Now that I have been working for the library for over four years, not only do I seem to have inadvertently become considered almost a pillar of the community, but I have seen a lot of kids grow up over the years. Two of the kids I have seen regularly over that time are Monster Boy and his sister Horror Girl.
These two kids are home-schooled, so not only are they often requesting books related to school projects, but they are encouraged to explore their own personal interests. Monster Boy quickly exhausted our inventory of Godzilla books and films, and it has always been a fun challenge to try to find other materials related to his fascination with B-movie monsters. Meanwhile, his sister loves horror movies, and both of them are sure to inquire immediately on arrival to the library whether any of their requests have been delivered by our courier system.
These kids have diverse interests, despite what I indicate by their nicknames. Materials about robotics, computer programming, history, and other subjects also arrive through the courier with their names on the hold slips. They directly contradict the stereotype of maladjusted, sheltered homeschooled kids with no social life confined to a rigid curriculum. These kids can converse with anyone from adults to kids of their own age with ease, demonstrating the kind of social skills one actually sees more often in home-schooled kids than their public-schooled counterparts where people are segregated by age and restricted to a rigid schedule. And the beauty of seeing an independent-minded child not coerced into the groupthink of school popularity cliques cannot be understated.
However, it is their most deeply-held personal interests that they are encouraged to explore that define them most in my mind. At any rate, I will be keeping an eye out for kaiju movies and related media whenever I am searching for anything else in our computerized catalog thanks to Monster Boy, and I will try to not be surprised by slasher films and jump-scare ghost stories with Horror Girl's name on them while at the library.
Previously:
The Mountain Man
The Deaf Ashtray
Library Urchins
An Odoriferous Library Intrusion and the sequel