Can I influence the arrival of Spring???

Well, we have seen in the past that life sometimes imitates art.

And it has been awfully cold lately...

 So I was eager to take down the snowman exhibit at the library

 and exchange it for something warmer.

Come on, you sweet Spring days!

Do not expect, however, that I will be inspired to bake cookies.

A case of life imitating art

This past week I set up a display case at the library.

It was inspired by several things :  my Litt'l Brother's story about seeing a great-horned owl, which reminded me of the wonderful book Owl Moon;

and by this cute little owl that HoosierKitty gave me at Thanksgiving.

I discovered that I have one of those inadvertent collections, by which I mean that I seem to have a number of Owl puppets, toys and figures that I didn't consciously collect and you shouldn't give me any more.

It was a snowy display, set up on a foggy day when the temps were almost 60 degrees.

The very next day it began to snow.

There are birds out there this morning.

It's still snowing.  We're going for a foot or so of snow.

I'm just waiting for the Owls to appear.

Bringing the Fall Colors In

Inspired by the lovely leaves outside, I've been changing the colors inside.

 It is time for orange in all its variations!

As I bring out the Autumn glass and the fall colored table cloths and napkins 

and appropriate old cards...

I am thinking of all of you who contributed to my seasonal display...

so thank you to The Bloomingtonauts,  the Indy Duo, HoosierKitty, Dr. Hausfrau, Little Brother and the New Virginians, the PA Cuz, Mimi, and all those unmentioned but not forgotten.

Have fun trying to identify or remember exactly which things came from you!

We skipped from Halloween to Christmas...

I haven't been at school since early in October, before Granddad went into the hospital for the first time. I had just gotten a display up in the display case featuring Owls reading at night. I meant to have this display morph into a more directly Halloween-y one later in the month, for Scaredy Squirrel to acquire a flashlight for his night reading, and then to go into a harvest themed display for November.

Didn't happen.

Poor kids had to look at the same old dark display until this past Saturday.

I met the school librarian and we took out the owls and put in winter bears.
Our plan is to meet once a month on a weekend when I can get away to change displays.

(And to catch up on school gossip!)
So I'm keeping a tiny teensy finger in the library world.

The year of the tiger begins

I filled the display case outside the library with New Year wishes and books.What will the year of the tiger bring?

Nothing good for school libraries, I fear.

Sad Times for Libraries

...but the school board is just plain nuts. Tuesday the school board will vote on a proposal to cut all school librarians from Elementary and Middle schools. We all knew cuts were coming, we felt that some librarians would be cut, we knew that there would be no more money for books -
but all the professionals? Who will teach information literacy? Who will create the procedures and policies? Who will evaluate and develop collections? Who will collaborate with teachers on thematic units and research projects? The board assures us that they will still keep libraries open - but I'm sorry, what they will keep open are rooms full of books. Increasingly old and irrelevant books. Not libraries.

Cabbage Patch Kids Return

It's true, I save things. Probably more than I should. But I do sometimes have a use for them, really I do.

For example, toys from years ago - reappearing here in the library display case. Anyone remember the Cowboy and Cowgirl Cabbage Patch Kids?

As always, Lizard lurks in the case - a little harder to spot in this one but you can see him nose-to-nose with a book horse if you look hard enough. The third graders in the class opposite the library always find him!

Happy Year of the Rat

These wonderful little shoes were found in a file cabinet drawer. Along with a splendid dragon - you can see him suspended across the top of the case.
Two 3rd grade guys went by as I was putting the display together. "Hey, look at all the Korean stuff!" one said. I thought it was mostly Chinese, myself, but I didn't say anything. They know a lot more than I do. A teacher admired all the red: "It looks so warm!" I think she was tired of the white snowflake display and possibly tired of Winter as well.
The regular lizard commentator is looking for a place in the zodiak.
I'm wishing a Happy Year Of The Rat to all of you!

Casing the halls

Now the harvest is taken in.

Let the Winter fun begin!

Our regular lizard commentator is not only out of place in this chilly scene, he's also the only one there who knows what the theme for the month really is. Look for a December display of science and futuristic fiction in the library - "What is the World Coming to?"

Time after some time

In Indiana, it's sometimes hard to know what time it is...we look at elaborate maps if we want to be sure what counties are in what zones and where Daylight Savings is in effect and when it changes and whether that applies to Central or Eastern time to begin with. The history of this confusion is complicated and causes non-Hoosiers to hoot with astonishment.

But of course, in the library, we always know what time it is.

And our local lizard commentator knows just how much of it we have.







(Thanks to Granddad for the loan of some of his special clocks and to Jackie, Mimi, Elizabeth, and David for giving them to him in the first place)

We are the World

The library curriculum for the older classes is: "We are the World". I'm trying to support it with the display case.

Maps from everywhere are pinned on the back of the display case. Globes and atlases sit on the shelves. If you look closely, you'll notice a lizard in there...

Why? He just spoke to me.

Anticipation

Some wishful thinking for the last week of school...

A Two-fer

I'm trying to change the display case fairly often, so that the kids will keep looking at it. This month I used the same background and some of the same characters for two displays. "The Spring Calls of the Book Frogs" was inspired by Book! Book! Book! and you can see that one of my frogs is singing the "read-it! read-it" line from that book.

Then several of the frogs hopped away and the background became a writer's spring garden, with seed packages of "verbs" and "nouns" and "adjectives" - and stakes to mark where books, stories and poems will grow.

This is such fun.

Happy New Year

The golden dragons printed on the red silk cloth made a great backdrop for the Chinese New Year's display. The card and banners were found at a Chinese grocery, along with the colorful dragon puppets.

Several parents stopped in the hall to look at the display. They could probably read the writing but I didn't ask - I just hope it really said "Happy New Year!"

The bulletin board

Ah, at last, here is the picture of the bulletin board. The sign says " See YOU in the Library!"