Only at our public library

Our library books were due tomorrow so Rachel and I went for a walk to the library in order to return them and pick out some new ones. The weather was actually quite a lot warmer than it has been this past week, making the walk quite pleasant.

When we got to the library we picked out enough books to last a lifetime in about 2 minutes. There are just so many to choose from that we haven't read yet--and Rachel does enjoy pulling them off the shelf. I try to not let her do this because, although it is one of her favorite activities to do at our house, the consequences of her actions are much more far-reaching in the library will their thousands of volumes than at our house where we try to keep a maximum of 10 books or so within her reach.


So we didn't spend a whole lot of time in the stacks--it was much too hazardous--but we were fortunate to find a few Easter books left on the shelves for us to check out. How lucky! We usually check out seasonal books only after a holiday has ended. We just returned two Valentine's Day books that we had checked out on February 16th because we couldn't find any in the few weeks before Valentine's Day.

After we were finished choosing most of our books we went to explore in the library. The Orem Public Library has a lot of cool things for children to look at. Hogwarts' corner has a display of Hogwarts' castle--that's where they keep the board books and do lap time for babies during the week. I'm not really sure why they decided that the baby section would be Hogwarts' corner since I don't know any baby all that interested in Harry Potter, but I suppose it's their choice. Rachel wasn't too interested in the display but she really liked the rocking chair sized just for her. We took the time to read a few board books here, and it's actually where Rachel found one of our Easter treasures, Happy Easter, Corduroy, which we added to our pile of books after Rachel spent some time reading it.


When we were over visiting the pirate ship we found our second Easter book! How exciting! They have some shelves by the pirate ship where they place the seasonal books that they pull. I didn't know they did that, which might have been why we've never been able to find any seasonal books before. Most of the books left were craft books but we did find one story that I thought Rachel would enjoy.


We also were sure to marvel at the beautiful stained glass windows. Rachel liked all the colors...and banging her hand on the glass.



The most exciting part of the library today, though, was the tepee that they had set up in the middle of the juvenile section. Rachel had a fun time playing inside and reading some of the storybooks that other children had left there--it's actually where we found another book that we checked out.


Oddly enough, even though there were plenty of children at the library, only Rachel and one other girl were brave enough to take a little shufti, at least that I noticed. Perhaps we weren't supposed to play with it, but there were little-people chairs inside with books scattered around so I figured it was allowed.


Rachel wasn't actually so sure about going inside at first, herself. She sat by the entrance and played with a piece of string for the longest time until I went in. Then she crawled in, pulled herself up on a chair, and made herself at home.


The reason why no other children wanted to venture inside may have actually been Rachel, herself. She kept peering through the opening to see if anyone was close, and if anyone happened to be, she would shriek at them. She was having a great time banging on the chairs and screaming. I fear the children might have thought there was an actual pow-wow going on, or perhaps that there was a screaming banshee inside.

I could hear a parent outside the tepee, coaxing his daughters to go inside. One of them did, eventually, and she came over and said hello to Rachel, but her little sister was not going to brave the shrieking monster inside. If only she knew that Rachel was inviting her to come and play, not warning her to stay away.


We'll have to work on Rachel's library etiquette and friendship making skills. Yelling is not appropriate in the library and I'm not sure how often it has helped anyone forge a new friendship.