by Vicky on November 30, 2010
I discovered this book when I was trying to prepare for a preschool visit for which I had been given quite a long list of learning objectives, not the least of which was that my story should be about the letter L! And lo! the book itself offered perfect jumping-off points for discussion about how to behave in the library, how to care for library books, and the importance of stories. Better yet, I discovered that our branch has Library Lion, by Michelle Knudsen and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes, and it also has the Spanish edition, Un Leon en la biblioteca (translated by Teresa Mlawer).
I also used this book with a visiting kindergarten group, whose teacher had prepared them astonishingly well for their visit. Everyone in the class knew the names for every part of a book, including the dedication. In Library Lion, the story begins and ends on the endpapers, which are different in the front and the back of the book. And both the author and illustrator dedicate the book to a favorite librarian.
For my Page Presents puppet show, I transformed an earlier church backdrop into a library.
Page the Bookworm played the fussy Mr. McBee.
Our lion puppet was, of course, the Library Lion, and my Nancy Pearl Action Figure was the story lady.
I played the part of Miss Merriweather.
We had a record crowd of around 70 people for Page Presents, and the kids were overexcited by the presence of a large class of fourth graders who were also visiting at the time.
Against my better judgment I had yielded to the importuning teacher and had scheduled his class visit during the half hour before Page Presents. For the fourth graders I had given a book talk on The Strange Case of Origami Yoda and then led the group in a tour of the library. 
The class was quite well behaved, but they were still present in the children’s room, browsing for books during my puppet show, and this turned out to be too much of a distraction for the preschoolers. It was complete pandemonium.
Note to self: don’t give in to importunate teachers with last-minute scheduling demands!
Some out-of-town friends were visiting, and I had to tell them, “It’s not usually like this!”
Afterwards, the kids managed to focus long enough to make their lion masks. I guess they got something from either the story or the possibilities inherent in the mask, because they immediately began play-acting!
by Vicky on November 30, 2010
Our November 10 Cool After School program was inspired by the book, Look! Look! Look!, written and illustrated by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace, with Linda K. Friedlaender.
Full disclosure: my ongoing interest in teaching kids how to look at and talk about art stems from my experience as a college librarian. Every semester we were besieged with frantic students panicked by an assignment that asked them to look at a piece of art and then describe it in their own words. 
My conclusion is that we need to start getting kids accustomed to doing this when they are young, and then keep them doing it so they don’t find it such a terrifying and alienating experience when they get to college and beyond.
In this delightful and deceptively simple book, a family of mice borrow a postcard that arrives in the post for the vacationing humans. Kiki, Alexander, and Kat take turns using different methods to look at the Tudor portrait depicted on the front of the card, and then they use this information to begin interacting with the painting by creating different versions of their own, derived from the original image. Through their analysis and investigations, art vocabulary is painlessly introduced.
I decided to pick two male portraits from the same period and get the kids to play with them using some of the same exercises in the book. With the help of a couple of mothers, who got excited about the exercises and helped get their sons intererested too, it went surprisingly well. After looking for simple geometric shapes within the two compositions, we attempted to make our own versions using the shapes.
One thing is certain, the kids enjoyed creating their own compositions!
by Vicky on November 29, 2010
I made a new READ poster starring Skippyjon Jones, who is the Precious Peony of my friend and colleague Gail (star of my Halloween READ poster). Gail brought Skippy in before the library opened one Saturday, and we did a photo shoot. Since it happened to be the day before Halloween, I was wearing my Pied Piper costume, and Skippy was quite dubious about my steeple hat. But once I shed the hat, she decided that I could be her friend. Skippy is not an official Read to the Dogs therapy dog, but she makes a great poster child, doesn’t she?
Our Read to the Dogs program at the Tony Hillerman Library is every second Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Here is the adorable Emily Rose, surrounded by admirers.
by Vicky on November 29, 2010
I discovered The Paper Bag Princess, by Robert Munsch and illustrated by Michael Martchenko, because several kids had asked for a dragon story. I thought that I must be one of the few people in the world who had missed this story, which was published in 1980, but most of the parents were not familiar with it. Everyone thought preschool was a great time to expose their kids to this story of a strong princess who outsmarts the dragon, rescues her prince, and then decides not to marry the snobbish and self-absorbed prince after all.
Page the Bookworm loved the fact that he got to wear a dragon mask to portray his gargantuan relative. 
And I was thrilled to have a perfect use for the miniature paper bags one of the mothers had donated recently. I have already talked about the wonderful doll pattern by Noreen Crone-Findlay, the Flat Fanciful Doll. I also found this template for the princess’s head at My Activity Maker.
For the dragon, I adapted this simple finger puppet pattern from Craft Ideas for All.
It was easy for the kids to make, and they had fun playing with them.
For his music and movement segment of Page Presents, the wonderful Mr. Matt revisited baroque dance forms. And for my puppet show, I built a castle and cave out of the large foam puzzle pieces that we have for kids to play with in our children’s room. These tiles seem to be intended for flooring, but kids adore building structures with them. They made an impressive castle for my puppet show that was also easy to demolish. The section that was still standing became the dragon’s cave.
After the story, the kids created their own dragon and princess puppets!
by Vicky on November 29, 2010
I’m a big fan of Jack Prelutsky’s poetry for kids, and the combination of this collection of wacky poems featuring portmanteau words with the equally zany collage illustrations by Carin Berger served as inspiration for our Cool After School program on November 3.
I introduced the kids to the idea of portmanteau words by reading Humpty Dumpty’s description of them from Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll. Then I read them selected poems from Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant: And Other Poems and showed them the fabulous illustrations.
Carin Berger’s mixed-media illustrations for the book feature vintage print advertisements, cut-print media, and interesting paper textures. I collected similar advertising images and some paper choices and turned the kids loose. They had fun coming up with new portmanteau words, such as scorpowrench, clockathon, toasterbot, scorpoclock, housebot, and victroladog!
by Vicky on November 29, 2010
by Vicky on November 29, 2010
For the Halloween edition of Page Presents, I told the story, “Wait ’til Martin Comes.” Page the Bookworm was excited to get to play the part of the person who tries to spend the night in a haunted house. I had three progressively larger cardboard cats to represents the cats who appear next to the fireplace and then say, to someone who can’t be seen, “Shall I bite him now?” And a disembodied voice says, “No, wait! Wait ’til Martin comes.” The giant cat in the photo was actually the middle cat. I had an even larger cat head, and my colleague Amy made this huge head loom up behind the gigantic middle cat, suggesting a truly colossal cat.
Mr. Matt played hoedown music and had the kids make up their own special moves.
The kids loved it. And they got to make not one, not two, but three puppets to represent the three cats in the story. The smallest was made out of a tiny paper bag, and the middle one was made out of a lunch-sized paper bag. The largest was a bodi-puppet made from a large grocery bag, with a paper plate head, and fabric arms that tie to the child’s wrists.
Here are some of the scary cats!
And, just to give you an idea of the scale of the middle cat, here it is in our bay window on Halloween night!
by Vicky on November 29, 2010
For our after school program on the Wednesday before Halloween, I read Funnybones, by Janet & Allan Ahlberg. It’s a great read-aloud, and all the kids chimed in on the spooky opening and closing lines: “On a dark, dark night, in a dark, dark town, etc., etc….” and relished the great illustrations.
Afterwards, they had fun making skeletons from paper plates. My wonderful friend and surrogate mother, Dee, gave me this great idea, and it was a huge hit with the kids. Be sure to note the horned cyclops skeleton!
by Vicky on November 29, 2010
In mid-October, I performed with my boss and musical partner, Linda Kennedy, at two outreach events. The first was a book fair at Barnes & Noble, benefitting children’s programs in the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System, and the second was Family Literacy Night at the Inez Elementary School.
We played music and I told stories at both events.
At the school I also led a workshop on online homework help and other electronic information available through our libraries’ website.
At the book fair, I told “Unanana and the Enormous One-Tusked Elephant,” and I told Halloween stories at the family literacy night.
The storytelling space at the bookstore, which represented the Hundred Acre Wood from the Winnie the Pooh stories, was beautiful and had wonderful acoustics!
We advertised our new after school program at the family literacy night, and several new kids and their families started attending regularly!
We were thrilled to meet the school librarian, Linda Raybould, who is really cool, and we are looking forward to working together more closely with her. Family Literacy Night was a big success, and we were so happy that we were invited to be a part of it!
by Vicky on October 25, 2010
…and to celebrate, I made a new READ poster, with my colleague Gail modeling her new Halloween hat! She is reading the delightful book, Halloween Hats, by Elizabeth Winthop and illustrated by Sue Truesdell.
I’m looking forward to combining my own hat collection with the library’s dress-up trunk hats for a hat-licious Halloween storytime on Saturday.
Page the Bookworm will be back from his travels this week for Page Presents on Friday, with the scary story, “Wait ’til Martin Comes.” There will be cats, and more scary cats!
And tomorrow, our branch manager, Linda Kennedy, and I are going to our neighboring elementary school’s first-ever Family Literacy Night! I’ll be presenting a workshop on using library databases for homework help, and Linda and I are presenting a storytime workshop including some of our flute and harp music. I’m going to tell the story of “The Conjure Wives” along with my poem, “Coyote and Kokopeli Help with the Spring Cleaning.”
On Saturday, Linda and I gave another storytime performance with music at the nearby Barnes & Noble store, which was sponsoring (along with the Friends of the Library) a book fair benefiting children’s programs for the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System. I told the Zulu tale, “Unanana and the Enormous One-Tusked Elephant.”
It was a treat to tell in their beautiful children’s performance space, with its towering trees inspired by Ernest Shepard’s illustrations of the Hundred Acre Wood and Owl flying overhead. The acoustics were incredible. It was like a cone of silence with no sounds from the store intruding. There was enough reverb to make our flute and harp music sound rich and full, yet we could hear each other with crystal clarity. I hope we’ll have other opportunities to play music and tell stories there!
I’ll post some pictures when I get a chance. This month is way too full of good things!
