I’m so grateful to Martha Rico, librarian at Hawkins School in my home city of El Paso, Texas. Martha was kind enough to send me the video of her first grade students responding to my books by sending me their messages in Spanish. Isn’t that creative and generous of Martha? I asked her the following questions.

2. What do you enjoy about the work?
MR: I enjoy being in the library because I work with the whole student body! I enjoy watching the students grow from kindergarten to fifth grade: to watch their likes and dislikes change as well as their personalities. It is especially momentous when a former student who is now in high school or older comes by and says, “I remember when you used to ….”. That lets me know I have made a small impact on their lives. I also get to work with the entire faculty on various projects.

3. How do you select the books?
MR: Books are selected through reviews, student/teacher interest and award-winning books.

4. Do you think of yourself as creative?
MR: I wouldn’t say I am creative at all. Sometimes I have a really good idea for a project or bulletin board or even for a lesson, but overall I don’t consider myself creative.

5. Do you celebrate Día at your library? If not, will you next year? If yes, how do you plan and what happens?
MR: Honestly, I promote Día because our city hosts a big fair, but in the library I haven’t done all that much. We usually get an email with all the info about it with a printable flyer that I post outside the library. It usually falls so close to state testing that it gets put on the back burner at my library. I will try to be a better advocate next year.

Hawkins Elementary School