My first storytime

My first storytime.  My first professional librarian gig. 

I was nervous.

I sat on a a large alphabet patterned rug in the easy book area of my hometown library.

The same library I used as a kid.  My first professional librarian gig and storytime happened to take place in my childhood library......

......back when my library card was far from plastic, and hung on a huge rolodex behind the library counter.  It hung there, like an empty bucket on a ferris wheel, waiting to be thumbed up, tripled checked, verified only by my cursive signature.  No barcodes or numbers, only colored cardstock. 

Perfect pastel cardstock.

And I was launched up with that card.  Up and around my world with Nancy Drew and Julie Andrews. And on my lucky library days, I would use a tiny golf 'n'stuff pencil to "sign out" the few chosen books and plastic jacketed record albums.   

So, there I sat in my blue flowery skirt, stomach falling, with my lucky chosen first official storytime book:

Leo the Late Bloomer / By Robert Kraus.  Pictures by Jose Aruego.

Empty bucket no more. 

My first storytime.

My first gig.

And just like Leo    ....   I made it!