kept me from going totally bonkers!  Well done!  And again, I must say...brilliant!

Each day was something new @alamw :  Guerrilla storytime, Curiosity Creates, Book Buzz(es), Champagne and cake at 3pm, (dare I repeat myself on the champagne!), Morris Award Winners Tea, We Need Diverse Books, Meg, Nikki, Heather, Jennifer, Mika, Ann Marie, Martha, Melissa, Katie, Mary, Lionel, Hayley, MrShu, Susan, Cathy, front row seats for YMA, front row seat for Chelsea Clinton, generous publishers, vendors, candy, texting, tweeting, communicating,  meeting virtual friends IRL, interacting, inspiring, energizing, learning, laughing, growing, transforming! Yes! It was spectacular.  And then...there was Fable Vision which has earned it's very own blog post.  Stay tuned for @FableVision  

Before I close this, let me say Youth Media Awards ...they were simply THE BEST.  Making a check on my bucket list.  I was thrilled to be there.  Honored to have a front row seat.  Yes Meg...we did step out of our comfort zone and owned the front row!  Well, maybe just two seats. See those two seats in front of Meg?  Our seats! Score!!

Congratulations to all the winning authors, illustrators, books, audio books and film.  The room was alive with joy and cheering.  Twenty-eight years in Children's Services, my first ALA conference and Youth Media Awards - I was on top of the world.  

I'm really not worried about catching up. I'll get there.  I do not need the giant squid's eight arms.  I'm in the clouds. Soaring! Enjoying every minute of those 4 days.  Happiest Librarian in town. True story!

My thanks to the members of the Library's Foundation, Nicola Smee and to all those for playing along on my adventure:

@WestinCopleyPl

@FableVision

@itsmissmeg

@alamw

@MelissaZD

@MrShuReads

@PenguinTeen

@Penguinkids

@JrLibraryGuild

@NDALibrary

@YALSA

@cppotter

@KariKarp

@storytimekatie

@Scholastic

@AlgonquinYR

@klmpeace

@alscblog

@qsprite

Holiday Drama not from the Llama!

Once again The Connecticut Concert Ballet charmed the Faxon community with The Nutcracker!  This is, by far, the prettiest event we host each year.  Our patrons, young and old adore the music, the costumes, and the dancing.  And the little ones wait ever so patiently for their chance to hold hands and dance at the end of the evening.  It's magical!

The program is planned for ages 4 and older with an adult, yet all are welcome.  We set up big chairs and little chairs.  We give out free tickets starting a week in advance.  We wrote a "how to" on hosting a ballet company in your library.  Please take a look for ideas.  

The young dancers pull tender heart strings.

The teen dancers in the company take your breath away!

Piper and I love it when they stop everything to read!  Yes, a couple of cool cats!

Colorful

joyful

happy

  

                               

confident READERS

Bringing E.T.A. Hoffman's The Nutcracker drama to life with Tchaikovsky's amazing music and the Connecticut Concert Ballet dancers is an honored tradition in our little library. Holiday joy is shared beginning with jingle bells and ending with candy canes on one magical night.  We do our best to continue the joy in the month of December with coloring pages 

                           .....and  Saturday "pop-up" crafts - Torn Paper Nutcracker

Thanks for visiting Piper Loves the Library.  Please check out our Flannel Friday Friends.  They are a fantastic creative resource.   Lisa is this week's host.  Go take a peek!

Let's hold hands for PEACE

Desperately missing my Flannel Friday Family

Something has happened in my library land.  We have a new director, with new energy and new ideas.  "This is a good thing" as Martha Stewart would say!  My own creative energy is being tapped and you know I love that.  I welcome growth and development. It feeds my soul.

There is much to report in children's but alas, there are no new flannels for me.  Even when I think I will surround myself with felt while Thursday night TV keeps me entertained - I don't.  I'm knitting, drawing, painting - change is in my life.

For those of you who followed my posts after Sandy Hook, you know I participate in  26 acts of kindness.  It is good to have this purpose in my days again because the terrorists attacks in Paris just about did me in.  It's time to stand close and hold hands. 

This past week I set out on a mission to make PEACE visible in the library's children's area.  Little things I could do, a display...and they noticed. *joyful heart*

 

I outreached to our Family Resource Center and they inquired about books for children in Arabic.  Yes we have them!  Dual language kits in Arabic and English.  Another display.

Head, shoulders, knees .....

 *so loving*

The adult coloring pages sit on the Child/Ref desk - no doubt you've guessed.... we're coloring PEACE because...well...PEACE.  

This amazingly international library community does a fantastic job of helping each other.  We have families donating supplies for students regularly.  Pencils, pens, glue sticks and lined paper made up the recent donation.  Although I generally place these on the Child/Ref desk I decided to go a step further this week, with proper acknowledgement. 

Although my mom passed a number of years ago there are moments that a daughter always remembers.  The comfort mixed with teenage embarrassment, I felt while standing next to her in church, holding hands, singing "let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me...." guides me to this day.  The older I get, the more I realize how the embarrassment helped to mark these days in my memory,  how a mom can use embarrassment to keep you connected to family and to the importance of PEACE.  There are things a mom knows.  Thank you Mom.

Today I aspire to let peace begin with me and I know how to make simple, creative statements that hopefully bring comfort to families visiting the library. We have a bounty of new children's books in our browsing bin, more diverse than ever before.  Come visit your friends, cuddle up with good books, color your day with PEACE and help your community when you can.  Each little step brings us closer to peace.  Oh, and hold hands with your family, friends and little ones...that's the best, it helps you grow and feeds your soul.  

Thanks for visiting Piper Loves the Library.  Check out our Flannel Friday Friends - Kathryn is the host. 

And if you're looking for an audio book  - here's one to try.  I learned so much.  Written and read by Muslim American Sumbul Ali Karamali.  

Mindfulness in Story Time

Good Morning Sun!  Hello Sun!  

Sun salutation!  The very best way to begin our YOGA for 2 program is to greet the warm sun that grows our food and feeds us and brings us beautiful flowers and health and happiness.  This is a mindful movement program, with stories, songs and a craft.  It is an hour of calm.  It is magnificent. 

The very best things I've done for improving my skills over 28 years in children's services include: workshops with Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Handbook, Mother Goose on the Loose training with Betsey Diamont Cohen, Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR) training, and becoming certified to teach Preschool Yoga.  These are career changing, almost life changing ways of looking into the world of child development and early literacy.  

The yoga training has returned me to my roots of Early Childhood Education. I thrive on understanding infant, toddler, child, tween, teen development.  Learning about the developing brain, the word gap, the impact of reading aloud, the need for creativity, understanding compassion, finding calm, conversational reading - the how and why and when of all of this - is exactly what makes me tick.  

Okay, enough about me and back to Yoga for 2 and sun salutations.  When the sun does not cooperate and the rain pours down here in Connecticut -our solution to greet the sun each morning:  paint your own sunshines and take them home.  Works for me!  Works for my little friends.  And painting is very calming, especially with our yoga music.  Win, win!  I provide paper and give both child and parent,(caregiver), brushes to work together.  We do this after yoga and we are very focused.  

Here are the parts of our ever-growing flannel story of the sun coming up in the morning.  We are being mindful of the beautiful world that surrounds us.

We do star stretches with our big and little bodies and the children are invited to place a star on the flannel board when they've stretched long strong legs and arms and backs!  Self-esteem builder right here.

Our library has books to help our families in their search for mindful parenting, and finding age-appropriate techniques for self-regulating little ones.  This is a big, busy, wild, world and we need to find our calm and teach our children well ...to locate their inner calm. 

This is our world and this is something I can do, I can offer... with the support of my amazing library.  I do believe that this is a step in helping to raise healthy children.  We care for the emotional, psychological, and physical child. We do that in our library where we introduce story and song and movement.  My little library strives to be an important part of our very global village raising beautiful children.  Amen.

Umpqua Community College in Oregon lost beautiful children yesterday.  We need to do more.

Thanks for reading Piper Loves the Library.  (( hugs to the world ))

Our first post on this program is here - click if you'd like to learn more.  

  

Diversity Matters in Halloween Books

   DIVERSITY in Halloween Books!
Yes I am shouting this with the help of author/illustrator Denise Fleming's adorable character.  I am a Denise Fleming fangirl and I cannot lie!  Her books feature wonderfully diverse children and #WeNeedDiverseBooks all the time.

The library where Piper and I work is little.  Our holiday collections are held in the basement, (I know, we don't like that either). When the holiday approaches we squeeze them into a high traffic spot and I place a very colorful Denise Fleming poster on them ... tah-dah, holiday books!  By the way...you should check out the free posters Denise Fleming creates - did I mention FREE?  They're beautiful.

This week I collected Halloween books from the basement and dusted them off for display.  Mind you, this is a tiny collection - 43 titles, some in multiple copies.  I discovered something interesting while placing this collection in the browsing bins.  

Diversity exists in this collection!  Amazing, yes!  Considering the popularity of Halloween I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see kids of color on the pages.  9 of the 43 titles have diverse kids.  I realize that's not some great percentage, nor is this "real research" but it does makes me pause.  Hmmmm.

There is a disconnect with diversity that needs to change.  All families will benefit when children discover books with someone like their brother, their teacher, their friends and their family within the pages.  Children, families, schools and libraries need good books that reflect our very colorful world.  Oh dear publishers, I adore diversity on the holidays...because you are beginning to look like my family gatherings,

...but I need diversity all the time!

And by "I"...I mean everyone!  

Spying a little Elvis makes me laugh, and a collection of costumed kids is just what I want in a read-aloud.

Los Gatos Black on Halloween has some gorgeous illustrations for older children...

                           ...while Catherine Stock's Halloween Monster has been a long time fav.

Have fun with your books, keep your "pumpkin eye" (love that title), on diversity when ordering and remember that Denise Fleming's books bring you kids of color all year round. But right now, just look at her Halloween kids!  Perfection! 

P.S.( Piper Script): Visit Denise Fleming's website for activities and ideas

If you enjoyed this post you may like this one - we did a Pumpkin Eye Craft!  Very cool.

 New flannel pieces coming!! Yes! Finally!  I'm working on a story...here's one of the characters.  Can you guess the book? 

If you like her...you may want to check this one out! 

Thanks for visiting Piper Loves the Library. She loves chickens too!  She's thinking chicken costume!  

Flannel Friday keeps us creative.  Membership is free!  Visit the website - click here!