Another Time-Delayed Big Win.

[silveradept]

This happened Friday last, so I'm my usual amount of late in documenting it, but y'know, better late than not at all.

As we were getting ready to close out for the night at the branch I was stunt librarian-ing at, one of the people looked at me, and I suspect my sartorial choices pinged a memory.

"Did you do story times here at this location a few years ago?" they asked.

"Yes," I said. "I've done some substitute story times here and there over the years."

"I wanted to thank you," this person said. "My son was always making mischief and not paying attention in story time, and then you came and read and did story time, and he paid attention, and it was like you showed him that reading could be something else, and he started paying attention."

And then they added on that this was some years ago, obviously, as the child was in school now, but story time methods success! Weirdly enough, when you make story times that would have been good for you as a child, at some point you're going to encounter children who are good for your story times. I'm glad that someone found a way that worked for them, and that hopefully, having seen what worked, the parent then went forth and did reading and storytelling with their son in that same way. And maybe that their son picked up reading and storytelling in the same way for themselves.

Woo, success. And woo, one of those successes actually getting back to me so that I know it happened.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

What a lovely thing to know.

[silveradept]

Exactly so.

[alexseanchai]

woot!

[silveradept]

w00t!

[sonia]

Yay! And if you happen to hear about one, that means that there are others out there.

[silveradept]

I hope so. I'd like to hear about more of them, of course, but I hope that you're right.

[madgastronomer]

Woo!

[silveradept]

Woo!

[nicki]

Congrats! It's always nice to hear that a seed has grown!

[silveradept]

Very much so. It's a rare occurrence.

[highlyeccentric]

That's delightful!

Can I ask what your distinctive storytime method is?

[silveradept]

Mostly, my story times tend to be less "sit and listen for long stretches" and more "we stretch, we sing, we do a story, then we dance, then we sing again, then maybe another story if we all feel like it, then we sing again," all with the idea in mind that wiggly kids are okay. The stories are usually pretty short and with lots of possibility for Dramatic Reading and audience participation. So there's nothing secret about the sauce, except perhaps that I go in with the idea that it should be friendly to people who have difficulty with concentration and staying still and I explicitly communicate that to the grownups right at the start.

[oursin]

It's lovely when that sort of thing happens! Yay!

[silveradept]

Very yay.

[jenett]

That is so lovely!

[silveradept]

It doesn't happen all that often, but it's really nice when it does.

[jenett]

I was thinking after I replied that in our field, it's rare you get that 'several years later' thing unless you're part of a much smaller community. To have it happen somewhere that's not your primary library and get to hear about it is just so fantastic.

[silveradept]

I was thrilled to get one of them at all, much less at a location that wasn't one of my regular locations at the time (now, it's one of my support locations.) Because, yes, it's rare that anyone comes back and closes the loop on the matter of it turning out that something was particularly helpful for a child or an adult.

[thewayne]

Gratz! It's nice to be remembered and appreciated.

I don't think I did storytime when I was young, but I was a demon when it came to the summer reading program, burning through books at a ferocious rate. There weren't any prizes back then aside from ribbons. That was before the branch was burned down, can't remember when that was. It was rebuilt, fortunately.

[silveradept]

I did both, plenty of time spent on the summer reading part. And apparently was a reliable participant in story time.

[dragonyphoenix]

That's awesome!

[silveradept]

Yeah, it is.

[cmcmck]

When I was teaching, it was always so good to get that sort of feedback!

Well done you! :o)

[silveradept]

That kind of feedback is fairly rare to hear, so it's very nice to have it.

[xyzzysqrl]

...stunt librarian?

[silveradept]

Yep. It's not my regularly assigned location (although it is one of my main support locations now), and at that time when the story time was, I was doing the story time as a substitute called in at a late stage to cover for someone who had called out. I'm pretty sure I borrowed the term from jenett to describe doing such less planned librarian substitute work.

[vass]

That's awesome. Congratulations to you.

[silveradept]

Thank you.

[boxofdelights]

That's wonderful!

Yay that parent for remembering you and telling you.

[silveradept]

Very yay, since there aren't all that many times where someone will do such a thing.

[kaberett]

Oh this is lovely. Thank you for sharing. <3

[silveradept]

It is an excellent victory story.