Wednesday was a good librarian day.
I think I have finally won over the kids at my toughest afterschool site. It's almost all boys at this site and the older ones are way too cool for school. It's not unusual for me to be greeted by groans of "Not YOU again!" when I arrive at this school (I assume they're saying that with love, of course). But this time, one of the younger boys saw me arrive and raced to open the door. When he spotted my bag of books, he gave me a big hug and said, "You're the book lady!"
The kids were more attentive than they've ever been and after several of the younger kids clamored to do the craft (scratch-art snowmen), most of the older boys drifted over to do it, too. I sat at their table and they showed off by saying rude things about the people in their classes and telling me who liked who in their classes and which girls were "smokin' hot".
After my afterschool visit, I had Teen Otaku Club and it went really well. I had 30 kids and we had a really nice discussion about their favorite manga. I know they were a little disappointed that we cut the program back to one hour (previously, we let it go for two hours), but it really was more manageable. I'm getting to know some of the kids and we have some great leaders that participated and helped me moderate our discussion. They talked for almost 45 minutes, telling others about new manga and explaining their favorites to me. (Take-away: the girls tend to like any manga with attractive male characters. The boys tend to like manga with violence and gore, the bloodier the better.)
So, all in all, it was a good day.
