Hello!

Well, now that I've had this blog for well over a month, I thought it was high time to kick things off with a real post! In my defense, I've been VERY busy helping my department prepare for our Summer Reading Program, which we officially kicked off two days ago! Since then we've been swamped with kids signing up, but it makes for a nice change from May, which is one of our slower months.

Before I start blah blah blah-ing about what I've been up to, I figured a little bit of 'About Me' might be in order. I'm Angela, 24 years old, and I started working in the children's department of my local library at the beginning of February. No library degree, unfortunately, but I did major in English, and I spent a summer interning at a children's publishing company. Children's books, as well as YA, are basically my favorite things in the whole world, so this job has been a perfect fit for me so far, and I'm so excited to be on the other side of the desk for the first time during our Summer Reading Program!

We went ahead and embraced the Dream Big Read theme, which I think is great, since it leaves you open to eight thousand different interpretations. We're starting things off with a camping theme, but then we're moving on to nocturnal animals, superheroes, things that go bump in the night - something different for each week! Which means we also got to decorate our children's room in some really fun ways. And with that segue, I bring you a very exciting segment I like to call: Pictures of Things I Made!

We have a really awesome... I'm not even sure what you'd call it - zig-zaggy display board? - outside our children's room. It's painted black, and since it can be kind of a pain to get it covered with paper, I figured I'd just make it nighttime-themed with a cute raccoon and bat. (The raccoon started off a lot less friendly-looking - amazing what you can do just by changing the angle of the eyebrows!)

This is the biiiiiig bulletin board in our story time room. And when I say big, I'm not kidding. I wanted something that filled the space, so I thought three different "dreams" would be a good way to go. It's tough to see the detail in this picture, so I may take some closeups later, but I'm sure you get the gist. Poor Rapunzel is stuck in her tower and terribly bored, until some friendly aliens drop by to take her on an adventure. (Personally, I think this would be an awesome plot for Disney's next princess movie. Disney, if your next trailer involves some intergalactic princess-ing, I expect some credit!)

This is a sign I made to go along with our cute little campsite! (We've got a kid-sized tent, as well as some play food items, and the kids are LOVING it.) Simple, straightforward, and it was a great project to keep me busy on a slow Saturday!

And last but not least - a skyline above our graphic novels section! We recently moved our graphic novels/comic books to a new corner of the library, and I wanted something eye-popping to catch our patrons' attention. Come August, when we've slowed down some, I might go back and touch things up - I'm not completely thrilled with the way the paint I used caused some of the buildings to curve, and I'd like to add some kind of high-flying superhero soaring through the clouds. Still! I had fun doing this, and considering I've been on a comics kick lately, this display was one of my favorites.


That's it for now! We start story times next week though, as well as some craft programs, so I plan to be ultra-diligent about keeping up with all the fun things our department is doing. I hope everyone's summer reading programs are going fantastically!