Valentine's Day Story Time

I came into the library today and found that our wonderful library aide had decorated it for Valentine's Day which is this Friday!  So hard to believe and yet so true.

I had planned to read about pandas but quickly switched gears and hunted for a Valentine's Day book.  I found Rhyme Time Valentine by Nancy Poydar and read it to all six classes.  That they all listened with rapt attention was proof of what a good book it was for the occasion.

It's the story of Ruby who made valentine cards for her classmates only to have them blown away by the wind. Later, they blow by the school window and the children watch the people outside pick them up and read the rhyming valentine's messages.   It had all the elements of a good story.  First, an interesting main character.  Ruby is clever enough to know how to read and how to cut out hearts but she is a bit of a braggart.  Second, Ruby has to deal with a big problem. What valentines can she give her classmates when hers blow away?  Third, it clues the reader into how things work. What is a candy heart? How do you make a valentine card?  Inquiring minds of three- to six-year olds want to understand these things.  Fourth, it has diverse characters.   Ruby has brown skin as do many of her classmates, but some have white skin.  Her teacher is a man.  Some kids can read and others can't.  Some kids buy the Valentine's cards and others make theirs by hand.  The message of diversity is subtle but definitely there.

And if all that isn't enough, there's rhyming!  At first the reader can just complete rhymes: Ruby's teacher writes the word "nine" on the board and asks what rhymes with it.   Great fun to stop reading for a minute and start making up rhymes. Later, when the wind blows Ruby's cards by the classroom windows, we see part of each rhyme she has written and have the chance to complete it.  This kind of interaction makes this book perfect for reading with Mom or Dad.  And fun for Story Time, too.

As if decorating the library and reminding me that Valentine's Day is just four days away wasn't enough, my aide brought me a little gift -- pretzel rods dipped in white chocolate and then rolled in red colored sugar.   Hmm, good!   I found some instructions online here in case you'd like to make some for the holiday. 

Excited!

 It was Story Time Monday today.  This year we start off with a cute and well behaved three-year old class, follow with two challenging four-year old classes, and then, after being open for lunch and recess to the Middle Schoolers, wrap up with three of the most attentive Kindergarten classes you would ever want to teach.  A dream schedule; so enjoyable.

The topic of the day was "babies," I think because my aide will become a grandmother for first time in March and I had babies on my brain this morning.  (I love that I can be so spontaneous in my reading choices!) I read Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers with pictures by Marla Frazee.  What a cute celebration of babies!  And so effective with its use of repetition, every page starting with "Everywhere, everyday, babies…"  This is one of the pictures from the page that starts "Everywhere, everyday, babies are fed…"  and illustrates the phrase "…with breasts…"   You gotta love that the little kids didn't even think to snicker at the word "breast"!

I'd have more scans of this book if I hadn't given it to one of kids to check out after I'd read it to the last class.  But aren't they cute, sitting and looking at it with their friend?  Oh, I will miss Storytime Mondays!

And the Kindergarten classes also heard Mail Harry to the Moon by Robie Harris and Michael Emberley.  A very funny story for big brothers and sisters who aren't so sure sure that having a  baby around the house is such a great thing (spoiler alert; happy realization in the end). 

This is Ben's last week at work!!  He is so excited!  He's been cleaning out his office and look what he brought home today; a cup from Y2K.   Remember how the computer world was going to come to an end back then?  No wonder people don't believe in Global Warming.

There's exciting news from our Boulder house.  The carpet will soon be taken up and the wood floors refinished on the first floor!   And we've decided to go ahead and redo the master bath in conjunction with having the carpet taken out upstairs and hardwood floors installed.  

Soon we'll bid goodbye to our 80's bath with its sunken tub/shower and hallway entrance...  

…and say hello to our 21st century bath with its two person luxury shower and entrance directly from the bedroom. 

Things are happening and we're excited!

Monday Story Time

Since we had such a beautiful snow and it was so cold I decided to read stories about snowmen for Story Time Monday.  But when I got into the library and looked over the available books I realized that I was a bit bored with the offerings I had read so many times before.  Instead I read Linda Glaser's nonfiction book, Winter, and Carl Meister's story, Tiny the Snow Dog.  Tiny is a short but cute story about how great big Tiny "gets lost" while playing with his owner.  It's fun for wee little ones to spot Tiny hiding behind the tree or up in the barn window and it's fun to read how Tiny "slurped" his owner a kiss when they are reunited.  

But the Kindergarten classes needed something a bit longer and more complex than Tiny so I was happy that a search in the catalog revealed a book that was new to me, Tacky and the Winter Games by Helen Lester with pictures by Lynn Munsinger.  As I read through it I couldn't believe that I had missed this fun book in the years I had been working in the school library.  

 Such a funny story of Tacky, the "odd" penguin, who is a de facto a member of the Team Nice Icy Land.  He is the odd man out as they train and perform in the Winter Games.

How his team finally wins a gold medal is a funny story and gives a lively introduction to the Olympic winter games.   

Speaking of winter, it was, indeed, very cold here today with temperatures starting out around 3 degrees this morning.   Our pond did not freeze over, so I guess the Acquascape folks know what they are talking about.

My sister Jean and I braved the cold to see Saving Mr. Banks. It was well worth the effort to see Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson work together in this interesting story of how Walt Disney coaxed P. L. Travers, the author of Mary Poppins, to give him the movie rights to her book. 

I wasn't expecting it to be funny, but I laughed and laughed at the intersection of rigid Mrs. Travers and  Walt Disney's world. You can see her distain in the photograph above, and here's a few examples from the dialog:   

Walt Disney: Look at you! I could eat you up!

P.L. Travers: That wouldn't be appropriate.

P.L. Travers: [as she throws a Mickey Mouse doll off her bed] You can stay over there until you learn the art of subtlety.

P.L. Travers: You are the only American I have ever liked.

Ralph: May I ask why?

P.L. Travers: No.

Funny as it was, it was also sad and moving.  I really enjoyed it. 

Reindeer Games

 On Monday, for Story Time, I brought in a stuffed reindeer as a prop for the two books I was reading since both featured reindeer. 

Harold at the North Pole by Crockett Johnson

Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett

Ben gave me this reindeer for Christmas last year.  He is silky to pet and plays Jingle Bells when you squeeze his ear.  He was quite a hit with the PreSchoolers. 

Yesterday I put him out on my desk with a basket of hand-held Christmas toys and waited to see if the Middle School students liked him as much as the PreSchool students.   They liked him, but they really loved the toys!

My Mom used to have these out for the little ones in the family to play with at Christmas during the last few years of her life.   I'm sure it would make her smile to see them being played with again.

Five Great Halloween Books for Little Ones

I've really enjoyed the past few Story Times at school as we head into Halloween.  Reading scary books to little children can be such fun!

Unless of course they get really scared and start crying, so the first book on my list of "top five" Halloween books for ages three to six is Patricia Hubbard and Michael Letzig's Trick or Treat Countdown.

It uses ghosts, witches, tombstones and other Halloween imagery to count up to twelve and then down again, with an intermittent repeating chorus providing the very important information that these things are "...all make believe on Halloween."   Even so, after reading this book I asked the children questions such as "Are witches real?" and "Are vampires real?" to make sure everyone understood that scary things they see on Halloween are just for fun and not real.

Of course, some scary things are real, like getting lost.  I love Phyllis Root's story of how Oliver Finds His Way because when he chases a yellow leaf and can't find his way home, he "thinks and thinks" and figures out what to do.   My students had all sorts of ideas about what Oliver could do, including "call 911."

He decides to roar.  Will Mom and Dad hear him?  Not unless your child helps him! Oh my, children do like to help Oliver roar.

Besides being just a bit scary, this book is great to read this time of year since it is set in the fall season.  You can check it out by watching this fabulous reading by the Waynesboro Public Library Story Time.  She starts the Oliver book at about 8:00.

Some things that aren't scary become so when a child's imagination goes to work. That's the case in Rick Walton and David H. Clark's book, A Very Hairy Scary Story.   On a walk home from a friend's house after dark Sarah's imagination turns ordinary objects like mailboxes into scary things like lions.  You may wonder why Sarah was walking home alone after dark. Well, she stayed too late at her friend's house, missing the time her Dad said she was to be home.  Rather than facing up to that mistake she decides to trick him by walking home and sneaking in without him noticing.  The children easily see the moral of this story; don't try to trick your parents!  Although Sarah pays the price by being scared of the dark, there's a happy ending, complete with a Dad who comes to Sarah's rescue.

You can see some of the artwork and story on Amazon.

Skeletons are a recurring image on Halloween, providing an opportunity to share Bob Barner's lively and informative book, Dem Bones.   He cleverly combines the lyrics from the old African American spiritual, his own paper collages, and simple facts about anatomy into one successful presentation about just what a skeleton is.   You can see more of the book on Amazon and a fun video by Natasha Dupree of the song here.

Halloween Night by Marjorie Dennis Murray and illustrated by Brandon Dorman is full of pictures of ogres, banshees, witches, monsters, and mummies who are preparing to celebrate Halloween with a big party.  The rhyming text is a parody on The Night Before Christmas":

"'Twas Halloween night, and all through the house Every creature was stirring, including the mouse; The walls were aflutter with little brown bats, While hordes of black spiders crept out of the cracks."

When ten children arrive demanding "Trick or Treat," they are invited to join the festivities but are too scared and turn and run instead:  "From the ten little tricksters came ten little shrieks, And away they all ran down the cobblestone street, Dropping their bags and spilling their treats." 

While the story is clever, and adults will appreciate the parody, it is the illustrations that make this book so interesting.  Brandon Dorman's images use an unusual perspective and vibrant colors that pull you into each scene, while his abundance of detail invite you to look again and again.  There is just so much to see!

You could spend hours browsing Brandon Dorman's website.  He has illustrated the covers of many young adult fantasy books and illustrated or written several picture books, including one with a religious theme, In the Garden, published by Deseret Books.

Of all the holidays, I do think Halloween is my favorite in terms of reading to children.

Story Time Monday: Number Books

Can it really only be Tuesday?  Since my colleague in the library is on vacation --hope you said "hello" to Bar Harbor for me, Rhonda!-- I worked Thursday and Friday last week and Monday through Wednesday this week.  I've had classes most days including subbing in technology and PE classes, so it's been a busy.  Today I called out "Have a great weekend!" as the 7th graders left class; oops!  Not quite yet.

I haven't written about Story Time Mondays so far this year because I've been repeating lessons I used in past years.  But recently I ran across this book in our collections which inspired me to focus this week's Story Time on number books.

More Than One by Miriam Schlein and Donald Crews starts out simple enough.  An illustration of a blue whale swimming in the ocean under a big yellow sun is captioned:   One Sun, One Whale.  But on the next page we find the question:  Can one ever be more than one?  and on the pages which follow the question is answered.  Yes, one pair of shoes is two shoes.  One dozen of eggs is twelve eggs.  And  then we're told that sometimes one can even have a different number of the same thing, such as one family which can be two people, three people, four people and even more.  And sometimes you can't even count how many things one has, such as the number of birds in one flock of birds, or the number of grains of sands in one beach.  What a cool book!  

I followed it up with two quick reads, both using the "take away one" form of counting backwards and both using rhyming words and strong rhythms.  

Paul Strickland's Ten Terrible Dinosaurs is one that I used to read to Paul.  He loved it and so did my little preschoolers and Kindergarteners.  The fun starts with, "Ten terrible dinosaurs standing in a line soon began to push and shove and then there were nine..."

And who doesn't enjoy acting out Eileen Christelow's Five Little Monkeys?  Forget the sappy YouTube cartoon versions of the song and recite the verses boldly with a nice strong beat, shaking your finger strongly on the chorus of "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!," and everyone will have fun with it as they count down from five.  

Story Time Monday

Last week our Preschool celebrated the birthday of Dr. Seuss by reading his books all week, culminating with a vote for the "Most popular Dr. Seuss book." So on Monday I read Judy Sierra's Wild About Books.

When I first read this fun book a few years ago, I thought, "My, this reminds me of something." What it reminded me of became clear when I read the dedication tucked at the end of the book:

This book is for our favorite doctor, artist, poet, fun concocter: Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1900-1991.

I realized that the rhythm of the verse was modeled after Dr. Seuss's writing. But I couldn't quite place just which book it was modeled on, even after reading it five times to delighted children on Monday, until just a few minutes ago when it finally hit me: Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book.

Here's the first of Ms. Sierra's stanzas:

It started the summer of 2002, When the Springfield librarian, Molly McGrew, By mistake drove her bookmobile into the zoo.

And here's the first stanza from Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book:

The news just came in from the county of Keck That a very small bug by the name of Van Vleck Is yawning so wide you can look down his neck.

Try reading them book aloud and hear for yourself.




In addition to cleverly paying homage to Dr. Seuss, Judy Sierra gives us a look at what librarians do: put the right books into the hands of readers.

Giraffes wanted tall books and crickets craved small books,
While geckos could only read stick-to-the-wall books.
The pandas demanded more books in Chinese.
Molly filled their requests, always eager to please.
She even found waterproof books for the otter,
Who never went swimming without "Harry Potter."

The illustration shown below for this page is actually taken from the iPad app, advertised as having "3D" effects and "interactive" features. Out of curiosity I bought the app and tried it out. The 3D effect just made the pages kind of waver about, which made me a bit seasick, and the interactive elements consisted mainly of the animals moving a bit or making a noise, though on the page where they stampede to "learn all about this new thing called reading," one touch of the screen makes all the animals actually rush across the page, which is cool. Mostly I was put off by the actually reading of the verse, which in no way picked up the rhythmic pattern of the Sleep Book, resulting in a narration that one reviewer called "boring," which isn't what you want from a Seuss-inspired rhyme!.

Still, the artwork translated well to the screen, and was a pleasure to view, and I could see how a young child could be entranced by the app.

Story Time Monday

We had such fun reading Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs yesterday in Story Time.

You would think that kids would be frightened by stories of the "big bad wolf," but I loved them as a child and so did my preschoolers. Lucy Cousins' retelling of these old classics and her graphic illustrations spared none of the scary drama of the visit of the wolf to Grandma's house and his terrorizing of the pigs. The children seemed to relish seeing the wolf eat Grandma in one gulp; perhaps because on the next page the hunter cuts the wolf open and out steps Grandma and Red Riding Hood, none the worse for having been inside the wolf.

The wolf doesn't have such luck in the three pigs story. At the end of it he has been boiled in a pot and eaten by the pigs for dinner. The last line of Cousins' retelling is "Bye, Bye, wolf!" to which my little students cheerfully joined in.

One of the great things about both of these tales is how the children can join in the story at various times. In Red Riding Hood, it's easy for them to pick up the call and repeat that takes place when Red sees "Grandma" in bed:

"What big eyes you have, Grandma." "Better to see you with my dear. "
"What big ears you have, Grandma." "Better to hear you with, my dear. "
"What big teeth you have, Grandma." "Better to EAT you with, my dear!"

And of course, they all knew how to join in when the wolf calls out to the pigs and the pigs reply:

"Little pig, little pig, let me in!" "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin! "

And they brought the house down when they joined in for the climatic "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll BLOW your house down!"

There's a reason why these old stories are still told today, and the fact that they are just plain fun to read and share together is certainly one of them.

Story Time Monday

Yesterday for Story Time I read Miss Lina's Ballerinas by Grace Maccarone, illustrated by Christine Davenier.

I was a bit worried that the boys wouldn"t like this story since it featured ballerinas, surely one of the most feminine of images. But I introduced it as a story of friendship and challenged my little preschoolers to consider what message it offered. This challenge, the rhyming words, and the math (an essential element of the story), as well as the entertainment offered by hearing Mrs. Ison say over and over again the names of the dancers --Christina, Edwina, Sabrina, Justina, Katrina, Bettina, Marina, and Nina-- kept the children riveted.

The eight dancers dance in perfect rows, either four rows of two or two rows of four, under the tutelage of Miss Lina, until a ninth ballerina, Regina, joins their group. The result is chaos since the eight cannot figure out how to handle a ninth.

Then eight ballerinas cried, "What shall we do?
With nine, we no longer make four lines of two"

Christina, Edwina, Sabrina, Justina,
Karina, Bettina, Marina, and Nina.

Annoyed and irate, distraught and distress,
the girls started dancing, and oh, what a mess!

Christina bumped into Regina and Nana,
who stepped on Edwina, who fell of Sabrina,
Then down cam Justina, and down came Katrina,
Bettina, Marina, and even Miss Lina!

The girls were abashed, baffled, befuddle
flummoxed and flustered, mixed-up and muddled.
"There, there," said Miss Lina. "
You will soon see how delightful it is to be three rows of three."

And indeed they do, dancing all around town in groups of three with their new friend, Regina.

Story Time Monday: The Chinese New Year

The first day of the Chinese New Year fell on Story Time Monday this year, so we took the chance to celebrate it. Luckily, the school had many costumes and props from its production of Mulan last year which the drama coach generously lent to me. The children not only got to "pet" Mushi, the dragon, seen above, but also to hold colorful "dance fans" and flutter them in a tame version of a butterfly dance.

As for books, the older kids enjoyed James Wong's This Next New Year, which incorporates a number of Chinese New Year traditions in a story of one boy's determination to start the New Year with good luck.

The smaller children enjoyed Red is a Dragon: a Book of Colors and Round is a Mooncake: a Book of Shapes, both by Roseanne Thong and Grace Lin.