Oklahoma Librarian

  January has lived as the ward of Mr. Locke as long as she can remember in a house full of locked doors. With her coppery-red skin and unusual name, she lives an isolated, pampered life but dreams of exploring the world with her father who brings home artifacts and curiosities for Mr. Locke and his Archaeological Society. When her father suddenly disappears and the annual Society party takes a sinister turn, January knows she needs to escape. Her situation seems more hopeless than ever with her friends kept away, her loyal dog beaten, too many secrets and half truths, and January herself imprisoned in an asylum with only a book for company. What January needs is a way out—if she could only find a door. With determination, she will free herself and discover the power of words and names that transcend worlds. The Ten Thousand Doors of January is Alix E. Harrow's debut novel and it's a doozy. This is an amazing fantasy book with elements of historical fiction. Many characters in ...

I have recently made all of my scavenger hunts for one year and wanted to share them in case anyone needs ideas! I started doing these in April. They were so popular that I made two for the summer months since kids were coming in more often. If you are planning to start your own hunt, I'll describe what I do now after a few months of trial and error. I make all the designs in Canva. My library pays for a Pro account which makes it a lot easier to make these. I started off making these too small. We got so many complaints because they were too hard to find. I now make them about the size of my palm and give them a white background so it isn't as hard to find. I learned very quickly that we needed two sets of each theme. We had a few bunnies and weather clouds walk away which makes the hunt impossible to complete. We now have an extra set ready to go at our reference desk.  If you don't already have one, ask for a Cricut and the software that comes with it. It has made the pr...

It's Dinovember! We created a super fun event with prehistoric activities, art projects, games, and more! This event was a lot of work but was well worth it. Set Up This took over a week to prep between myself and my colleague. We split tasks roughly down the middle and managed to get everything together in time! I put together a few decorations that will be up through the month. The first was our billboard. This was easy to put together compared to our more elaborate designs. Letters, boarder, dino, done. It looks great in space and I heard about a parent telling their child that dinosaurs indeed did not read and that they are dead because of it. The kid checked out a lot of books that day! Next is our follow the dino tracks passive program. This was simple in theory but took more time to put together than I thought. We purchased colorful masking tape and I did a bit of research on dinosaur tracks. I laminated everything and then taped a border around each picture before putting t...

The Pokemon community never ceases to surprise me. I love Pokemon and have been following the games for years. I came up with a trading and playing event for kids that love all things Pokemon. The idea for this is very simple: have a space for Pokemon people to meet up and trade cards. That's all. Set up I held this event the day before Halloween so I purchased the new " Trick or Trade " booster packs. It had 50 packs and each pack and 3 cards. This was perfect for this event because every person got a fun pack to open. I was also fortunate to tell my Pokemon loving friends about this event and they gave me a ton of cards that I was able to give out.  I actually was going to go into this event with nothing but cards to hand out. However, I remembered that I'm a librarian and Pokemon books exist. As you can see in the pictures below, there area ton of Pokemon books. I also printed off 10 pages that had all 9 of the current generations of Pokemon. I put them on the wall...

I created a new writing station at my library where kids of all ages can write a letter to a popular character from a book or TV show. I wanted to encourage kids to practice writing and have fun. Writing can help kids with many skills such as storytelling, critical thinking, and school readiness. The station includes a sign, mailbox, postcards, and golf pencils. I made the mailbox out of cardboard and used velcro to keep the door closed.  The mailbox is there so we can see what guests are writing (maybe send them to marketing too) and to promote imaginative play!  We started with the all-popular Bluey. I left this out for about a month and we got over 200 letters! I don't think any other character could have pulled off so many letters. I checked the mailbox at least once a week and refreshed the postcards as needed. I included a few of the Bluey postcards we have received below for your entertainment.  "I want to come to your birthday." "How are you? When will you ma...

What is a take home kit? A take home kit is where we put together crafts for guests to take and do at home. A library program in a bag with instructions if you will. These kits can range widely from soap-making for teens to gluing colorful streamers to a cloud for toddlers. I aim to make kits for elementary-aged kids from 6 - 11 years old. I put kits out about every other week. Below I have the poster I made to advertise and other information about the craft. I found that I rarely get feedback on kits but I'll mention it if there was any. Feel free to copy any of these! The Kits   This was my first kit that went out before the Easter holiday. I made 25 kits that included a paper plate, pink paper, cotton puffs, a pink cotton puff, and yarn to hang it up. I ran out of the pink puffs or I would have made more! This kit went very quickly largely due to the fact that no one was making kits for this age group until I was hired. It was cute, simple, and we had all the supplies I needed t...