Evening star. [volume], March 18, 1962, Page 4, Image 108

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
"Say Something Clever
«« About Dinosaurs"
By MYRA MacPHERSON Star Staff Writer
/"CHILDREN aren't exactly the easiest things apart. Boys don’t think libraries are
'•<?'' t 0 talk tO, most, y because they have not stuff. Many come in alone. More boys and girls
yet learned the Art of Fakemanship. If you come to the library than used to and more
bore them, they yawn or start singing or kick- books are being written for them. A lot of boys
M ing the table leg-or you. and girls take out from 10 to 15 books at a time.
So the next time you’re stuck with young Librarian Fawcett's record day last year was
M boys and girls, say something clever about July 5, when 1,432 books were stamped out.
dinosaurs. Biographies, sometimes class assigned and
It’ll be up to you to think of the clever thing sometimes class inspired, seem to interest
to say about them. We can’t think of anything. children.
We’ve simply been told on good authority that “And then we went through quite a siege
dinosaurs are safer than dolls or fire engines of the Civil War,” Mrs. Fawcett recalls wearily,
or horses or baseball or rockets or Indians. “They even wanted Civil War books on the
Knees are as good as anything for a desk. They all go though a stage of being wildly first and second grade level.”
crazy about dinosaurs,” says Mrs. Laurence G. Checking out books and sometimes acting
Fawcett, as emphatically as anyone can ever as referee are not the only duties of a chil-
Hsay anything in hushed, library-speaking tones. dren’s librarian. One of the more perplexing is
Mrs. Fawcett, who’s seen thousands of interpreting questions.
kids fidget and read and wander their way “A boy came in and said he wanted a book
through Alexandria’s Public Library since on Moses. I went through the Biblical section,
1937, comes from a long line of librarians. but he shook his head and kept repeating,
Her great-great-grandfather started the first ‘Moses.’ I finally found out he was saying
Alexandria library in 1713. ‘mooses.’”
At present, Mrs. Fawcett’s customers con- And one 4-year-old quietly asked for a
sist of some 3,000 pre-schoolers to eighth- book on “Invisible Animals.” Mrs. Fawcett
graders; they get a library card as soon as they hasn’t been talking to kids all these years for
can write or print their full names. nothing. He went away bookless but satisfied.
Some, like those in these pictures, are well She simply told him books on invisible animals
behaved; others start pulling the file cabinet are also invisible.
STAR PHOTOS BY TOM HOY
Joining John Paul Jones in battle . . . Il
moßh >yw
BHrLf wHfw 1 r J t
a 2 ■■aw
b
‘ A million miles away on "Our Tanker Fleet." Small hands turn the large book's pages.
Too engrossed to remove her coat...
4
SUNDAY. THE STAR MAGAZINE. WASHINGTON. D. C.. MARCH 18. HI(I2