Dealing with torn pages...
I’m a volunteer primary school librarian two afternoons a week, working with the fabulous M - a retired children’s librarian - and H - a library-minded parent and PSA member. I’ve been going into this particular school officially as ‘the library lady’ for ten years, and I love it.
On the afternoons we are in, we check books in and out; provide TLC to damaged books; barcode, cover, and catalogue new books; help children to find what they’re looking for; deliver storytime to Y1 children; tidy up and reorganise the shelves when books are out of order; produce lists of overdue books, and reminders when needed.
Today, we had one of our Y1 classes on their weekly visit for story time and a looking-at-books session. The children are allowed to borrow books in Y2, and we’ve found that these early introductions to the library space, how to treat books, and how to behave in the library (no cartwheels, for example. Yes, it really happened) familiarises them with us as librarians, and gets them excited about the prospect of taking books home.
One of the boys in the visiting class was reading a picture book. He is a very good reader for his age, and I felt a tug on my sleeve as I passed by.
‘Look’, he said, pointing to where the corner of the page had been torn away completely, taking with it a few words.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘It’s torn.’
‘Yes,’ he said, his eyes welling up with tears and his bottom lip trembling. ‘But now I can’t read the story.’
I crouched down beside him. ‘We can still read the story,’ I told him, thinking fast in an attempt to avert a meltdown. ‘Do you know how?’
He shook his head.
‘We can make it up. We’ve still got a few of the words left, and we can look at the picture to find some clues about what the rest of the words might have said.’ Fortunately for me, it was a rhyming story, and the monster in the story was clearly scratching his butt! So I read the first two lines on the page, then made up the rest of the rhyme to fit with what was still visible.
He grinned, and the tears stopped. ‘So we can use our imagination!’
‘Absolutely. ’
Disaster averted!
And for some reason, as I left the library and walked through the playground at home time tonight, I was waved at, and spoken to, or pointed out to parents many times, (which is most unusual) just because I’m one of The Library Ladies.
Now, anyone know where I can get a ginormous ‘Library Lady’ badge made for each of us?
