Story Time Monday

The school year is drawing to a close. Today was the next-to-the-last story time day for most of the preschoolers, and the last for the four-year-olds since they will be on a field trip next week. Working with my new aide this year has made Story Time Mondays especially fun. We make a dynamite team. I do the fun work of picking and reading the books and she does the hard work of keeping both the books and kids in order. What could be better?



This late in the year it gets really hard to pick what to read from the many excellent books available. For the Kindergarten students, I choose Bonny Becker's newly published A Visitor for Bear, a story how Bear and Mouse become friends, despite the "No Visitors Allowed" sign on Bear's door. Judy Freeman (http://www.judyreadsbooks.com/) had featured this book in a her workshop which I attended a few months ago, using two fabulous "voices" for Bear and Mouse. I faithfully copied these voices as I read the book today and the kids are enthralled. Of course I thought it was my acting that had them so captivated but when we talked I realized it was the story itself that had them silently listening and thinking.




The smaller children heard Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion. I love reading this story, in part because it reminds me of Peggy Coughlan, a Specialist in the Children's Literature Center at the Library of Congress where I used to work. Despite having several ailments at the time I knew her, she was a vibrant and friendly woman, always willing to share her vast knowledge of children's stories. When I was looking for first books for Paul I ran into her one day and asked her for some recommendations. She thought for a moment and then said "Don't forget Harry the Dirty Dog; it's been around a while but it's still a great story." She was right and I love remembering her whenever I read this book. It was first published in 1956 but is aging well. The story of how Harry changes from a "white dog with black spots" to a "black dog with white spots" still holds little children's attention. I brought it into the modern age by stopping three quarters the way through to ask questions that got the children to summarize the problem Harry faced and to predict how he would solve it.

And because we had time and I felt like it, I read Bruce Degen's Jamberry, the wildly imaginative celebration of blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries (in that order!)