First Day Jitters

Here we are at the end of August and many of you have watched your little ones go off on the school bus today. I sent my oldest off to his first year of middle school, and my youngest to first grade. Talk about a rough morning! It's very hard to watch them grow up so quickly, but the flip side is that I get to enjoy all of the little ones that come to library programs during the day! I've been working hard over the summer to get things ready for fall events, and I'm hoping that you and your children will enjoy them as much as I do! I wanted to share with you a book that we recently bought for the library, and that my first grader and I have been laughing over for the past few days. It's called "Interrupting Chicken" by the wonderful David Ezra Stein. This tale has Grandpa Chicken trying desperately to calm his young grand-chicken with a bedtime story. Each time he starts a new book, such as Hansel and Gretel or Chicken Little, the youngster shouts the ending. This is one of the best read-alouds that I've come across in awhile, and my son asked for it to be repeated over and over. I can't wait to share it in storytime, and I hope that you'll stop in and check it out for yourself!

Where has the summer gone??

Hello all! I have been away from the blog for far too long, but Summer Reading was consuming all free time and then some! We had a fantastic summer this year, with over 400 kids registered and involved with the program and various activities. The library had it's first family bingo, which was wildly successful, and I'm planning another for Halloween. It was really cool to see families meeting up with each other and hanging out for an evening of fun. All of our elementary programs were a blast from our Spongebob Party to our Life-Sized Candyland, the kids were ecstatic, as was I! One of my favorite programs this summer was, surprisingly enough, one that took little effort on my part. We had a Water Art day, in which the kids were free to use their imagination and use different art tools from water colors to tempera paints and sand. I can honestly tell you that it was the most quiet our library had been all summer long. The kids were absolutely enthralled with what they were doing, and it was super fantastic to see what they came up with. We strung the finished products up on clothesline in the craft room for all to see. Our End of Summer Reading Party was a blast. We had Magic Man TJ Hill perform, the kids picked their free books, and we pulled the winners for all of the different raffle prizes. We had over 1oo people come out and celebrate, and I'm so thankful for all of the support!

So, with the end of Summer Reading, now comes a bit of a rest for me here at the library, but I'm busy planning all of our Fall activites. We are going to continue with some new programs and bring back some old favorites. Little Listeners, Book Buddies and Stories and Songs will all pick up again beginning the week of September 13th. We will be adding the Kid Aerobics for the fall, as well as a Family Storytime in the evenings. I'd like to have Bingo each month at the library, and we are also offering the wildly popular Abrakadoodle classes again. You can check the website for details. I'm most excited for Halloween this year, my absolute favorite. This year, our teen librarian, Heather Panella and I are putting together a Haunted Library. We plan on going all out for this one, so be sure and keep October 30th free in your date books! Also, on September 18th we will be having Mark Hayward, a top-knotch yo-yo expert come to the library for a fun-filled family program.

In the meantime, this month we're having a Movie Night with Diary of a Wimpy Kid, our 3rd Annual Stuffed Animal Sleepover, Get Ready for Kindergarten program and Science in the Summer.

As you can see, busy, busy!! And be sure to stop in and say hello...it's awfully quiet around here without Story Time!