Last night while I made an early dinner so we wouldn’t miss storytime at the library, the boys played trucks.
Overheard, Max (age 5):
I work for City Hall. I make sure our town is working properly and looking nice.
Now I am going to the City Hall.
Hello. We should have a festival.
In another (angry) voice: A Festival? No! We don’t need a festival!
Yes!
No!
Yes!
No!
Yes!
No!
I have never taken him to a meeting at City Hall, but I think he got it right.
(illustration by Virginia Lee Burton for Maybelle the Cable Car)
In Related News:
At storytime I spoke to three of our favorite librarians. They all expected pink slips on Monday, didn’t know how the library hours would be reduced, but told us storytime would probably be cancelled on October 4th. I bemoaned their budget crisis, assured them I had emailed our commissioner, and offered a job lead I just heard about.
It was so sad.
Our library is very small, but it was built just a few years ago and is a bright, happy place. This spring we finally got a dedicated children’s librarian who has breathed fresh air into storytime. We attended a Bollywood performance and puppet show over the summer, and also participated in the Summer Reading Program. That’s just at our tiny branch.
We regularly visit bigger branches to see magic shows, listen to live Caribbean music, meet animals up close, and watch the ballet. This was the first year we made it to the annual Art of Storytelling Festival downtown and it blew our socks off. I was all set to write a piece about what an amazing library system Miami has, and then out of nowhere, a budget crisis exploded.
First the county wanted to cut almost 300 jobs and close 10 branches (all of which were in poor, minority neighborhoods). We fought back and got it down to zero branch closures, but 169 job losses with deep cuts in hours and services. That wasn’t good enough, so we kept fighting.
Relentlessly!
It looked like we had failed, but at the last minute, the commissioners scraped up the needed funds to keep our libraries open.
We need to remember what Max knows already:
You can fight City Hall.
In fact, you must.
Much thanks to the many volunteers who put in tremendous time, energy, and effort into righting this wrong. All our citizens are deeply indebted to you.
What inspired Max’s early civic play? Why, Virginia Lee Burton. More on her work tomorrow.
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