Clooney!

George Clooney and Renee Zellwegger were in town (well, in the vicinity anyway) last week promoting the opening of their new movie Leatherheads, which was filmed near Charlotte.  Our wedding photographer, Kate Ashbrook, went to the event and captured some great shots.  Take a look at the photos on her blog.  She’s such a talented photographer!

Won’t You Wear a Sweater?

The city of Pittsburgh is currently celebrating “Won’t You Be My Neighbor Days” as part of their 250th anniversary festivities.  The theme was inspired by the city’s “favorite neighbor” Mr. Rogers “to celebrate his legacy of neighborliness.”  March 20th would have been Mr. Rogers’ 80th birthday.  So Pittsburgh is asking everyone, “Won’t You Wear a Sweater on March 20th?” in his honor.  I’ll be wearing my sweater tomorrow, but even more importantly, I’m going to try really hard to stay in the spirit and treat everyone like they’re my neighbor.    I’m looking forward to honoring such a great man who really made an impact on my childhood.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day.  St. Patrick’s Day has always been one of my favorite holidays – maybe because my name is Erin, and I’ve always felt a strong connection to my Irish roots.  However, trying to do a St. Patrick’s themed storytime for preschoolers is tricky.  There are lots of great Irish folktales to share with older children, but they’re a little on the long side for kids under the age of five.  So, for the various storytimes I’ve done over the last week for kids ranging in age from about two to five years old I’ve focused on the color green while sneaking in a few facts about Ireland.

We read about green frogs,

 Jump, Frog, Jump! by Robert Kalan

green sheep,

 Where Is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox

and green hats.

 Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton

We also sang about green frogs

 ”Five Little Frogs” by Raffi

and green apples.

 ”Farmer Brown Had Ten Green Apples” by Ella Jenkins

I had so much fun with these storytimes.  The best part was definitely the reactions of the kids to the stories.  I love that they get so excited and cheer when they “find” the green sheep sleeping at the end of Where Is the Green Sheep? And there is nothing better than the giggles and belly laughs of two-year-olds at the turkey’s clothing hijinks (those socks don’t go on his wings!) in Blue Hat, Green Hat.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  I hope everyone wore a little green today!

Meeting a Living Legend

The Children’s Theatre of Charlotte, which shares the Imaginon building with the public library’s youth library, is currently putting on a play based on the YA novel Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie Tolan. It’s actually the premiere of the play, which was written by Tolan and her friend Katherine Paterson. One of the great things about my career so far has been the opportunity to meet some of my heroes – children’s authors and illustrators. Through various conferences and literary festivals over the years I’ve been around some very talented people in the world of children’s and young adult literature. Well, last Thursday Tolan and Paterson were nice enough to spend time with staff from the library and the theater. They took turns reading from and discussing their work.
I got to meet Katherine Paterson! A real, live legend of children’s literature. Newbery and National Book Award winner. THE Katherine Paterson. She was so wonderful – down-to-earth, friendly, funny. Wonderful!
Obviously I love Bridge to Terabithia, but the Katherine Paterson book that has inspired me the most is actually The Invisible Child.

 

This book is a collection of speeches and essays from throughout Paterson’s career about why she writes for children and how important it is to share great literature with them. I read it early in my career, and I found it really meaningful. It was just a great reminder of the importance of bringing the joy of reading to kids. It’s a great feeling when you know you’re making a difference in a child’s life. I definitely recommend this book to any children’s librarians, teachers, or anyone else who works with children. This is why Katherine Paterson is a legend!

The Very First Family Book Party

This Saturday I hosted my library branch’s first Family Book Party.  The program was intended to support the Paint the Town Read campaign which I posted about a couple of weeks ago.  I really wanted to emphasize the fun aspect of reading together as a family.

For this first Book Party I chose to highlight the “Charlie and Lola” series by Lauren Child.  Most importantly, the books are really funny and make great read-alouds, but I also had an ulterior motive for choosing this series.  Since there is a Charlie and Lola TV show, I knew that kids would be familiar with the characters, and I hoped that would draw them in.  Well, it worked.  Around fifteen children and their parents showed up for the Book Party.  This is really good attendance for a program at my branch, especially a new one.

I started the program by reading But Excuse Me That Is My Book.  The book got lots of laughs.  I think many kids can relate to Lola’s habit of checking out the same book from the library over and over as well as her dilemma when that book is chosen by another child.

Following the book I let the kids loose to make art, play games, and of course, snack (including Lola’s favorite – pink milk) while the Charlie and Lola show was projected on the wall.

The art project consisted of making collages with paper, glue, crayons, and pictures from magazines.  Pretty simple as storytime crafts go, but I was surprised how focused the kids were on their artwork.  The adults seemed to enjoy it as well.  One mom pored through magazines finding all the train photos for her son’s picture, while another mom told me she was having a great time making her own collage because she never had the chance to be creative like that at home.

As some of the kids finished up their collages, I laid out a couple of Charlie and Lola memory games, which were also a big hit.  When a couple of the preschool-age girls started playing, it quickly became evident that their game would be interminably long because they were struggling to remember where the matches were in the jumble of 96 cards.  Luckily, the grandmother of one of the girls had the brilliant idea to turn the cards face up and let the girls find their matches that way.

I think everyone had a great time, and I hope I achieved my goal of showing the families how easy it is to have fun together reading and being creative.  It only takes a few minutes to read a great story, play a game, or pull out paper and crayons to create a masterpiece.

Have fun reading and help us Paint the Town Read!