1000 Books

Made a trip to the library today. I haven't gone in ages which means the little guy hasn't gone in a long enough for him to have remembered going. I thought we had something like an $18 fee because my husband kept several CD's for a LONG time. The fee was only $1.95 (I suspect he must have gone more recently than me and paid the huge fee). I was so relieved at their not being a large fee. I was totally prepared to barter and ask if I could still check out books but only pay a $5 portion of the fee. The librarian was probably confused at my excitement to pay the $1.95 fee. Okay, okay enough talk about how irresponsible we are at returning books.

A bunch of libraries are doing a program called "1000 books before kindergarten" to encourage parents with small children to read more with their little ones. I saw something about it online yesterday and thought it was such an excellent idea. We signed up for the program today and the librarian at the kids center gave my little guy a free tote bag, bookmark, and really quite impressive looking book log. After each 100 books you read you can return to the library and get a sticker to place in your log and a free prize. I imagine the prize will be something like those 1 cent toys you get at the doctors office but still, pretty fun for a three year old.

We also checked out a book about honey bees, one about lady bugs, an eye spy book, and two books about dragons. Little Abe specifically said he wanted to find a book about dragons. I must add that the librarian was a beautifully helpful person. I have encountered several very mean librarians in my time. I reluctantly admit that I used to have a despise for books and reading and I also used to have a terror of libraries. I overcame both those things years ago but still... After we were done signing up for the program I asked the lady if she could possibly direct us to books about bees, wasps, honey bees, ect; She looked them up for me, took us to the section and was the absolute kindest all throughout. I thanked her and mentioned casually that we would be looking for books about dragons next. But I never even hinted at the possibility of her finding said books for us.

I looked at books about bugs and bees and butterflies while little Abe looked out the window on the second story overlooking the road. He was quite intrigued by the idea of being stuck on the roof and told me all about how he'd manage to get off safely without hurting himself or worrying me or falling onto any cars. After I selected several books, put them all back, selected several more, put them all back and then selected a few others I started to glance at the shelves hoping that a book about dragons would pop up so that I wouldn't have to go look it up on the computer. Yes, I write a blog pretty much daily on my laptop computer but still at age 35 hate using the library computers. Suddenly the very kind librarian walked over to us holding about 10 books about dragons. She showed each one to us individually, reading each title and saying what she liked about said book and then I laid them out in front of the little guy and asked him to pick two. I've NEVER had a more pleasant experience in a library. Her gesture was above and beyond for sure. Not to mention my child who WILL NOT talk to strangers, he doesn't even like looking a them; he hid behind my leg through almost the entire 1000 books sign up, very joyfully thanked her for bringing him books about dragons. It was a splendid morning and I suspect he and I will be reading a bit more often and visiting the library more often as well.