第139章 SUGGESTIONS(3)

Two years ago,in the interim between one children's librarian who was married in June and her successor who could not come till September,I spent most of the summer in the boys'and girls' room,and learned two things.Some of the children thought that they had read all the books on the shelves,and were asking for grown-up cards.They were kept in the room by transferring some duplicate copies of novels best worth reading from the main library and putting red stars on the back and the book-card.Then I was able to talk with girls who had read all of Laura Richards's Hildegarde books,but had never thought of looking up one of the poems or stories that she loved,or one of the pictures in her room.I have sometimes read the deion of the room to a class in a schoolroom,and put on the blackboard all the names of places,persons,books and poems in it.One year I invited girls to form a Hildegarde Club for reading these very things,and in writing to Mrs.Richards on another subject,mentioned it.She wrote me an answer that I have had framed for the girls to see.The Club lived for a few months and used to meet on Saturday afternoons for reading "The Days of Bruce,"but at the Christmas holidays the girls went into the department stores for a few weeks and forgot to come back.However,I am very happy to tell the story of another Hildegarde Club that is still flourishing.The teacher of a ninth grade class loves books,and was quick to seize the hint of such a club,which she organized from the girls in her room,and asked permission to bring to my office for its weekly meetings.She is keeping them up to their work because she sees them every day,and they are interested and learning how much they can find in a book besides the story.Besides this,they are observant and appreciative of whatever they see on the walls of my room.The girls to whom Igave a general invitation by means of a newspaper article were not from the same school and did not all know each other.It is better in organizing a club to have some common ground of interest and begin with a small number.It cannot always be done in a city in or through the library,except indirectly,by means of a Settlement or other club.One that I know does very good work in its meetings with the Settlement headworker and has a small collection of books and pictures from the main library for six months,and a more elementary bookshelf for a younger club with whom one of the members is reading the same subject.