Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Graycie Bustle’s consistent love of working with children and her new love for Washington intersected at the right moment to bring her from Raleigh to Brown Library. 

A 2024 graduate of N.C. State University, Bustle always knew she wanted to work with children. She wasn’t sure how it would happen after college; however, one trip to the North Carolina Estuarium and she fell in love with the city. When she saw a job posting for a Youth Services Librarian at the George H. and Laura E. Brown Library, she took the opportunity to work in Washington. 

“I had visited Washington over the summer to go to the Estuarium and I was like, ‘I love it here.’ I’ve lived in Raleigh for four years for school and was ready for a change of scenery. I loved that it’s closer to the coast…So that’s what led me to look for jobs in the Greenville, Washington area. I found this [job] and I was like, ‘that would be perfect,’” Bustle said. 

Bustle’s first day was Monday, Mar. 3. Last week, she spent time reading to young children in Beaufort County for Read Across America Week which is a nationwide initiative by the National Education Association to encourage children and young adults to read. 

“It’s been really fun. I like that not every day is the same,” she said about her first week at the library.

Right now, she is helping with plans for Brown Library’s summer reading program. This year, the theme is “Color Our World,” which celebrates art and creativity. It will start on June 16. 

“Having meaningful programming is really important to me,” Bustle said. 

To create meaningful programming, Bustle is getting to know the families who visit Brown Library and build relationships with them while keeping notes on what their children are interested in. 

Facilitating programs that keep kids engaged and having fun is part of Bustle’s background. In the summer of 2023, Bustle was an intern at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort. There, she assisted with summer camps, craft projects with the public and greeting guests at the front desk. Later, she worked at a YMCA after school program and completed an internship with that branch where she planned summer programs. 

After graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work, Bustle started as a Registered Behavior Technician, or RBT. Registered Behavior Technicians “use basic training in behavioral analysis to provide treatment to clients of all ages and with all different types of mental health issues…hey are the techs who work most closely with patients and their families, serving as the people who provide the responses and reinforcement that make applied behavior analysis actually work,” according to AppliedBehaviorAnalysisEdu.org. 

Bustle realized that clinical work was not her passion and began looking elsewhere, and found the job opening at Brown Library. 

“We’re excited to have her,” Library Director, Kim Davenport, said. “I’m sure the more the community gets to know her, they will be very happy to have her here as well.” 

Bustle has been a life-long reader. In fifth grade, she and a friend would go to the library once they finished their work for the day. Her favorite books as a child were, “Goodnight, Moon” by Margaret Wise Brown and “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” by Michael Wayne Rosen. As a pre-teen, her favorite books were “Tuck Everlasting,” by Natalie Babbitt and “The Penderwicks” series by Jeanne Birdsall.