I like books, you like books
Board books, Big books, Picture books,
If it’s torn and worn or rift apart too,
You know what you have to do.
… this has been the song for the week gone by.
In the weeks gone by, as the process of book-goes-out-book-book comes-in carries on, more and more, we are finding that the books are getting worn. This is definitely to be expected with the number of users that avail of our books.
In light of this, we decided to put a spin on a ‘boring lecture given by the library teachers’ on how to care for a book. This meant that a lesson plan was created, a dash of drama was added and a twist of suspense was added to it!
We started these classes on a serious note. We somberly entered the classes and pulled out many examples of what was soon to become our ‘patients’. The kids were asked to carefully observe the books carefully. Kids responded with ‘Teacher tein book pizla’(The book is torn) ‘Cover na!’ (There is no cover). ‘Khot assa’ (There’s a stain/pencil mark). And this is exactly the kind of responses we’d hoped we’d get. It led us to the next part of our session…
‘What do you do when you fall sick?’
‘Go to the doctor!’
This is the cue for the library teachers to don a white lab coat, stethoscope and medic-kit to enter the class. And this is where we sang the song. The students were surprised to see us wearing lab coats and wondered what was going to happen next.
‘Yaaaay doctor aila!’. ‘Can you show me what’s wrong with the books’. And the kids figured that Dr. Good Book was there to fix and cure all book ailments! We sang the song happily while checking books.
No read alouds happened in these classes but, Dr. Good Book went on to display the front cover, back cover, the book spine, Bookworm sticker, the price of the books. Here a little emphasis was made in the attempt to lead them to realize that the books cost us a lot. They were all quiet at that moment. We discussed the author, illustrator, publisher and other features printed on the book too. Some students who could not get the author on the cover page were then searching on the spine.
In some classes we asked them to write the title and the author. They knew what the title was. They also wrote why we should care for books, why they like to read, and such qualitative responses!
After lending the books; some of which had very minor ‘cuts and bruises’, that every kid was now on the look out for, we left many classes this week with a happy feeling that all around us, kids were looking, and holding their books with a little more attention, and just a bit more TLC!