Schools
Much-Loved School Librarian to Retire
Arlean Lambert is leaving in July after 24 years at Marshall School
Ask any parent what the best thing about Marshall School is, and high on the list will be librarian Arlean Lambert and her Secret Garden storytelling area. She has turned the library into an enchanting place for generations of students with hard work, humor and her creative intuition about what works.
In July, after 24 years at the school, she will retire. The paperwork is in, the announcement at a Board of Ed meeting has been made, and the official resignation letter received. “There’s no turning back,” she said in a recent interview.
If you spend any time with Lambert, you will come under the thrall of stories. She is a master storyteller, and has used this skill to form a special connection with children. She described a recent incident, where a young child came into the library and said, “My sister told me you were going to die in six years.” She registered shock, and asked the child where he got that idea. Apparently, when the children heard on a Friday that she was retiring, rumors started swirling. Some children thought that meant she wouldn’t be coming back on Monday.
Alive and well, she recounted her journey to Marshall School, some highlights of her tenure, advice to parents, and her plans for the future.
Arlean Lambert grew up in the mountains of Virginia. As a child, she never went to the library and had very little experience with reading. A college course in children’s literature opened her eyes to children’s books. She received her degree in remedial reading and moved with her husband to New Jersey in 1966, where he began a teaching career at NJIT. She started to teach in an elementary school in South Plainfield, but became pregnant. Forty years ago, if you were pregnant, you had to quit your teaching job. She stayed at home with her son until he started kindergarten, and then became a library aide at the Fielding School, now the Board of Education building, in Maplewood.
Years ago, when you wanted an important set of books for your child, you called an encyclopedia company, and they sent a salesperson to your door. Lambert called World Book Encyclopedia, and informed the saleswoman of her high regard for the company's volumes. The saleswoman recognized that Lambert could be a natural saleswoman, and offered to send her information about a job. Since she wanted to work part-time and knew by then that she did not want to be a classroom teacher, she considered it and told her husband.
Find out what's happening in South Orangewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“He never contested me on anything, but this time, he went ballistic. ‘No wife of mine is going to go door-to-door...’,” she said. “He dared me go get my librarian certification, and that’s how I got started.”
She worked part-time at local K-6 elementary schools, and then stayed home until her second son was ready for kindergarten. In 1984, she got a call for a part-time position at Marshall School. “If I was going to write a book, it would be called, 'How I Bumbled My Way Through Life,'" she said.
She recalled getting a copy of The Horn Book Magazine in the mid-1980s, reading the fine print about a storytelling conference and deciding to attend. “It changed my life. I came back thinking, ‘I’m going to try and learn a story.’”
Find out what's happening in South Orangewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Her father, one of 16 brothers and sisters, and essentially a non-reader, had been a great storyteller. She understood from an early age that storytelling is a vital way to connect with people. After the conference, she memorized her first story, word for word. “It’s been the focal point of my life. I view myself as a storyteller, not just a reader of stories. When you’re looking directly at children, you see how they react. That link helps bring you together as a community. It’s been a fabulous trip.”
The community that Lambert has created extends beyond the K-2 classes that file in and out of the library during the school day. On a recent Friday, Lambert conducted a book repair workshop in the library after school with M/SO Brownie Troop 61, third graders who were preparing to give gently used books to the Children’s Aid and Family Services office on South Orange Avenue. She brought out a doll-size hospital bed, complete with blanket and pillow, to allow books that had spine surgery to recuperate. The Brownies were enthralled.
Recently, Lambert published a story about New Year’s resolutions ("Holiday Stories All Year Round," Scarsdale, N.Y., 2008). Hopefully, she will pen more stories, and write her book of a school librarian’s adventures. She will be retiring to her family property in Virginia, where the YMCA at Virginia Tech has been developing organic teaching gardens and a solar greenhouse for use by an adjacent school as open classrooms. Lambert will be part of a gardening community, filled with young people, continuing her "fabulous trip."
