11 Simple Steps for Great Library Trips by Maria Oka

1)      Go to the library.

2)      Pull out your “must-read” list and start searching. Try to keep your 1-year old from pulling every book off the shelf. Fail.

3)      When the screeching and the book-pulling become unbearable, head to the checkout line with your books. Wait. Hear a couple “You’ve got your hands full!” comments (translation, “I’m glad I’m in front of you because, by the looks of it, it will take you 10 minutes just to find your library card!”)

4)      Take 10 minutes just to find your library card.

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5)      Head to the car with your reusable-shopping-bags-turned-library-bags. Notice that they contain all of the books your 6-year-old thought looked cool, all of the books your 4-year-old thought looked pretty, and all of the books your 1-year-old grabbed that you didn’t have time to re-shelve. Oh, and the few books that you managed to procure from your “must-read” list.

6)      Throw your library books on the front seat and buckle them up (to avoid the eternal beeping your car will make because it thinks your books are a human passenger).

7)      Lug your bags up two flights of stairs. This may take several trips and will most certainly be the best exercise you get all week.

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8)      Now for the fun part. Sit down and read. All of them. Right away. Because…NEW BOOKS!

9)      Make piles: 1) I cannot bear to read this again pile (hide these from your children), 2) This would never be published in today’s market, but I guess I can read it again pile (leave in library bag), 3) Adequate bedtime story pile (put on bookshelf in the kids’ room), 4) This is so awesome, I am going to type it up so I can study it later pile (stack on desk).

10)   After a week, find all of your books under beds, in backpacks, beneath couches, among the DVDs, inside pillow cases, behind the toilet and, if you’re lucky, on the bookshelf.

11)   Return and repeat.

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This post was written by Maria Oka, a mother of three very busy girls whose reading and writing spans from books for the very young to older picture books. Besides being interested in rollicking laugh-aloud books with her girls, Maria is also interested in children's books with a spiritual element. She reads, writes, and tries to juggle dinnertime, school schedules, and doing the dishes one-handed in Southern California, where she lives with her husband and munchkins. 

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