Classes begin at 8.30am but we have many students who arrive early by bus and others are dropped off early so parents can get to work. I open the library at 8am so they have a warm, friendly place to be in until the bell goes.
It’s this time that is my favourite part of the day. Students play board and card games, and you’ll find groups of students aged 7-11 playing Uno or Ludo together. There will also be patient fifth graders teaching starstruck first graders how the chess pieces move, breath-holdingly intense games of Pick-Up-Sticks, the hilarity of Guess Who? and a flurry of students handing in their permission slips for Harry Potter night. The hubbub can get loud, but it’s happy noise; it sounds like a community.
After students have tidied up and been dismissed off to class, I grab a cup of tea, check in the returned books and get them reshelved. I open a package that arrived the night before: it’s a book a fifth grader has been asking for - number seven in the series - and it has gone missing three times already. I decide to deliver it immediately. It’s a great start to your day when you get a big hug from a 10-year-old boy because of a book.
Sally Cameron is a teacher and librarian at Marymount International School in Rome
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