My five-year-old daughter and I go to the library and get books a lot but she decided recently that she wanted her own library card. I think Marc Brown's D.W. had something to do with it.
So today, the first day of our summer vacation before she goes off to Kindergarten in August, we went to the library and signed her up. She was surprised she didn't need to write her name, only spell it so the librarian could type it into the computer. The librarian was great and took the time with her to explain about how long check-outs were and to be good to the books and then signed her up for the summer reading program.
For the first time in a long time, my daughter didn't run straight for the computers. She carried her shiny new library card around showing it to people and picked out some books on her own. First up was Dora. Then I showed her where non-fiction was and said she wanted to learn bout hurricanes (?) and picked out a book on that. It was on about a fifth grade reading level but the black and white photos of storms from the 30s and 40s fascinated her and she had me read all of the captions.
She checked them all out herself and made sure to keep the receipt so she would know when to bring them back. She still has her card in her front pocket.
"I'm going to show everybody my new library card, Daddy!"
