Stuffed Animal Sleepover

On Friday, February 25, something strange happened at my library. After closing, stuffed animals came to life and cause much mischief in the building.

Okay, maybe they didn't. But our staff sure did! At 6pm, we held a special storytime where children brought a stuffed animal friend. Afterwards, we tucked them under a blanket, turned out the light, and closed the door. Only one very young boy decided his friend - a plastic wrestler action figure - didn't want to stay and went home instead. At 7pm, the library closed and the children's staff took over. We set up pizza, chips, and cookies on the children's tables and pigged out. Once we were sufficiently fed, we took lots of pictures in the room with the animals. We then split ourselves into 3 groups (there were 8 staffers), divided the animals into 3 groups, and proceeded to take pictures of our animals running amok in the library.

Around 8:30, we reconveined in the department, uploaded our pictures, and put together picture collages on two pages (they were supposed to be one page, front and back, but the printer decided not to... oh well!). So in all, there were 3 different sets. We tucked the animals back into bed where they had been before, and tucked their pictures underneath. We also set up a laptop with a monitor on our counter, and set the screensaver to scroll through pictures of the night. Saturday morning, children were able to come at whatever time they wanted to pick up their friend. They LOVED the pictures. They watched the slideshow to find pictures that weren't on their print outs. A few kids were in love and showed their pictures to complete strangers in the library. A couple older girls had to be convinced, but they were told that the pictures were from the security cameras, and they seemed to buy it.

In the future, I would plan more time for staff (some staff managed to leave at 9, but some of us stayed until 9:30), and I could think of many more pictures to take! But the library staff loved the pictures, and we have had many positive patron comments. But most importantly, the children had fun and the staff had a blast. Definitely one to be repeated.



All pictures can be found here in Picassa.