Category: Parent/Teacher Collection

Creative Fingerplays and Action Rhymes: An Index and Guide to Their use
Defty
1992

Submitter: I am a newly-hired youth services librarian for a public library branch that had been without a children’s librarian for nearly 3 years. While evaluating my library’s professional development collection, I came across [this book]. Most of the information in this book is fairly standard for the subject: chapters cover developmental milestones for various ages, suggested fingerplays and rhymes, and some sample craft ideas. All of these fingerplays themselves are now nicely organized and demonstrated on sites such as Jbrary. And since 1992, a number of excellent trainings like Supercharged Storytimes have been developed and made available for youth services librarians. This 30-year-old book, therefore, was unlikely to get much use at my branch. Regardless, I felt the need to browse the book and discovered the sample page I’m including here on serving “mentally retarded and emotionally disturbed children.” Um, we don’t use those terms anymore, and I’m kind of surprised they were still being used in 1992! Even my colleague at my branch who hates the idea of weeding anything agreed this title had to go.

Holly: Sometimes it’s easy to miss books like these, that still have some value. I’m sure the actual fingerplays are mostly fine. It’s these hidden sections, like the one you submitted, that can be overlooked. You can always photocopy the pieces you can still use and recycle the rest.