Xin nian kuai le!

Well the Chinese New Year holiday has come and gone and we're back at work on a short 3 day week. The thought of coming back to work yesterday evening was not appealing (I was enjoying my time off too much!) but now that I'm back it's fine. I've missed my kids. 

I was right about the John Agee books not staying on the shelves for long. I think they are all checked out now and it's only 10.30am. I think I should order some more! 

I've been working on coming up with little projects to improve the space in the library and I think that this will be my next one: 

I'm going to hang it up in my Infant section. I think it will look really lovely and hopefully the kids will like it too. 

I was talking to some friends at lunch yesterday about my career and how I had up until this point only worked in libraries serving patrons who were 16+ (sixth and university). They were surprised when I said that now I'm working in primary I would never go back to high school/adult libraries. There is something just so wonderful about working with little kids that makes this job just so much fun. It's hard too don't get me wrong, but I always leave with with a smile on my face and a bounce in my step. It's the same in the mornings too. How many people can say that about what they do. I am very lucky. 

My new favourite author - Jon Agee

Today was my first time hosting an author at my school and I was extremely nervous. I woke up at 3.30 this morning worrying about whether the tech would work, if the classes would turn up on time and a whole host of other things. But I worried needlessly. 

Jon Agee is a fantastic speaker, who was so thoroughly engaging I almost forgot that I needed to step in towards the end so we could allow time for questions. The kids loved his drawings and his stories. I'm not sure I'll be able to keep his books on the shelves! 

What's so wonderful about Jon is that unlike a lot of authors, he illustrates his own books. This makes his talks unique because he illustrates while he talks to the kids, which really helped at my school where a portion of the children don't speak English as a first language. They were able to get lost in his pictures and follow his stories through them. 

His stories are so funny and captivating that even my youngest students (4-6yrs) stayed engaged for almost an hour. In the end, it was Jon who tired before the kids did! Poor man looked exhausted! I don't blame him. It was VERY hot in our little amphitheater.  

It's lunch time now and my library is full of kids who can't stop talking about him. They are drawing him pictures and making thank you cards. I'm lucky that my students love reading so it wasn't hard to get them interested in having an author come to speak to them. But even for those who aren't die hard readers, Jon's visit has opened up a door into books for them. And for that I can't thank him enough.  

(photo from www.jonagee.com)