As I've mentioned on here several times before, we are frequent visitors to our local library. I've been taking the kids to story time there since Brenson was a baby, and we also participate in Lego Club and the Summer Reading Program. Because of this, our children's librarian, Ms. Tena, knows my kids well and has seen them grow from babies to toddlers to kids.
Each month, the Friends of the Will Rogers Library (monetary contributors and volunteers for the library) have a meeting where they feature different speakers. These speakers are authors, local community leaders, teachers, etc. In February, FOL always does a Books You Love feature during their monthly meeting. For this presentation, they invite a handful of speakers to share about their favorite book(s).
This year, FOL wanted to change things up a bit and invite a child to speak about their favorite book, so they asked Ms. Tena if she had any recommendations. She felt that Brianna would be a good fit, so that's who she recommended.
When Ms. Tena first mentioned it to Brianna and myself, Brianna was immediately excited. She agreed right away that she would like to participate, and then we worked out all the details with the FOL chairperson.
This is an advertisement that was in the FOL newsletter . . . the surprise guest was Brianna!
Brianna had about a month to prepare for her presentation. She knew pretty quickly that she wanted to talk about a series of books called The Secret Mermaid. These are definitely her current favorite series of books! She also decided that she wanted to have a presentation board to go along with her talk. Of course, she had all kinds of ideas regarding how she wanted the board to look, so I helped her execute her plans. We were both thrilled with how it turned out, even though that ombre blue background was a pain to paint!
The FOL meeting was on the evening of Monday, February 19th. Leading up to her presentation, Brianna spent a good chunk of time practicing her speech, which was supposed to be between 3 to 5 minutes long. Like I said above, she was the first and only child to speak at a FOL meeting. She was cute sitting with the panel of other speakers.
She really didn't seem nervous at all sitting in front of the audience (which was comprised of about 40 adults). I think she was more nervous about the man next to her who kept trying to make conversation, ha!
However, when she got up on the microphone, I think her nerves kicked in pretty good. She had practiced speaking slowly and making eye contact, but she had to really concentrate to make those things happen when it was her turn to speak.
I think she only ended up speaking for maybe 3 minutes, but she rocked it! She had an outline she was using, and she remembered all the high points she wanted to hit on.
We were so very proud of her for having the courage to speak. After the meeting was over, she was approached by many of the members letting her know what a great job she did, and commending her for being brave enough to do it.
FOL even gave all the speakers a small gift (which was a $25 Wal-mart gift card), and I'm pretty sure Brianna thought she was rich, lol. A few days after the presentation, I took Brianna to Wal-mart to spend a portion of her gift card on a fish tank and accessories for her My Life Dolls.
We feel so blessed that Brianna was given this opportunity, and we're grateful that she wanted to embrace it! I think these kinds of experiences will benefit her well into adulthood.
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