Week 14 - Back to Boring

Another week, another 4.5 hours in the children's room. After a hectic time last week, this one was slow again. Only two things of note: first, I got to use my rapidly deteriorating French when I overheard a woman speaking French to her two daughters, second, there was some kind of verbal jousting going on between some of the kids using the computers. I couldn't quite make it out (and half of it was in Spanish anyway), but when I distinctly heard "I'll kick your ass" spoken not in jest, I had to go over and ask if there was a problem. It was like a scene from a prison movie, the people beefing got all quiet and said, "No, no problem." Ugh. Anyway...this week's few interactions:

• A Hispanic man and his elementary-school-aged son came in looking for materials about the Lincoln Memorial and the White House. A quick catalog search showed that the system has a number of kid's books on each, but that none were available at our branch. This was for a school report, so instead, I printed out the Spanish-language Wikipedia pages for each, so the father could read them and help his kid. He seemed pleased with that.


• A woman wanted a copy of the classic Billy Goats Gruff story she could read to her little girl. Again, pretty much all our versions of the story were checked out or missing, but I did find a compilation of Norwegian folk tales that included it. She seemed OK with that.


• Yet another kid, this one a gangly, awkward white girl, came in looking for a copy of Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass. All our copies were out, so she browsed and found something else.


• A young black girl, maybe 10 or 11, wanted the third and fourth books in Ann Brashares' popular Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, Girls in Pants and Forever in Blue. I was able to find the first of these downstairs in the YA section, the latter I put on hold for her.

Quote of the day comes from a 9-year-old girl (for some reason, she decided to tell me her birthday) who justed moved into the neighborhood after growing up across town: "The best part of moving is being close to the library -- that and having my own room for the first time, finally!"

MLS or GED?
Which of the above interactions really need an MLS to sucesfully resolve?
Only the first, I'd say...
Week: 1 for 4
Year: 12 for 82