The backstory: I have a librarian who will be missing the start of the year due to her second daughter being born, so we've been putting together some instructional/how to videos for new students next year as a way to introduce them to her and the workings of the library while she's out. We had just wrapped up filming for the day when a class came into the library to hear about our FABULOUS Summer Reading opportunities here in Manhattan, KS.
I love our Summer Reading Program in the schools, and of course the rocking Manhattan Public Library program that kicks off around the same time we do. Check out their site for details if you're in the Manhattan area, because our Public Librarians are awesome! www.mhklibrary.org
So about that title, like I said, sometimes you've got to rescue a book, am I right? Now in typical Dragnet style, the names have been changed to protect the innocent, and here's "the rest of the story"... (with those two references, I have just dated myself something fierce)
The case of the vanishing Library book:
Teacher: Mrs. Librarian, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but one of my students lost a book.
Librarian: Oh that’s fine, I’m sure it will turn up, books do that, especially at the end of the year.
Teacher: This one might not, my student lost it down a wall…..
Librarian: *blinks eyes* What??
Me: I’m sorry, say that again, they lost it down a wall?
Teacher: Yes. We were in line to come to the library, we had paused to let another class pass, and well the student dropped the book, and it landed perfectly in this gap between the wall and the stairwell, and well, it just vanished.
Librarian and I: *blinking eyes*
Teacher: We tried to look for it on “the other side” but didn’t see it, though my students swear they saw the pages of the book hanging down from the ceiling.
Librarian and I: You say pages were hanging from the ceiling?
Teacher: Yes, at least that is what my students said, they swear that there were pages hanging from the ceiling.
So after a brief huddle, we decided to divide and conquer, there was a book to be rescued after all! The Teacher and I left the class with the Librarian as she was talking about Summer Reading (yay, see above link) and we went to investigate. I was taken to “the scene of the crime” and sure enough, there was a gap big enough for a book to go down. Kudos to the kiddo, because this was a 1 in a million shot to make, and after looking down the gap, it looked a bit like a void of nothingness, straight out of an R.L. Stine book. (remember those?)
So we looked down the void, and saw nothing. Then the teacher and I went one floor down, below the “scene of the crime” and true to the student’s words, there were in fact what looked like pages, hanging from the ceiling. As luck would have it, a teacher right next to the area just happened to have a tall step stool (hurray for random tall step stools in classrooms that are just the right height in areas where you need them).
We borrowed the step stool, I moved a ceiling tile, and was ceremoniously rewarded with a shower of dust, cobwebs, etc., (I felt a bit like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, minus my trusty fedora). Well it was dark, and creepy, but with my handy phone flashlight and camera, (used like a periscope, MacGyver has nothing on me) low and behold, there was the book, complete with bookmark, safe and sound!
There was also a poster, a pencil, two rulers, and a package of Smarties candy….
We left the Smarties where they lay, and felt like donating the rulers and pencil to the library was a good idea.
So we’ll add “book rescuer” to the list of “other duties as assigned” and I can honestly say, that was a first.
