End of Semester Relief

It's a good thing I bought a ticket to Vermont for the summer residency, because I PASSED my first semester! My advisor just sent back packet 5 with a nice comment, "good job!"

Hurrah!

Are you done? my granddaughter asked.

Sorry, no. Three more semesters to go.

We've had a stretch of very hot weather here in Maryland -- in the 90s and one day it hit over 100 degrees. The new annual flowers I planted have been complaining about the lack of rain.

So, today during the meeting of the swim team (meeting and pot-luck dinner), what do we get? Pouring down rain and thunder and lightning.

(and the promise of cooler weather for the next week -- in the 80s.)

Did the wash of water phase the grill guys?

Nope.

They stayed at the flaming grill turning out hamburgers and hot dogs while the rest of us huddled under the two pavilions. Yeah, grill guys!

-wo

Tuesday

So much for Nonfiction Monday.
Monday was the first day of Summer Reading. We figured (okay, I figured) that, because school is still in session, the day wouldn't be as busy as a normal beginning day of the Summer Reading Program.
Ha!

In the morning we were busy registering preschoolers.

They tell me that there was a lull of a few hours in the afternoon, but all h*ll broke lose once school let out. I wasn't there. I was at the 4th grade picnic as the representative parent for the 10-year-old. My husband couldn't make it because his library system was closing a branch and moving it to a new building, which meant the computer department was in charge of unwiring and packing up the computers. (at the picnic she was embarrassed when a boy came over to tell me how much he LOVED her. She doesn't even like him! Oh my, what a catty discussion she and her friends had when he moved away. It turns out that he's not very nice -- he gropes girls. In fourth grade? Yuck.)

When I returned to the branch at 5:00, the person on the children's desk was sooooo glad to see me. A few minutes there, I could see why. Busy, busy, busy.

We have a table set up in the Children's Room with several middle schoolers registering the elementary students for the Summer Reading Program and giving them string backpacks and nice coupons. All their younger siblings get registered over at the Children's Information Desk. Me. (ooops, the desk is now called the "Ask a Librarian Desk.") These little ones are being given a yellow tote bag plus the coupons. It was fun, but exhausting.

Meanwhile, my husband had taken over Kid-duty Monday evening and was the representative parent at her first Swim Meet of the summer. Last year my husband would e-mail me after every event she was in to tell me how she did. Monday I didn't have a moment to look at my e-mail, so I had no idea what had happened. Amazingly enough, this year she was in the first heats, which meant that her second place in breaststroke counted for the team total points.

But most amazing of all, the coach put her in IM. (Individual medly -- one length each of the four strokes) It was her first time doing this and my husband says she looked practically dead when he pulled herself out of the pool. But, She managed to complete it. We're so proud of her for even attempting to do this.

Why did I tell you all this? To explain why I didn't do Nonfiction Monday on Monday. Too busy/ too tired.
-wendieO

Summer Reading Program

Every year libraries across the nation run a Summer Reading Program.
Why?
Because teachers discovered that kids needed to keep their brains active over the summer. Kids who read (and/or do math) have a much better chance of doing well in the fall when they hit school, again.

For many years, each library system created their own Summer Reading Program with prizes for the children who participate. Eventually the libraries in Maryland banded together under the umbrella of one theme for the whole state. Recently Maryland has joined over 40 other states in the (almost) national summer reading program.

This year the theme is BE CREATIVE!
(yes, because it's nation-wide, the themes have to be very general.)

Monday was the first day of our library's Summer Reading program. Almost 200 kids registered and I had to get them into the database that day so that ADM could brag about statistics. Luckily the other staff members pitched in and all the children's names and information got input by the end of the day.

My own day ended at 5:00 pm, but I continued to enter children into the database until almost 6 pm. Then, I rushed home to take the 9-year-old to her swim meet where she got a first place in breast stroke (!) -- her first time ever using that stroke in a meet.

Is 200 a lot for the first day of Summer Reading?
For our library -- Yes.
However, I've found that, if a large amount of kids register early in the week, the rest of the week is slow -- keeping the total for the first week almost the same over the years. Our normal total for the whole summer is about 400 to 500 kids. (Keep in mind that we're a small community library -- the largest library in our county registers about 4,000 children during the summer. They're really swamped the first few weeks.)

(Harry Bliss is the current Summer Reading Program illustrator. Henry Cole will be the official illustrator next year. I can't wait! He's one of my favorite illustrators. He's local, too, living in Virginia.)
-wendieOld