PICTURE BOOK CITY

One of the things I have recently done in the children's room is to create Picture Book City.
I chose categories from our most popular and most requested picture book categories, created new spine labels for them, chose a color coded cover and changed their location in the computer. The staff has been really receptive to this new shelving unit, they love how easy it is to shelve the books. Since the categories are small, I do not ask them to shelve them alphabetically. I did not categorize our whole collection, only the books that fit within these categories. At the current moment, our Princess section is down to 4 books and our dinosaur section that once took up 2 shelves, takes up 1. It has been overwhelmingly popular with patrons and one mom even said that this is helping her son be interested in reading, since he can find and pick out books that interest him.
I was authorized to paint the back of the shelves to match their color codes, and it has just brightened the whole place up! Not pictured is Board Book Bay.

     

 Bedtime Boulevard hosts books that are about sleeping, dreaming, scaring away monsters, ect.

Award Winner Avenue hosts mostly Caldecott Winners. These books barely circulated before they were moved to their own section, now they are getting checked out regularly!

 Shelf visual.

 Dinosaur Drive hosts both non-fiction and picture books about dinosaurs.

 Growing Up Grove consists of taking care of your teeth/going to the dentist, going to the doctor, potty training, going to preschool/kindergarten/school, bullying, being sick, going to the hospital, ect.

 Pirate Pointe also hosts both non-fiction and picture books about Pirates.

 Princess Place also hosts books about fairies and ballerinas.

 Superhero Street. As you can see, not many books are on that shelf. They have been wildly popular with the Summer Reading theme this year.

Things That Go Terrace: cars, trucks, trains, planes, tractors, anything that goes, it's here!

SUPERHERO PARTY 2015

Before Summer Reading started this year, I decided to throw a Superhero Party for the kiddos to get some excitement going. It was the highest attended event we have ever had at the library, besides a Summer Reading event. Here are some pictures:

 Bopping along through the obstacle course.

 Silverware

 Cupcakes and Cookies

 Spider-Man

 Water Bottles with felt capes

 Tunnel

 Going through the arches

 X-Ray Vision Test

 Photo prop

 Super Fruits!

 Watching The Incredibles

 Going through the tire course

 Popcorn and cheese balls

Hero sandwiches

 Spraying villains with silly string

The total cost of the party was $350.

STORYTIME

My typical StoryTime outline looks something like this:
10:00-10:15: All the kids meet in the children's room and we read books. We sometimes do fun games with story stones and I have the kids tell me a story, but all of my StoryTimes are very themed driven. I love having themes and the kids love it, too.
10:15-10:45: We have "crafts" to go along with the theme. I hate calling them crafts, because they are more than that, but I can't think of a better word. You'll see what I mean in the pictures.
10:45-11:00: We always, always have snacks after StoryTime. To some, this is taboo with food allergies and liability. We are allowed to serve food items in our library and to help with food allergies, all of my StoryTime sessions are registered and I ask for allergy information then. I have only had one little with food allergies and just made something different for him. I love serving snacks. Most of the time, I make what we have. I have always loved to bake and cook, so this is a great way for me to tie that love in.

These pictures are from one of my most popular StoryTime sessions, ART!

 Rainbow colored/flavored sparkling water

 Each child got to paint on their own canvas with several different forms of media.

 This was the backdrop for the snack table.

 Rice Crispy Treat "Paintbrushes"

 Rainbow fruit platter.

Snack table











Little Picasso's at work. I purchased the berets through Oriental Trading.

ABOUT ME

Hello!
My name is Lindsey and I am the children's librarian at Eudora Public Library in Eudora, KS.
I am a third generation librarian here. My grandmother was the children's librarian for 15 years and my mother was a circulation librarian for 10 years. I started working at the library in November 2013 and started my journey into storytimeland in August 2014.
My grandmother did StoryTime the traditional way. A few books, songs, fingerplays, a simple craft and out the door. The kids loved her and so did the parents. She was an amazing librarian. When I started doing StoryTime, I knew that the traditional way, wasn't the right way for me. My approach to StoryTime is unconventional, to say the least, but it has worked for me and our community. We read at the beginning and still sing lots of songs and dance. I tend focus on the imaginative, creative and playful part of learning. We go outside, blow bubbles, do yoga, have detailed art process crafts, have snacks, go off location on "field trips" and much more. The kids often refer to it as a "party." It has really opened doors for us and brought in children from our community that haven't come in before.
I have also been working hard to revamp our children's room to meet the needs of a flourishing, YOUNG community. Our community is made up of new, young families who move here to be in the middle of two big cities in Kansas. My goal was to make the children's room easy and accessible for everyone. We dumped Dewey permanently throughout our whole library and categorized our non-fiction section. Our stats have nearly doubled since the change in November 2014.
I also overhauled a section to make a Picture Book City. PBC is a section of shelving dedicated to categorizing some of our most popular/requested picture book categories. We have: Award Winner Avenue, Bedtime Boulevard, Superhero Street, Princess Place, Pirate Pier, Things That Go Terrace, Growing Up Grove, Dinosaur Drive and Board Book Bay. This has been so EXTREMELY popular that most of the time, these shelves are empty.
When I'm not at work, you'll find me with my daughter. It is very hard to find the appropriate work/life balance, but I am slowly making it work. I care for all of the kids who come in and it's hard to shut off that switch after work.
My hope is to inspire people to think outside the box, break routines and, most importantly, have a ton of fun, as we have one of the best jobs in the world.