"Where do you keep your beautiful things?"

I'm at a small branch library right now while my beautiful-yet-ragged Central Library is renovated, and while I miss the space and the people of my original library, I feel fortunate for the opportunity to work more closely with children that a branch library gives me.

(Okay, to be honest, this is true MOST of the time. Occasionally, I could use a little less child-interaction of the screaming or crying kind. But veteran children's librarians have assured me this is true for them, too.)

One of my favorite things about the children at my "new" library is how they love to give us their drawings and artwork. They know these creations are gifts, and I really am thrilled to see what new things they sprouted from their growing brains.

Last week, a little girl (around 4 years old, though with a vocabulary of a much older child) came to the desk after making something at our "Creation Station" table. She was a little shy with me, but told her grandmother, "I made this for HER" (meaning me).

I played it up big, of course. "You made this for ME?!!? Wow! Thank you so much!" I described what I saw in the picture and asked a few questions ("Oh, look, there are some red circles here... What crayon did you use to make these squiggles?")

At the end of this, she asked me, "Where do you keep your beautiful things?"

Of course her artwork was a beautiful thing: she wanted to know where I was going to put it!

"I have a bulletin board at my desk in there" -- I pointed to the back staff workroom -- "where I keep all of the beautiful things that little girls and boys give me. I like to look at them when I work!"

She smiled, I smiled, and for that moment, and truly a long time afterward, I really did feel fortunate to be there.