• Activities

    Family Place – Parent/Child Workshop

    Back in October of last year, I posted about going to training to become a Family Place Library.  After six months, numerous meetings, and spending our grant money, I’m happy to report our first Parent/Child Workshop went beautifully.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Family Place Libraries is a…

  • Reviews

    The Center of Everything

    The Center of Everything by Linda Urban is a coming-of-age story for a young girl whose grandmother has recently passed away.  Ruby Pepperdine lives in Bunning New Hampshire where it is said the inventor of the donut settled after spending years on the ocean in his sailing ship.  Ruby’s grandmother…

  • Reviews

    Open This Little Book

    This book is such a fun surprise when you open it.  I have seen this title flit across the blogs and book reviews, but I didn’t realize its structure until I opened it up and began to read.  Inside you’ll find the first on many “little” books, this one being…

  • Activities

    Read! Build! Play! Lego Duplo Story Time

    My library participated in the Read! Build! Play! Project back in October and we received a library toolkit from the Lego company with a box full of Duplos and 10 kits and a big book of Grow Caterpillar Grow.  You can see the kit from Amazon, here.  This afternoon I…

  • Reviews

    Hold Fast

    I fell in love with Blue Balliett’s writing after reading her first middle grade novel – Chasing Vermeer.  She was able to combine so many unique elements into one story that held me spellbound from beginning to end.  In fact, Chasing Vermeer, was the first book discussion book choice that I…

  • Activities

    1,000 Books Before Kindergarten

    If you do a search online a number of libraries around the country have created their own version of 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program.  My boss came to me sometime in early January, I believe, and thought that this would be a great program for our library to offer.  After a…

  • Activities

    Middle School Theatre Program

    I was lucky enough to begin working in a library with a strong group of middle school students that swells to about 50 kids during the summer and is usually between 25 – 35 during the school year.  Each fall the kids try-out for roles in our Enchanted Library program. …

  • Reviews

    Exclamation Mark

    Let me start with one simple fact – I ADORE Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s picture books.  Her ideas are absolutely spot-on for young children and are humorous enough to get a chuckle out the adults reading them as well.  Tom Lichtenheld’s illustrations are comical as well – he has an amazing way of…