FAYETTEVILLE — At the turn of each page, a monster noisily sloshed his way through a swamp. The group eagerly tracked the rhythm of his progress with rounds of a clap-clap-wigglewiggle-stomp-stomp-stomp, all the way through to the book’s peaceful resolution.
“That was a good story!” proclaimed one young child.
He and about 30 other children had gathered in the Walmart Story Time Room at the Fayetteville Public Library on Oct. 13 for Wednesday morning Preschool Story Time, led by Youth Services Manager Lolly Greenwood.
“It’s very easy to enjoy a story when she brings it to life like she does,” said Danyelle Harris, who has been bringing her two small children to Greenwood’s story time for a year. “We loveMiss Lolly.” Legendary Librarian
“She’s really a legend in the community,” said Fayetteville Public Library Executive Director Shawna Thorup. There are so many children for whom, outside of their immediate family, “Miss Lolly becomestheir first love,” she said.
The former preschool teacher started working parttime at the library in 1991, and became its full-time children’s department manager in 1994. Back then, children’s story times were held for the public two times a month and the teen section didn’t exist.
Now, parents who remember Miss Lolly from when they were young can bring their children to public story times six days a week, and teenage library patrons have about 2,500 square feet of dedicated space upstairs.
Last year, the Fayetteville Public Library held 1,187 free public programs, Thorup said. The youth department staft members put on 1,009 of those.
From Baby Bookworms to the Click/Stitch Teen Fiber Arts Group, the five Youth Services staff members provide programs to library users from birth to age 18.
“We try to offer unique programs,” Greenwood said. “We want to offer what the community wants. That’s what we’re here for.”
That purpose was evident in the planning of the new Blair Library, which opened in 2004. “It was all-inclusive,” she said, with community members, library staff and designers all getting input regarding how the city’s library should serve its patrons.
And their needs have changed over the years.
“The community wanted this to be a social gathering place,” Greenwood said. So with meeting spaces and even a coffee shop in the foyer, that’s what the library aims to be: a place to congregate and a place for resources to answer questions.
Seeding Reading
The children’s library, which tripled in size with the move to the new building, was designed to engage the youth and foster a love of reading.
“We’re not a shh-shh library,” Greenwood said of the children’s section. “We want them to have a fun experience,” so as to plant the seed for children to become strong readers.
“Who loves the library?” Greenwood called out as she sat on the bench in the front of the story time room; little hands wriggled in the air as young voices declared their affections. “Wave to the person who brought you,” she instructed, “and say, ‘thank you for bringing me to the library!’” The grinning preschoolers happily obliged.
“It’s vitally important” to get youngsters on an early path to literacy, Greenwood said. “If you can’t read, you can’t function in this world,” from not being able to read a menu to not knowing how to fill out a job application.
“You’ve got to be able to read to succeed. I’m sure that’s a tagline from some place,” she added with a smile. But that doesn’t make it any less true.
Books Without Bounds
Unfortunately, not everyone can make it in to the library, Greenwood pointed out. Which is why she helped start the library’s children’s outreach, piloting the Reading Roadshow program in 2006. Themed story times - packaged in kits with related books and activities - are taken outside of the library walls and presented at centers that often serve underprivileged children who might need more exposure to books.
Reading Roadshow and its many invaluable volunteers now visit 17 classrooms each week at locations like Head Start centers, Children’s House and the Elizabeth Richardson Center.
Greenwood helped expand the success of that program last school year by establishing accompanying lending libraries at Fayetteville’s four Head Start centers. Shelving and a rotating selection of Books for Borrowing make it even easier for families to get reading materials into the home, she explained.
“Anything we can do to help them” engage is worth it, and the library offers a number of other outreach programs, from reading sessions with a therapy dog to volunteer programs for rising seventhgraders.
Charming Children
In addition to Greenwood being a role model for the youth who come to the library, “she is a role model for parents,” Thorup said. “She makes learning fun.”
“She is wonderful,” said Harris, the story time mother. “The thing that makes Miss Lolly good is that ... she’s not afraid to be child-like.”
Her eyes wide as she turned a page in the monster story, Greenwood let loose a high-pitched play scream of fright, then another for good measure. The children gathered around her on the fl oor were cackling gleefully. Some of the parents seated around the rim of the rug laughed, too.
“I love what I do,” Greenwood said later. “For me, I think I have the perfect job.”
Hosting story times requires a lot of flexibility and patience, as oftentimes children will interrupt with an anecdote about their dog or little brother. But they’re just so charming and appreciative for the most part, she said. “They love anything you do.”
One of the most important things parents can do for their young children is establish a nighttime routine that includes reading aloud, Greenwood said. Because eventually the child will realize that books are more than pictures; there are letters and the letters make words “and, eventually, words make sentences and, wow, it’s a story!”
She wants every child to know that empowerment.
Growing With Greenwood
Any child now in the Fayetteville Public School System who hasn’t laid eyes on Greenwood’s friendly face must have moved here, said Thorup, as Miss Lolly goes to every elementary school each year to promote the library’s summer reading program (which combats the educational back-sliding common during summer vacation). “She’s really an institution.”
Which is one of the reasons Greenwood was honored with the Ann Lightsey Children’s Librarian Award, essentially naming her the state’s children’s librarian of the year, during the annual Arkansas Library Association Conference in September. She has overseen the Children’s Library during a period of great change, the award nomination pointed out. For example, during her nearly 20 years with the library, the section’s book budget grew from 5 to 31.4 percent of all material purchases. Last year, youth items made up a robust 42 percent of all checkouts.
“It’s grown so much in the last 10 years” even, Greenwood said. Children’s programming attendance increased from 16,251 children in 2000 to 46,593 in 2009.
“When you see them every week, you really do form a relationship,” and it’s easy to get attached, Greenwood admitted. “But we love to see them grow and develop and become the person they’re meant to be.”
Though patrons change and times change and the library changes to meet changing needs, one thing remains rock-steady:
“Kids are kids,” Greenwood said. “And I love ’em!”
And they love Miss Lolly.
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PROFILE
LOLLY GREENWOOD
Job Title: Youth Services Manager, Fayetteville Public Library
Hometown: North Little Rock
Education: Degree in sociology and social work from the University of Arkansas
Family: Husband, Larry; three children; four grandchildren
Favorite Book: A picture book, “The Old Woman Who Named Things.” She cries every time.
Notable: “She’s the official voice of the Fayetteville Public Library,” said FPL Executive Director Shawna Thorup; it’s Greenwood’s voice recorded on the library’s announcements and automated phone system.
Our Town, Pages 11 on 10/24/2010