A Librarian's Christmas

Yesterday during Arts & Crafts, the kids and I made paper bag reindeer (which turned out cute, as you can see from the picture below) and paper snowflakes (which, due to my inherent lack of crafting skills, came out not-so-cute...thus the lack of a picture).

Introducing Rudolph's Lesser-Known Cousin, Boris the Blue-Antlered Reindeer

One of the kids who came to the program (who is amusingly sassy) kept taking markers from the bin and discovering that they were dried up. After this happened about four or five times, she threw down a marker and exclaimed:  

"Nothing works around here!"

I sighed and apologized and gave my standard half-serious, half-smartass answer when sometimes faced with a disgruntled person who complains about the current state of library services:

"Well, you can write a letter to the Mayor asking him to not cut the library's budget any more so we can buy better arts and crafts supplies."

The kid was amenable to this plan. 

Her: "Okay! I would sign the President's name because I have really good script. I would tell them to give the library two million dollars a year."

Me: "Why two million?"

Her: "Just because. And all librarians will get $2,000 a month."

Me (jokingly): "Hmm. Not two million?"

The other kids joined in and started yelling out numbers. 

"Two million!"

"No, a BILLION!"

"A trillion dollars!"

"A sextillion!"

"Did you just say SEX?!!"

That made them dissolve into shocked giggles. Ahh, to be 10 years old again.
I'm not going to lie, I'd happily take sextillion dollars per month. A librarian can dream, right?


After Arts & Crafts, I got a nice surprise: a Christmas card from one of the kids, and handmade drawings from two others. These are my very favorite kinds of gifts.



Name of artist covered. I did not pay this kid to write those things, I swear.



So, some of my markers are dried up and I don't make two million dollars a month, but I'd still say I have it pretty good. Happy Merry Christmas (and everything else you can possibly celebrate) to all! 

You've Got Books

The other night I walked into the mailroom of my apartment building and was greeted by this sight. (Please ignore the unattractive and oddly patriotic flower arrangement, I had nothing to do with that):

I've found random books in random places before, and I know that people leaving reading material behind for others to take is nothing new. But that's kind of the point. Libraries (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) just seem to organically generate themselves wherever there are people. For some reason, it was a comforting thing for me to think that the person who put them there thought "These are books. These are special. Someone else will want these." It's a true case of one man's garbage being another man's treasure. Try THAT with e-books! 

Also, I'd like to draw your attention to the amusing titles of some of these books. (Well, I found them amusing. You might not. I have a strong and irrational love of bad puns, inherited from my father.)


Death Threads


A Stitch in Crime


Sins and Needles


Genius.


Anyway, I didn't take the books myself, and they were gone from the mailroom the next morning. I'd like to think that a mystery-loving pun-fan in my building scooped them up and that they weren't just thrown out before someone found a use for them. *cough Mayor Bloomberg cough.* 


Happy holidays, everyone, and merry reading.