Girls’ Bathroom Becomes Library

“A good laugh is sunshine in a house.” — William Makepeace Thackeray

It’s true! The school library I work in used to be the girls’ bathroom. I plumb forgot to ask about it until yesterday. That was when the clanging-banging water pipes decided to compete with my story time, and I wanted to know why they were hanging around in the library.

Clanging-banging Pipes

Never say ingenuity is down the toilet. When the kindergarten room was wired for a computer room, the new kindergarten settled into the cafeteria. The new cafeteria managed to eat up the library space, leaving piles of books in search of a new home. Brilliant minds got together and came up with the resourceful idea to makeover the downstairs girls’ bathroom into the new library. And so it was done.

When I took over as the part-time librarian, the walls were a dull army green—very different from the shock-your-socks-off pink walls in the hallway. I requested a color that would be more upbeat for the library. I thought a mellow yellow would be perfect, but the smack-you-in-the-face yellow it was painted bowled me over the first time I saw it. What the heck, I thought, the room was a bathroom converted to a library. The space was already unique. I brought in red and blue colors, added a few artistic touches, and the library was ready and waiting.

Girls’ Bathroom Door

 Library Door

Toilet Seat

Library Seat

Now I’m flushed with pride with the results. The library is little, but it’s bright and provides students with a wide variety of books. Louis Sachar’s book, There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom, has nothing on us. There are lots of boys in our girl’s bathroom with reams of reading material to plunge into!

Some of my favorite picture books about the library:  Aunt Chip and the Great Triple Creek Dam Affair by Patricia Polacco, (Philomel, 1996), The Library  by Sarah Stewart, (Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 2008), The Library Dragon by Carmen Agra Deedy, (Peachtree Publishers, 1994), Please Bury Me in the Library by J. Patrick Lewis (Harcourt Children’s Books, April 2005), Library Lion by Michael Knudsen, (Candlewick, 2006), Richard Wright and the Library Card by William Miller (Lee & Low Books, 1999)

And for those of you interested in bathrooms, try:  Flushed With Pride:  The Story of Thomas Crapper (Trafalgar Square Publishing, 1998)

Explore posts in the same categories: Laughter, Life, Picture Books