Go Librarians!

Sandy and I have a special place in our hearts for librarians.

Now.

I’m ashamed to say that wasn’t always the case. Blame it on a negative early experience.

We were just 13 and 15 when we met while working in a public library. At that point, it would be fair to say that work wasn’t a top priority for us. Goofing around, now that was a priority. Chit-chat about boys, music, movies and hairstyles? Also a priority.

So we would spend 80 per cent of each shift chatting, and the remaining 20 per cent working our butts off to get our shelving done in the least amount of time possible. From our perspective, it was a great arrangement.

Unfortunately, the head librarian disagreed. Mrs. Hinds, better known to us as The Fossil, had issues with our constant chatter. She also disapproved of the notes we left for each other on the staff bulletin board. For a librarian, you’d expect more appreciation of limericks, haiku and free verse. Especially as the thinly-disguised subject of so many of them.

Instead of fostering our sociability and creativity, however, she started scheduling us on different shifts. This had the unintended result of increasing the volume of haikus. So then she cut off our bulletin board privileges.

When we started switching shifts with colleagues so that we could work together, she instituted the no-switching-without-approval policy.

In other words, she won. The new, humorless regime eventually drove me to find a new job, teaching uncooperative kids how to play the organ.

It was enough to make anyone appreciate libraries.

Okay, so we learned a lot. We learned to put the customer first. We learned to balance procrastination with hard work. And we learned that very little rhymes with “fossil.”
We also learned we like working together. But when we eventually teamed up to write again, it wasn’t limericks. (Although I do wish we’d kept some of those early efforts.)

Today, the same library proudly displays a photo of us taken by a current librarian at one of our book signings. So all is forgiven.

Now we are free to love librarians, and we do. One of our favorites is Mrs. Hill, a middle school librarian who has written some nice reviews of our books, and recently posted an interview with us. Please visit her blog here.

Thanks Mrs. Hill!

Then hop over to The Ninja Librarian for a nice review of GIRL v. BOY.

Please rest assured we have a far better work ethic now. When we meet to discuss a book idea, we spend at least 50 per cent of our time talking about work, and the other 50 talking about music, movies, hairstyles and cute guys. Hopefully by the time we’re fossils, we’ll be putting the work part first. We’re a work-in-progress.