Sunday, Mar. 21, 2004 - 3:50 pm
Um... I'm sorry.
This relationship just isn't working for me.
I'm at www.dailypreciousness.org now. So change that bookmark.
Los Angeles Times Correspondent Faye Zoroya reported on me for this feature profile.
***
Arlington, Va – In all the years he was growing up, Jeffrey Blender never dreamed he would become a school librarian. After all, both of his parents were librarians, so why would he want to do that?
There seemed to be so many more exciting things in the world to pursue. He was raised in a place where baby alligators turned up in neighborhood swimming pools and kids got a present every time they went to a parade. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the local library was probably one of the least exciting places a kid could go. But it was there that Mr. Brady stumbled onto something that would change the course of his life. One day he picked up a book of Japanese folk tales and found it so fascinating he decided to learn the language. He spent the next several years studying Japanese (also Russian and Spanish) and at 23, found himself in a small town in Japan, teaching English to Japanese students as young as kindergarten and as old as middle school.
Mr. Brady knew then that he loved working with children, but teaching was too exhausting. Marathons he could run, but a classroom full of children wore him out. "Then I realized there was a way I could work in education and still be able to function after 5 p.m. – that was in the library.
Now 31, this is his first job as a school librarian and so far he likes it a lot. Who wouldn't? The first week he got to tell a Halloween story so scary some kids jumped an inch off the ground. The children think the school librarian knows everything. "Do you remember the book I checked out a month ago – the yellow one?" they sometimes ask. His memory isn't that good, but that's the nice thing about the library – if you don't know an answer, you can probably find it there.
He says the best part is helping kids learn to love to read. "If you look at children's entertainment options, there are so many more avenues than there used to be," he says. "They spends upwards of 20 hours a week watching television and playing computer games. Generally, they don't read very much." But he believes that if parents take their children to the library once a week and let them pick out anything – anything – they want, even if it's Goosebumps or Captain Underpants, reading will be more fun. "If they read what they enjoy, they will find that reading is not an effort," he says.
Mr. Brady is trying to get to know every child at the school. He likes to steer them to some of his favorite books – such as the Frog and Toad series that his parents used to read to him. This is a big job, but in the library, Mr. Blender seemed inspired, never tired. "Any parent is welcome to come in before or after school with their child and I would love to work with them, helping parents and children to find books. I'll stay as late as they like," he says. Even after 5.
