Kelly Durov, Northbrook Public Library youth services director, will kick off the children’s summer reading program on June 1. “If kids continue to read in the summer, they stay at grade level, or even go up,” she said. She lives with her husband and their son, 3, in Arlington Heights.
Q: As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A: My mom was a nurse and I wanted to do what she did. As I got older, I realized I really didn’t like the sight of blood.
Q: What was your first job?
A: I was a shelver at the Elmhurst Public Library (at 15).
Q: Do you have any pet peeves?
A: I don’t like when people knit when I’m speaking to a group. I don’t want to hear the needles clinking. It happens more often than you’d think.
Q: What’s your favorite restaurant?
A: I love going to the Walker Brothers Pancake House (153 Green Bay Road, Wilmette). I love to go for breakfast.
Q: If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
A: I’d go to Brazil. I have family there I’d love to visit, but it’s just not in the cards.
Q: What’s your favorite charity?
A: Can I say the Friends of the Northbrook Public Library?
Q: What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen?
A: When we have “photo booth,” people holding up their babies behind a 6-foot-tall Superman cutout. It’s surreal.
Q: Words of wisdom?
A: I’d like to steal my words of wisdom from Winston Churchill: Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Shout Out is a weekly feature in which we get to know and introduce our readers to their fellow community members and local visitors throughout suburban Chicago.
