THE THREE LITTLE LIBRARIANS CELEBRATE ANNIE

Book One in the Celebration Stories featuring
THE THREE LITTLE LIBRARIANS
Copyright October 2015

[part 1]

          Iva Dawn, Emilee’s mother, who taught G.A.’s, was counting crates of plastic Easter eggs in the storage area just through the basement door from the library, and Teresa, Megan’ s mother, who directed music, was filing away the Easter music booklets upstairs in the choir room, while the little librarians—Abby, Emilee, and Megan—were in the library, tabulating records on the books that had been returned after Easter. They were also looking through books and library files about Home Missionary Annie Armstrong, because the Annie Armstrong Offering for Home Missions (those in North America) was always collected around Easter time.

          “Mrs. Cloar,” said Megan, “it looks like the favorite book this year was 3:16 by Max Lucado, but a close runner-up was that book by country music star Alan Jackson and his wife, Denise, It’s All About Him. It doesn’t hurt that it came with its own CD of their music, but I suppose Mom will want to file that with her CD’s upstairs.”

          “That sounds like a good idea to me,” agreed Mrs. Cloar. “The gold sticker on the front tells about the CD, and we can include a sticker inside to tell readers the CD is in the choir’s collection. A lot of people will probably buy the book and CD at a bookstore, once they’ve seen them.”

          Iva Dawn suddenly came through the door and announced that the Mission Groups were one and a half crates short and would need that many more plastic eggs for next year to reach the usual 2,000 eggs, but she was extremely happy at how the traditional Good Friday Easter Egg Hunt had turned out.  There were always some eggs broken or lost during the hunt out in the school yard at Baileyton Elementary—and one year, when the eggs were hidden the night before, the squirrels from the tall oak trees had feasted on the candy, preferring chocolate—but this year several new children and parents had attended and taken home the candy, cross and lily stickers, and small Bible verse cards with the church address and service times stamped on the back, from inside the eggs.

          Most of all, Iva Dawn was pleased with how hard the G.A.’s, Acteens, R.A.’s, and Mission Friends had worked on their songs and puppet show.  Baileyton Elementary’s large auditorium, which had been built in the early 1940’s, had great acoustics and could seat about 200 people. It was perfect for getting across the story of Easter through the dialogues and songs of lively puppets, just before the hunt. Now the girls from the group would get to relax with a tea party in the Fellowship Hall, and the boys would get to go on a brief camping trip if weather permitted. Luckily, the girls wouldn’t have to worry about the weather.

(THE THREE LITTLE LIBRARIANS CELEBRATE ANNIE is a fictional book based on true events and real characters.)