Patricia Harrelson

I recently had the pleasure of spending two hours in the library with Kyle. He diligently completed his schoolwork, a writing assignment, so that he could move on to the fun part: locating, purusing, and checking out books. He is gettng quite skillful at looking for books on the computer data base, jotting down the call number, and then looking for the book in the stacks. When you watch a child learn all the steps necessary to finding books in the library, you really get an idea of how many different skills are required.

Kyle’s tastes are varied which makes him a reader after my own heart. I sat in the children’s section reading a magazine while he hunted for books, brought each selection to me, and explained its appeal and then went off to find another. He chose some old favorites, found a mystery chapter book, and a book about Star Wars. Once he had a nice little stack, he asked to go look at the movie section in the adult part of the library, so I carried his stack of books over there along with my magazine, and he disappeared into the movie aisle. A little while later he emerged with 3 videos just as hs mom arrived to pick him up. I hugged him goodbye at the circulation desk where he had pulled his library card from his back pocket in preparation for checking out the books.

The next day when I saw him, he was already on chapter 8 in the mystery. The boy loves to read!