My Real Life

The monkeys and I hit the library every week.

Sometimes more than once a week.

We borrow dvds, we borrow magazines, we borrow books.

We check out the exhibits (this week they have a cool Lego exhibit that Baby Monkey went bananas for).

Our favorite section of the children’s room, though, is the holiday book section.

About a month or two before each holiday, we head to the holiday book section and begin making our selections.

We leave with about ten holiday books each visit.

Athletes jump around and bounce off each others chests and listen to hard rock to get themselves pumped for the game.

We read holiday books to prepare for each season.

The library has a great collection of books for each holiday and they make sure they are rotated in a timely manner.

Last night, we finished our Halloween season by sitting in front of the fire and re-reading, for the last time this season, some of our Halloween selections.

Next time we hit the library, we’ll return our latest Halloween selections and will take out our first round of Thanksgiving books.

The holiday books can only be held for two weeks, as they are pertinent for only a short time, but that just makes it more exciting.

We also don’t just take out books about holidays we celebrate.

Some of the kids favorite holiday stories are about Kwanzaa and Hannukah and other, lesser known holidays from other countries.

We still take out regular reading books and mix them in with our holiday fare, but when a holiday is coming near, it gets a little more exciting to hit the library.

So, if you have kids and visit your local library, check out the holiday books.  I bet your kids will be pulled right in to the thrall of fictional stories that blend with tradition.

Today’s Gratitude

I’ve decided that, since Thanksgiving is in November, this would be a month of daily gratitudes for me.

So, at the end of each post, I am going to share something I am grateful for, because we can always take a moment to say thanks.

So, in keeping with the theme of today’s post, I am grateful for public libraries.

They are amazing and wonderful for families like mine, but even more so for families that can’t afford to buy books, can’t afford to buy computers, and for kids who don’t have a quiet place to study.

Every time we are there, we bump into at least five to ten of my students…studying, reading, doing homework on the computers.

The floor is scattered with kids reading…big kids, little kids, parents.

One of my favorite things to see is some of our small children reading to their non-English speaking parents…reversing the roles and teaching their parents the language as they read.

I’m devastated when I hear talk of cutting funding for public libraries.

So, today, I am grateful for public libraries.