Cleaning Out the Library: Literally and Figuratively

I got this charming email from a group of 3rd and 4th graders in Cecelia and Sarah's class:

Dear Natalie,
    We are doing a service learning project on a book called The Janitor's Boy. And we want to go to your library and scrape the gum off the tables. If that's okay with you. Your library tables may get covered in gum if we don't. A boy in the book scrapes gum off chairs and tables, so we'd like to try it ourselves. Please type back.
    Sincerely,
    Elena, Mitchell, and Jasper

So sure, I typed back.  How could I resist? I was SO glad to get the gum scraped from the underside of the tables. The only table in my library with gum under it was a battered old table that came to me from the High School. So now it's no longer in danger of getting covered in gum.
  






Meanwhile, the wild rumpus has begun. We are now checking out books, up to fifty per family, for the entire summer. I love to watch the joy of the kids and hear the appreciation from the parents, who note that having a stack of carefully selected library books makes summer reading so easy.  And it is such a gift to have help from Shannon, our high school intern, and Katie, our indefatigable volunteer, to make this massive undertaking so successful.   Checkout statistics:

Normal days:

Thursday, May 10:     77
Friday, May 11:          78

Summer checkout days:

Thursday, May 17:     971
Friday, May 18:          802

And here are the 2012 Summer Reading Lists (right column, PDF).

It's Friday. I'm going home to read a book.