In the Stacks

I’ve been volunteering in my daughters’ elementary school library for a few months now. I spend one hour a week alone in the library, shelving returned books. Those of you who know me at all can guess that this makes me very, very happy.

The school is a small one and so is the library. It’s in a basement room that also hosts the computer lab. The library is essentially a dozen bookshelves distributed around the perimeter of the room, some tables and chairs and rugs, and a large comfy chair for the librarian to sit in at story time.

I spent a lot of time in my various school libraries as a student, and in my mother’s bookshop when it existed. Bookshops are still slices of heaven to me, so shelving books in a quiet room is close to nirvana. I also welcomed the opportunity to reacquaint myself with the Dewey Decimal System. You know, just in case.

The school’s library is divided into three sections: Fiction, Easy Reading, and Non-Fiction (that’s where the Dewey Decimal System comes in). I’m glad to report that four months of shelving books KG through 5th graders choose to take home proves the old standbys are still favorites: E.B. White, Roald Dahl, Dr. Seuss, C.S. Lewis, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys, are all well-represented. Add to that the new classics: Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, the Avalon series. I’ve learned the shelf locations of the Magic Treehouse, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Goosebumps series by heart.

As for non-fiction, the big winners by far are the 590s: animals, closely followed by 636 (pets and pet care). However, I’m pleased to see that in 811 (poetry), Shel Silverstein’s books are out every single week. There is usually a good sprinkling of 790s (sports) and some 398s (folk tales). 

There are trends in book desirability. The little ones sometimes pick out books together -- all the Angelinas or  Miss Spiders will be out at once. You can also tell when certain kinds of book reports are assigned to the older students, such as when the 900s (biographies) were wiped out for a couple of weeks.

As I place the books back in their proper places on the shelves, I sometimes wonder if there’s a kid in one of the classes who’s like I was at that age –- fond of re-reading the same favorite few books, checking them out again and again even as the librarian gently urges her to try something new. For that little girl, spending hours among the stacks was just about the best thing she could imagine. Still is.