attacked by a pop-up book but the show must go on

way back when you may remember that i used to have various anxieties about doing story times. however, after a while i overcame this fear and i believe i became quite good at story time. at least, the kids at library in the hood liked it. but this children's librarian here, she is such a go-getter. she is really making me step up my game. she is super cute and sing-songy with the kids and i feel i must improve in order to keep up with her.

so yesterday i had my first story time with the kids. now let me tell you that because library in the hood didn't have active parents visiting, the only way i could do story times was to schedule visits with local day care centers. so they'd bring a class of about 20 or so kids and 2 or 3 teachers. yesterday i had over 50 people! 50 people! it was chaos. sort of.

first there was this screaming child who wouldn't shut up and was really killing my mojo. thankfully her mother eventually took her out of the room.

then i opened with my monkey puppet, which is usually a huge crowd pleaser, but they were totally unimpressed with Monkey the monkey puppet. what gives? it's like they knew he was just a inanimate doll with my hand up his ass. moving on!

then i read "kitten's first full moon," which was ok but i think that it was a litttle long for their attention spans. it really is difficult to engage 50 kids and parents (most of whom do not speak much english).

then i did the itsy bitsy spider with them and they began to warm up. they know this itsy bitsy spider from the other librarian, so they could get down with him and his crazy water spout climbing ways. then i read "the very busy spider," by eric carle as a clever tie-in. see the cleverness? they enjoyed that and i tried to encourage them to make animal sounds at the appropriate parts. they're a bit shy these kids. they're not used to the type of call and response interactive story time that i do. anyway.

then i read Duckie's Rainbow and i learned that these kids don't know their colors very well. they seem to think everything is yellow. when in doubt, say yellow. so i think i will do more color themed books with them.

then i sang "there was an old lady who swallowed a fly," using a flannel board with little flanel pieces. this amused me greatly, but i couldn't tell if the kids found it funny or not.

then i read this pop up book called Safari Animals, that has these flaps and you have to guess which animal is behind the flaps. apparently, no one has been reading this book very much because the pages were super stiff and i got a serious paper cut. oh the dangers of story time! seriously, a day later and this paper cut is still annoying me.

then we sang "5 little monkeys jumping on the bed," which they liked. and then i read them Charlie Chick, which is always a crowd pleaser, even with this new tough audience. then we sang "the wheels on the bus," and i closed with my favorite If You're Happy and You Know it: Jungle Edition.

several staff members complimented me on the story time, so i assume it went well. but i still feel like i need to study the other children's librarian a bit ... maybe steal some of her act. i will get these new kids to love me, damnit!

starting next month i will be doing weekly story times and ... *gasp* .... baby time. oh god.