About Anne McKernan
I am the Mom of two hilarious and sweet young men ages 16 and 3. One is very very tall. The other not so much. It leads to questions.
Yup, that is a big gap. Yup, the same husband. Nope, really, the little one is not my grandson.
Before becoming a Mom I was a stage actress with a background in education. I gave it all up to gain weight and stay at home with my baby. When lugging the stroller (with the baby in it) up and down three flights of stairs every time I wanted to brave the city streets of Chicago got tiring, my husband and I headed for the burbs of Philadelphia. When my oldest was in kindergarten I started volunteering in his school library. I have always loved books and found watching my son learn to read to be absolutely fascinating, but really I wanted to be able to spy on him in school without distracting him. The library was the perfect spot to do it – I could hide in the stacks and look busy while helping the librarian shelve humongous amounts of books. When you shelve several hundred books every week for a couple of years you get to know a lot of books. Kids began to ask me for book recommendations, the school started to ask me to sub. I was beginning to reinvent myself.
When my very tall only child was in 6th grade the most delightful surprise you can imagine became a part of our family. I had been a volunteer at our town library for years and on one very sleep-deprived day not long after my little guy was born, I saw a poster asking for readers for a new story time program. I put my name down thinking I would be happy to read a book now and then. I love books! I can do funny voices! Exotic accents too! I am a trained actress, it would be fun!
Two days later posters appeared all over town announcing I would be running Itsy Bitsy Story Time.
I panicked. There was no way I could do this. I had no idea where to even begin. My husband suggested I give it a try and that maybe it was just the right thing for me, a good combination of the things I loved to do. Read. Perform. Work with kids. Work in a library.
Here we are three and a half years later and I absolutely love running our story time programs. The best part is I run into the kids all over town. “Aren’t you the library lady? Aren’t you the story time mom? The Itsy Bitsy Mom?”
Yup, that’s me, the itsybitsymom. (No, really, not the grandmom!)
Anne’s Quick Interview
What is your favorite book?
Book for ME?- The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown – amazing true story that reads like a great underdog-is-triumphant-coming-of-age novel.
Book for Kids? Three-way-tie between Pete the Cat’s Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin because it is an awesome story time read, and Spoon by Amy Krauss Rosenthal because I think it is just so clever and witty, and We Are in a Book by Mo Willems because it makes my 3 y.o. laugh hysterically.
What is your favorite book from childhood?
Mandy by Julie Andrews. I think I read it about 100 times and wish I knew where my copy was!
What is your favorite thing about the library?
Besides all the BOOKS? I love that libraries are a place where all the things I love can all happen at the same time. Entertainment, education, knowledge, research, music, community, are all things I am passionate about and they can all be found at the library. The fact that libraries can serve people throughout their entire life span on such a huge variety of topics and in so many amazingly different ways is another thing I love. Libraries bring people together through connections that are often missed and neglected in the outside world. Oh, and they are (mostly) FREE!
Writings from Anne McKernan
Anne recently started her own blog, called Itsy Bitsy Mom.
Connect with Anne
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