What I’ve been up to….

Hello, my lovely blog people. Can you believe it’s August already? I can’t! I feel like every year my summers disappear in a blink of an eye. Of course, working in a public library means I do summer reading–which literally sucks up all of my time and energy. But–OH!–how I love it!

My summer reading was quite successful this year! I had 162 teens in my program who read 376, 978 pages! So while I was down about 20 teens, they read 20+k more pages than last year. While I would have love for more kids to participate, I’m very pleased with the outcome.

We moved our system completely online this year. I absolutely adored the online factor, but the system we used wasn’t the best. The interface was highly confusing and non-user friendly. Sadly, I think this was the reason some kids decided not to participate. My plan next year is to switch to another company and possibly build in a paper option. But enough about that…

Let’s get back to the real fun–Lock-Ins and crazy stuff I do for teens.

So, crazy thing #1: putting blue streaks in my hair. Ok, I’ll admit I’ve kind of always wanted to do this. And I love how it turned out. I’m even going to see if my boss/powers that be will allow me to continue doing it. The kids loved it and it helps me stand out from the other staff.

Crazy-thing #2: allowing a pie to be thrown in my face. So, okay, maybe this wasn’t completely allowed. I may have sort of kind of been dragged by 20-odd kids and trapped, but whatever. I still claim I’ll have my revenge….(HEAR THAT JESS?!) At least the teens loved it—and something they’ll likely not forget for a while.

Crazy-thing #3: Lock-in. My teens ADORE these. This was are third one in a year, and boy, I’d have to say one of the best. I made them earn it this time by reading 1600 pages. This may have been the smartest thing I’ve ever done. It cut down so much on the cliques and the teens really mixed it up and bonded this time. I’ll even admit I get a little giddy when I see them trading numbers and adding each other on Facebook. But that’s not even the best part. At the end of the night, about 6 of them decided to preform a Reader’s Theater to Snow White, which was utterly adorable and all their idea. They even want to start a regular one this fall and I’m completely excited to see where it’ll go!

So, there was my summer in a nutshell! I won’t apologize for not posting because, well, life happens and I’ll always put my teens first! However, now that things are slowly down, I’m hoping to catch up on reviews and posting on a regular basis. Just bare with me a little longer…..