A Legend in Their Own Lunchtime

When Roald Hoffmann, The Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, mixed two compounds together, they turned from blue to white and back to blue again. Students applauded when he told them that chemists could do magic as well as Harry Potter. Nine months ago, Hoffman visited Northeast Elementary School as our "Library Lunchtime" guest. Just six weeks earlier, he had captivated an audience of 70 second- through fifth-graders as he spoke about being a hidden Jewish child in Poland during World War II. We ran out of time, but Hoffmann agreed to come back to continue his story and to demonstrate what he does as an adult.

I launched Library Lunchtime with the goal of making our library a center for all kinds of learning and a place that enriched children's lives in many ways. Each week, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:10 p.m., students stream into the library, lunches in hand, to listen, ask questions, and learn from our lunchtime guests. Located in Ithaca, NY, our elementary school is not far from Cornell University, where Hoffmann is a professor of physical science. After his visit, many students clamored to check out The Hidden Children by Howard Greenfield (Ticknor & Fields, 1993), a nonfiction book about Jewish children who were forced into hiding from the Nazis, as well as other books about World War II.

Over the years, we've invited more than 200 speakers, including artists, hypnotists, herpetologists, FBI agents, and sled dog trainers. In April, our largest audience of the year—over 100 students—crowded into the library. They came to see a student's 57-year-old grandmother—a world-class weightlifter in her age group—roll up her sleeves and lift 165 pounds from the library floor to her waist. She talked about weightlifting and about her experiences as an African-American girl growing up in the segregated South of the 1940s and 1950s.

Library Lunchtime began 13 years ago, as I was trying to increase students' interest in our first author visit by Gail Gibbons. Prior to her arrival, I had invited 15 community members—from firefighters to sailors—whose vocations matched the characters in Gibbons' colorful nonfiction books. Guests read her books to the assembled crowd and answered questions about themselves. Library Lunchtime visitors have continued to enchant students ever since.

Our audience is never the same, so I always review a few rules at the beginning of each session: listen thoughtfully; raise your hand to ask a question; listen while others are speaking; don't get up to empty lunch trays; and if there's more than one reminder to behave appropriately, you're out.

Guests no longer read a book before they speak, but I do gather related books from the shelves so that they're readily available. Most of our speakers spark great interest in their topics, and those who bring animals are guaranteed crowd pleasers. Finding volunteer speakers is surprisingly easy. I rarely get turned down, and community members have been extremely generous with their time. Playing telephone tag with speakers, however, can be very time consuming, so a parent volunteer is an invaluable help in making phone calls and scheduling our guests.

With 20 classes in our school, each session attracts about 60 to 70 students. Years ago, I started issuing four passes to each class as a way to maintain crowd control and promote a feeling of privilege for those attending. I never deny access to anyone who's really interested, but I try to match speakers with the appropriate grades.

Our library doesn't have a large open space, so we push the tables and chairs into the aisles to make more room. There have been suggestions that we move Library Lunchtime to a larger space. But this is a library program, and I want students to know that this is a place where all sorts of cool things happen.

Library Lunchtime gives students an opportunity to hear fascinating adults, and perhaps be inspired by a speaker's life passion. I wouldn't be surprised if one of my students chose a career path based on one of these encounters. Former students frequently ask if we still have the program. I tell them yes, and "you're welcome to come anytime—perhaps some day as one of our guest speakers."