Over the years, I’ve relocated with my family several times. Each time, the first thing I do is find my local public library branch and get on down there. I’ve found it to be a great place to meet other parents, find out what’s going on in the community and of course, to keep my kids amused before they’ve found friends. Library story times and kid-friendly activities have gotten us through many a cold winter morning when we moved into the Midwest as well as hot summers in the South. You can’t be lonely at the library, and you can certainly pick up friends there.

This week, I ran in to an old acquaintance, a librarian named Sally, at a Wake County library, who brought back memories to me. I remember meeting her among stacks of children’s books more than a decade ago in the old North Regional Library. Back then, my son had exhausted all the book titles and series that I knew for him to read, so I went to her for advice. She dropped everything she was doing and spent a long time walking me around and showing me all of the options I’d never dreamed of, adding her personal favorites as she went. It turned out that she had recently moved here too and was working as a librarian.

As the years went by, I would see Sally from time to time whenever I had time to visit the library, and we’d chat. I’d pick her brain for more books for my first son, then for my second. She always had time to put her heart into her selections. I was elated when I discovered that she was put in charge of the Youth Services branch at the library.

A few years more passed, and she told me she had a daughter.

This week, I happened to run into her at the new North Regional Library and discovered she had had another child: a 15-month-old. I told her my first son was in high school, and she exclaimed in disbelief.

“Could he/we be that old?” we wondered?

“He’s passing on your book suggestions to his younger brother,” I told her.

“Oh,” she said, shaking her head. “The younger librarians here know so much more about the new series.”

She handed me an invitation. The new North Regional Library is celebrating its first birthday with a special guest storyteller Willa Brigham this Saturday; You’re invited, she said, with a smile.

Maybe I’ll go. There’s no telling who I’ll meet there!

For details on North Regional Library’s first birthday celebration at 7009 Harps Mill Road, from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 19, sponsored by the Friends of Wake County Public Libraries, click here.

For story times at lots of other fun places, click here to visit Carolina Parent’s calendar of story times and weekly events.

-- By  Odile Fredericks, Carolina Parent Web Editor