Adventures of a Caffeinated Children's Librarian: Chalk the Walk

Last June when I started at my new branch, I was intrigued by the wide expanse of sidewalk that stretches around the front and side of the building. It was furthered when I discovered a pretty significant supply of sidewalk chalk in one of the craft storage cabinets. Light bulb! Hello easy program! I knew from that moment that I wanted to have a program where the kids could go wild and decorate. Summer seemed like the perfect time for that to happen, so this summer we are having monthly sidewalk design days. Our summer reading theme this year is Build a Better World, so I thought this would be perfect because we are making our library world beautiful and spreading joy to others. Hey, I'm a children's librarian, okay? This is how we think! 😀

Today was our first program, and the forecast was predicting a 50% chance of rain. Naturally I was scanning radars and listening to reports all morning. The program was scheduled to begin at 2pm, so of course the sky was suddenly filled with dark clouds and light sprinkles at about 1:30. My contingency plan was in place - markers and a big roll of butcher paper in the children's area and signage ready to go on the door. I was seriously bumming thinking it wasn't going to happen and trying to figure out some kind of anti rain dance. About five minutes before 2:00 I spotted blue in the sky and promptly wheeled my cart of sidewalk chalk outside, bound and determined to make this happen, and happen it did!

It's me!

There were about 22 of us in total, some stayed for a little bit, some joined later, and a few stuck it out for the entire hour! We had a great time, and the kids had so much fun creating. What made me so happy was when they started writing things like "I love books!" "Books rule!" and "Libraries are awesome!" I didn't even tell them to do it, they did it on their own! LIBRARIAN SCORE! I was smiling from ear to ear and laughing the whole time. I can't believe I get paid to do stuff like this, and I love my job so much. Customers were complimenting the artwork and saying how nice it was to see something like this. We definitely built a better library world today! Sadly, the rain did not stay away for good. It's currently monsooning outside, and I'm afraid to look. Oh well. It's like a told the kids, we need to invent waterproof chalk.

Here are some pictures from our artistic adventures. I highly recommend getting out there with kiddos and making your world a more beautiful place.