Librarian Takes Wealth Of Words On Road To Listeners, Readers

FILE PHOTO 
Sherry Rodgers, children’s librarian for the Washington County Library System, uses animal handpuppets to illustrate a story during a previous story time at the Elkins Public Library. The current session of story times is under way at rural Washington County libraries.
FILE PHOTO Sherry Rodgers, children’s librarian for the Washington County Library System, uses animal handpuppets to illustrate a story during a previous story time at the Elkins Public Library. The current session of story times is under way at rural Washington County libraries.

GO AND DO

SPRING STORY TIME

When: Through May 15

Schedule:

Farmington Public Library - 9:30 a.m. Mondays

Prairie Grove Public Library - 11 a.m. Mondays

West Fork Public Library - 10 a.m. Tuesdays

Winslow Branch Library - Noon Tuesdays

Greenland Branch Library - 8:45 a.m. Thursdays

Elkins Public Library - 10:30 a.m. Thursdays

Cost: Free

Information: 442-6253

By the end of a 15-week story time series, Sherry Rodgers knows a little bit about a whole lot of things.

This session, she’ll listen to insects, taste things that are yummy and yucky, touch hot and cold things and smell popcorn, skunk, pizza and dirty socks.

Rodgers’ two sons are grown and live in Seattle, but like a mom, she has to be a storyteller, an artist, a musician and so much more. She is children’s librarian for the Fayetteville-based Washington County Library System.

“You are compelled to, you don’t choose to,” she said of being a librarian. “You really, really want to share what you read. And I always loved working with kids, so for me it just makes sense to combine those two things.”

What the job entails starts, of course, with books and ends at seven small-town libraries across Washington County. Rodgers joked that she lives in a van for 30 weeks a year, bringing with her activities for summer reading programs, after-school book clubs and six story times a week. She also added that this is a more relaxed schedule than when she started nearly two decades ago. Then, she was part of the Ozarks Regional Library System and also traveled south of the mountains to Van Buren, Cedarville, Alma and other small River Valley towns.

“It was pretty intense,” she admitted. “This is more manageable.”

But it still sounds like an almost overwhelming amount of work.

“The process usually starts with a new book that I’ve seen and think, ‘Oh, man, that’s cool,’” she said. “Then I decide if there is enough there I could put a program together around it. I do the themes in 15-week sessions, so every week I pull in about 20 books, pick out the ones I like to read out loud, then add flannel board stories, music and art activities.”

This session’s theme is “Science Sense.”

“I try to keep science in everything I do,” Rodgers said. “It’s crucial to keep the natural world in our story times. But every time I start a new series of programs, I have to learn a lot to do it. I learn far more than the kids ever do!”

Rodgers laughed and added that at the rural libraries, the students may already know more than the teacher.

“They’re far more in touch with the natural world,” she said. “I have a fun thing I do with animal tracks in snow - I have pictures and sing a little song and let them guess what the animal is - and the kids in rural areas get it every time.”

Rodgers has seen life from both sides of the city/country coin herself. She grew up in Lincoln, attended the University of Arkansas, then followed her Air Force husband around the world for 22 years.

“My youngest child was born in the Philippine Islands, and my oldest child graduated from college in England,” she said.

Coming home to retire meant returning to a “metropolis,” she said, compared to the community they left. But Rodgers found her way back to the country - and to working with youngsters - as a traveling librarian.

“I see a huge variety of kids,” she said, from kindergarten classes who come en masse to daycare classes to Head Start students in Lincoln. And Rodgers believes they all have something to learn from books.

“I’m not anti-technology, but I believe that to use technology in the right way, you still have to have a basic command of the language, the ability to write good sentences,” she said. “You have to be a reader or been read to. It’s a crucial thing we do when we read aloud. We teach them what words mean and how they function.”

Megan Wood, children’s coordinator for the Prairie Grove Public Library, said story time is much anticipated and well attended by daycare students who walk to the library in nice weather and by “moms and grandparents with their little ones.”

“It’s not only a time for the kids to have fun with other kids, it’s a time for the moms to come and socialize and make friends,” she said. “When we take a break at Christmas or at the end of the school year, the kids can’t wait to get back.”

Rodgers said she has had “hundreds of moments” that make her want to come back, too. “The joy on the little ones’ faces is why you do it. But my teen book club members sometimes give me the most inspiration,” she said. “The teens sometimes surprise me because they keep coming back year after year - and they don’t have to.”

Life, Pages 6 on 02/12/2014

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