Pretending To Be A Librarian...

Right before I went to do storytime this afternoon, one of the mothers of a child that attends came up to me and told me that her 4-year-old daughter pretends to be me when she goes home. Her mother was telling me that she tells everyone to sit on their mats, holds picture books like I do, pretends to read, asks them about the stories and says "Isn't that silly!" (I say that a lot to the kids). It was so cute. Who would have thought someone would want to pretend to be me?!

A Rarity... Good Parenting...

At my library we have a handful of Muslim women that come in wearing various forms of hijabs, jilbābs and abayas and just now a little girl walked over to where a woman in full Islamic clothing with her face covered was sitting, turned around and told her mother she was looking at a ghost when here mother asked her what she was doing. The little girl kept asking what the ghost was doing and I must say, the mother explained to her child beautifully that there was no ghost and that it was a lady wearing special clothing from another country. It was wonderful to see someone teach their child something and not laugh away something they said about something they didn't understand. I wish I saw more parents like this.

Black Pigs...

On Thursday during the craft portion of my storytime I had the children coloring pigs and I had one little girl who started to color her pig in black. As she was coloring it she kept saying that she was coloring it in black because "Black is the color of bad guys" and that the pig was a bully -- She also said that "Black is the color of bullies" and that "Black was a bad color" and that "Bullies are only black". I was kind of in shock because she kept saying it and the other kids were starting to repeat what she was saying. I told her and the other kids that black wasn't a bully color, it was just a normal color like all of the other in the crayon box.

When I was done with storytime her nanny swept her away so I didn't have a chance to say anything. I told my Department Head, who couldn't believe what the child had been saying. I had never seen this child before so I don't know if she is being bullied by someone or if her parents are teaching her to be racist. I kind of hope I don't have to deal with her again.