New middle school's library will try to transcend norm

By Heather Kronmueller ~ Southeast Missourian

For 26 years, Vickie Howard has dreamed of creating a school library where children would be able to sit and read without feeling like they were in a school.

She dreamed of a place where children would look at murals instead of plain white walls, sit in the back seat of a convertible instead of a hard plastic chairs and search the card catalogue from computers in a soda shop rather than computers on a desk in the middle of the room.

When Howard, a librarian in the Cape Girardeau School District, was told she was going to be working in the new Central Middle School in the fall, she knew her dream might soon become a reality.

When the Central Junior High staff moved into the old high school building May 23 and 24, the only thing left in the library at the old junior high school were the bookshelves, a handful of magazines and a few tables and chairs.

Howard and some 20 parents who have volunteered to spend their Tuesday afternoons cleaning, painting and decorating, are going to take the summer and transform the ordinary library into someplace unique.

"I was pretty shocked when I walked in here and saw this was all they left me," Howard said, pointing to a wall of bookshelves and some tables. "But then I just shifted into high gear and thought of all of the really great things that can happen in here."

Parent volunteers

A dozen parents met with Howard Tuesday to discuss plans for the room and the schedule for the summer.

Howard said the east end of the room will be furnished with oak chairs and tables where students can sit individually and work or teachers can bring their classes for lessons.

The central part of the room will be decorated like a '50s cafe.

"I want to prepare you," Howard told the parents in a serious tone. "The cafe tables that have been donated are red and black, which might make some people think of --"

"Jackson!" the parents said, gasping.

Howard said if someone donated some turquoise, pink or yellow cafe booths or tables she would mix them in with the red and black ones, but she doesn't have a budget to go out and buy different-colored ones.

She also wants to put the back end of a convertible in the cafe section for students to sit in while they read.

The west end of the room will house 30 computers and a mural of the solar system to symbolize the future.

"When the kids are having problems I want them to be able to come in here and learn and laugh in a relaxed atmosphere," Howard said.

Andrea Schneider, a local artist, and 13-year-old Ryan Hammond, whom Schneider has painted with before, are going to paint a mural of a garden on the south wall of the room that leads to an outdoor courtyard.

"We want to make it look like we just took the wall out and you are looking directly outside," Schneider said.

Howard said the room will contain little orange and black, the school's colors, and no cubs or tigers, the school's mascots, because she doesn't want the room to have a school atmosphere.

Jody Trautwein, an elementary education professor at Southeast Missouri State University and mother of an 11-year-old daughter who will attend the middle school in the fall, said she's seen a lot of libraries over the years and none compares to what the middle school library will look like when it's complete.

She said a lot of adults don't read because they are not comfortable being in the formal setting of a traditional library, so getting children used to being comfortable in libraries at a young age is important.

Connie B'Dell, Howard's assistant, said she can't wait to see the library when it is finished.

"It's going to be awesome," she said. "A lot of times the library feels like an annex of the curriculum. Now it's going to be the center."

Kristi Howard's son, B.I., will be a fifth-grader at the school in the fall.

"The children are really going to enjoy this," she said. "It's very imaginative, creative and fun. And the more fun you can make something for kids the more enthusiastic they're going to be about it."

Howard hopes to have the library finished by the end of July.

hkronmueller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128