MS Librarian Bethany Kavanaugh Helps Students Jump into the Pages of a New Academic Year

Middle School Librarian Bethany Kavanaugh spoke to all fifth through eighth graders in Mary Eliot Chapel as they started this new chapter of the 2024-25 school year. Here are her inspiring remarks which were very fitting for opening the pages of this new Middle School year. 

Good morning, MICDS Middle School! I am so happy to see so many familiar faces and also thrilled to see new ones I haven’t met yet. For those of you who don’t know me, and for a few of you who forgot my name over the summer (it’s okay, it happens all the time), I’m Mrs. Kavanaugh, aka “That Lady in the Library,” or sometimes more lovingly known as your middle school librarian. I don’t know if any of you know this, but I really like books. It’s a shocker, I know. Knowing that, it might also surprise you to know that libraries have always had a special place in my heart.

Growing up, my mom used to take me to the public library on Saturdays. I lived in the middle of nowhere so it was a 45-minute drive to the closest public library. I would rush up the stairs to the youth section, and I would beeline into the stacks to look for the latest Goosebumps, Animorphs, or usually some book involving a horse. I also grew up living next door to my very small, rural K-8 school. The library in that school was very small, no bigger than Mr. Lawrence’s Makerspace room. But it was full of books, and it was home. During the summer, the principal would leave the front doors unlocked so I could sneak in and grab books whenever I wanted. We didn’t have electronic scanners back then for checkout; just a paper slip on the inside of the book to fill out. Every school year, I couldn’t wait to get back to school, because books were always my safe place and those stacks were my home.

If you had asked me back then what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said a scientist, or a singer (which was not going to work out because my pitch is horrible and I didn’t have a Mr. Roberts in my life to teach me). I would have never said librarian, even though I loved to read so much. But life works in mysterious ways, and here I am, at MICDS, doing what I love every day in my dream profession.

Books for me have always been exciting. It was an absolutely magical experience to go into those massive stacks of books and tall shelves (because I was much shorter back then), run my fingers across the spines, and find something that spoke to me. I looked at the covers, judged way too many books based on those covers, and spent time reading pages to see what fit me just right in that moment. Did I want something scary? Did I want to read something about friendships? Did I want something that would make me laugh so hard I cried?  No matter what, I was always able to find a connection in a book.

Now, as you either start your journey fresh at MICDS or continue your next chapter here, we want you to find your safe place full of connections. Whether it is found in the pages of books in our own library, making a new friend, or sometimes that “AHA!” moment when you figure out that really hard math problem that Mr. Delfin helps guide you through, there are so many opportunities for relationships to grow, branch out, and evolve into exciting new experiences.

Take time to look at all the books, both literally and figuratively, and don’t judge them by their covers (at least too much, anyway!). Take a chance to talk to someone new at lunch. Explore that thing you’ve always thought was interesting but too nervous to try. Try a new club with Mr. Looten or a new sport in the MAC. Ask for help when you need it. Never be afraid to take on a challenge, whether it is speaking up in class discussion in Mr. Smith’s class or trying to beat Mrs. Bam to the cafeteria on grilled cheese days. Good luck with that, by the way. And always, ALWAYS, remember that every day, you come into this building loved and wanted.

Every day is a new, crisp, blank page with an opportunity for something amazing and all of the teachers and staff here at MICDS are so eager to see how your story unfolds. Write your story, one page at a time. And someday, when you finish it, I’ll put it on the shelves of the Messing Library.

Have a wonderful year.