I’ve been working a few extra hours at the library today to cover for someone on leave – only fair given the truly humongous amount of holiday I’ve got coming up later – and if there was one word that I could choose to sum up today, it would be ‘argumentative’.
If something could stop working, or misbehave it did. If someone had a query, it would turn out to be more complex than anticipated and involve having to argue the toss about money, messages sent and received and/or how to do something properly. We had the front door slip out of alignment on its hinge so it wouldn’t close properly, and the printer developed an intermittent NVRAM failure so we had to keep powering it down and rebooting it. Documentation for “vitally important time-sensitive actions” was found to not include the procedures and templates that needed to be followed.
But at least the Chatterbooks session went well.
By that, I mean it was noisy, with people talking over each other and getting heated over who got to talk about their books and stories first. The crossword I’d created to distract them turned out to be a huge success, keeping even the most easily-distracted members at the table once they realised that completion earned them a sticker and that as they completed each of the mini-tasks I handed out that they saw what they had done get posted straight up onto the tree/noticeboard in front of them. Different coloured leaves describing favourite books and characters are sprouting all over the “Chatterbooks Tree” in the Children’s Library now, and even though the numbers were down a little, most of the regulars were there and I had enquiries from other parents and children about joining in at the next one.
I’m drained and feeling a little punch-drunk, but as a writer and a general human being I can’t stress just how cool it is to have a bunch of seven to eleven year old boys and girls rushing round straight after a day of school to be enthusiastic and joyful about books and reading. It makes all the hard work, planning, shifting of furniture and standing my ground with naysayers worth it.
Books are cool, m’kay?
Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
