Turning the page: Meet Caroline Grinham, the high school’s new library assistant

For Caroline Grinham, better known as Carrie, the books are not as important as helping the students in the Library. As the new high school library assistant, Carrie enjoys helping students print out papers, email teachers, and submit assignments.

“I get to work with students and I get to help them,” Carrie said. She values the personal bonds she builds and also helps students with the problems they face. 

Carrie is originally from Chicago, and moved to Concord from Nashville, Tennessee. She had interest in the library at a young age and her first job at a library began at sixteen. Although she initially considered becoming a teacher, she became drawn to the way libraries give people of all different ages access to information and literarature.  

Before coming to the high school, Carrie spent years as a library assistant at Concord Academy.

“At Concord Academy, there were only about 400 kids, so I was able to know about 250 of them by name. Here, obviously, there’s a lot more kids, so it’s been hard to adjust to the fact that I won’t know everybody,” Carrie said.

Outside of school, Carrie is still connected to Concord, as she volunteers with the Friends of Concord Library, where she runs a bookshop that raises money for library programs and museum passes. She makes bookmarks and buttons to sell there, and she uses her art to educate on Concord’s literary history and writers.

Carrie also enjoys thrifting, making collage art with her son, and watching the Celtics. Carrie’s favorite book is “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman. She also enjoys thrillers, mystery and poetry, and specifically enjoys haiku, saying, “I think you can actually say a lot more with less, than you can with tons of words.”