Tuesday night our library hosted a Stuffed Animal Story Time and Sleepover for children ages 2 – 5. Although this program can take a lot of hands on work, it is definitely worth it to see the children come back to the library to pick up their stuffed animals and see what they were up to during the night. We ast the children, their stuffed animals, and their adult to come to the program about 15-20 minutes early to sign in. We have nametags for the child, their stuffed animal, and each child get a picture with their stuffed animal to start the evening. Our staff also has a spreadsheet with information describing each child’s stuffed animal so we can identify them if nametags disappear. Then when everyone has signed in, we have a pajama story time for the kids and their stuffed animals. We read three stories – Creak! Said the Bed by Phyllis Root, The Stuffed Animals Get Ready for Bed by Alison Inches, and Bunnies Are Not In Their Beds by Marisabina Russo. We also sang bedtime songs and had milk and cookies before giving the children a chance to kiss their stuffed animals goodnight and putting them to bed. (We have come to realize that parent’s should encourage their children to bring a second-favorite animal so they aren’t going home without their favorite teddy they need to fall asleep). Once the families left for the evening, our staff started taking pictures of the animals all around the library – playing with toys, reading books, playing on the children’s game computers, and overall having a great time! The children were able to come back to the library after 3:00 pm the next day to pick up their stuffed animal and their pictures of what they did! The kids (and parents too!) were so excited to see what their stuffed animals had been up to! We ended up with 23 children and stuffed animal pairs which was plenty. The children got 3 pictures back with their stuffed animals and overall it was a huge success! As I said – this program requires a lot of hands-on work, but is definitely worth it!