I loved being a librarian today. I need to record these moments before they get lost in the hustle and bustle and business of the library and teaching.

Today was a book talk today - tenth grade. Book talks alone are a great reason to love my job. Tenth graders are especially excited to talk about books. I'm not sure why exactly, but some of the magic gets lost by junior year.

One tenth grader in particular made my job really cool today. After the book talk, he asked me to help him find Where the Red Fern Grows. He had been in the woods with a friend this weekend and he was near a river bed surrounded by lovely trees. He described the setting in such a lovely and detailed way! The setting made him remember a coon dog he had when he was little. He had seen the movie and was just eager to read this book because of the memory evoked by the setting.

As if that wasn't heartwarming enough, he confided in me that he thought he'd like to write his OWN book about a boy and his coon dog. He never was really interested in writing before, but he was feeling inspired. He wasn't sure how'd he'd even start. We talked a bit about some ideas, and I offered to help him edit it. ( The English teacher in me...) He walked away to check out the book. But he came to find me again..."Do you really think I should try to write the book?" "Absolutely!" He had all of these great ideas about setting it in the 50s, even down to the truck he would use in the story. He expressed concern that when I edited it, I might be upset about the difference in tobacco use in the 50s. "Wouldn't it be cool," he asked, "if there were a copy of my book in this library?"

So cool.

He has a story to tell, and he shared his ideas with me. Just because I'm the librarian. I LOVED being the librarian today!