The Day We Checked Out the Library

The 2nd grader only liked chapter books. "What type of chapter books? Do you have a favorite genre?" I asked. "Just chapter books," he responded. Not far from my seat in the school library, a 1st grader was upset that there were no more Dogman copies left. "I don't want any other types of books," he stated after the librarian made some suggestions for alternative titles.

This scene represents the most challenging part of last Friday. The 2nd and 1st grade classrooms were our last groups of students to check out books before they left for the weekend. Every other classroom had come through. Other states were calling off school due to the pandemic with no firm return date. We were worried that our kids would be home without enough titles to read.

So while our librarian was training classrooms on how to use either Seesaw or Google Classroom for future virtual learning, I along with other available staff offered to help run the library and let kids select a bagful of books to take home.

When classes came in and we announced that they could check out up to ten books, most of the students responded with "ooh"s and pleasant surprise. A few expressed concern considering the circumstances. "Is this because of the virus?" asked one student. "Well, we don't know for sure what's going to happen, and whether or not they decide to keep us home to be safe, we know you will have a lot of books available."

While handing out reusable grocery bags, we encouraged students to select a balance of books. "If you read a lot of graphic novels, maybe only two of those then. Try other kinds of books, both fiction and nonfiction. That way there will be some of those titles left for your friends who come in later."

I spent the majority of time scanning books into the system. A ping would sometimes go off from the cataloging system. "Too many books - can I override it?" I asked the library assistant. "Go ahead," she said with a wave, working her way through her own line of students.

It was interesting to see what titles were showing up from students' stacks. They were largely left to select on their own with some teacher guidance for a few kids. Humor, sports, and series books were very popular. Students also checked out authors they became familiar with through their teachers' classroom studies of these writers and what their friends were reading.

At the end of the day, several shelves were bare. "I wonder how many books we checked out today," I asked our librarian. (She later sent me a report: 2,900.)

"I am not surprised a lot of the Eric Carle books are left. Our copies are so old and used and need to be replaced." She also noticed that many of the books on the lowest shelves did not make it into kids' bags. "And did you see, when we placed a book facing out, how quickly it went?" she added.

After all the classrooms had gone through, I walked back to my office. The grocery bags hung from their cubbies in a green line, ready to be lugged home for who knew how long. "It's so heavy!" commented one primary student as he dragged his bag of books along the sidewalk toward his ride at the end of the day.

Friday could have ended on a somber note. Our time together might have been wrapped up in worry. How would some of our kids get a decent lunch? When will we come back? Reasonable concerns, yet not helpful at that moment. Instead, every student spent 30 minutes in the library, our minds occupied with the promise of possibility that a good story can provide no matter how challenging the rest of our lives might be.