February | 2021 | the barefoot librarian

Today I get the chance to talk to Pre K about Heroes and Villains. These kiddos are only 3 and 4 years old, and delightful, I’m looking forward to some fun anecdotes about who THEY consider a hero and a villain. I’m expecting most of the usual suspects; every check out time is filled with (mostly) girls wanting princess books and (mostly) boys wanting Ultraman, no matter how many other gems I share with them.

So I’ve collected a few different books to share with them showing heroes don’t always wear capes. Thanks to Kamala Harris I have a great place to start with her 2019 book, Heroes are Everywhere. This book shows us that heroes are all around us, in our family, our neighbourhoods, our schools and all over our communities. Kamala shares the attributes of what makes a person a hero, and acknowledges that if you have those attributes, you can be someones hero.

Another book I’ll share is Stephen Savage’s Supertruck, which I’m sure the students will love. Right now, in America, with severe storms raging in places like Texas, a snowplough is certainly fulfilling the role of hero. This book teaches us not to judge something by their appearance, or just one of their functions, as it is the humble garbage truck that saves the day in the end.

You’ve probably heard the saying “Choose a Job You Love, and You Will Never Have To Work a Day in Your Life” which is widely attributed to Confucius.

Sometimes when my alarm goes off at 5.30, I might disagree with the above quote, however, most of the time, from 7.30 am when I see the first students roll in, I feel fortunate to have a job I consider a vocation.

Some of the reasons I love my job include the wealth of resources at my disposal, human, digital, and physical. Our Shanghai American School Pudong Elementary School Library caters for students from PreK 3 – 5th grade. I am the sole librarian, and I am lucky enough to have two full time assistants. We have been a team of 3 for nearly 9 years now and have become stronger and smarter with our practice. Currently we have about 350 students, in 22 classes, so, if you’ve done the maths, you’ll see that our class sizes are relatively small, and if you are ready for more mathematical fun, we have well over 25,000 print books which is well above any recommended library quotas I’ve ever seen. Add to that a solid collection of Ipod nano’s (now considered vintage!), Ipads and kindles stocked with e and audio books that students can check out, and you can see we also have a robust digital collection. Oh, and we are spoiled with a growing collection of over 7,000 digital books in our Overdrive collection. I know I know, I am one very lucky librarian.

Job of the day…and I use that term loosely…read these picture books to children. #score #kidlit #saslibrary pic.twitter.com/E2SUiO8orm
— Barefoot Librarian (@kimbrap) October 16, 2017