Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Mural

A staff member at another branch had a wonderful idea for a creative collaboration among the different branches of our library system.  Each branch made a Peace Mural in honor of Martin Luther King Jr's birthday.  The murals will eventually be put together into one large mural that will go on display here at our main library.





I chose AccuCut stencils of a dove and of Martin Luther King Jr.'s silhouette for the kids to decorate. We had some cut-outs in the Children's Room and some in Teen Space for kids to complete throughout King Week.  We encouraged them to decorate their "peace symbols" with their own ideas of what peace means, as well as their dreams of peace in the style of Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech.

I was very impressed at the amount of participation that went into this passive program, especially from teenagers who are usually so reluctant to participate in library programming.  As you can see, however, many children and teens were able to express their ideas of peace creatively and beautifully (and adorably!).  I am thrilled with the results.

Chinese New Year Crafts

This Saturday we had our Chinese New Year Party.  I was assisted by my lovely coworkers who led a Chinese New Year storytime and even led the children on a parade throughout all the different departments of the library.  The children were very excited at the opportunity to run around with noise makers in the library.  I was of course in charge of the crafts!

Dragon Pencil Critters

I try to take advantage of the fact that our office has an AccuCut  (thank you thank you thank you!) whenever possible.  I recently discovered one for "Pencil Critters", which is basically just a paper cut-out that you zig-zag fold and stick on a pencil and it looks like a critter.  I thought these would be the perfect "bodies" for the kids to make dragons.  I printed out dragon faces that they colored, cut out, and glued to the critters.  I also cut various shapes out of construction paper for them to give their dragons scales and spikes.  They really enjoyed making the dragons.  When the group of kids came out of their storytime, the majority of the kids wanted to make their dragon critters before their Chinese lanterns.

Paper Lanterns

While I realize this is one of those crafts that tends to get overdone, I still wanted to do this one because it's a classic (I remember making one as a kid) and I thought it would be fun for the kids to take their paper lanterns on the parade throughout the library.  Also, it is so easy to set up and the only materials you need are construction paper, scissors, and a stapler!  I enjoyed seeing the kids get creative with this craft.  They colored their paper in so many different ways before cutting it out and turning in into a lantern.  One boy even knew how to write his name in Chinese!

Book Review: The Day the Crayons Quit

I was finally able to get my hands on a copy of Drew Daywalt's best-selling picture book (illustrated by Oliver Jeffers).  It's been on the New York Times best-seller list for 29 weeks and counting.  After reading it, I was both very impressed (especially with the illustrations) and equal parts disappointed, but I set myself up for that by having very high expectations.  I try not to do that, but it inevitably happens, just like Christmas and birthdays.

I want to start with the fact that this book is HILARIOUS! Amongst a series of letters written by a grumpy set of crayons to a little boy named Duncan, these disenchanted crayons have a LOT to complain about.  Red is tired of being overworked, Orange and Yellow argue over whose job it is to color the sun, Purple just wants to stay in the lines, and Pink wants be be known as something other than a girl's color.  I think I've figured out why it is a best-seller: parents love reading it to their kids.  It is one of those kid's books that was written for adults just as much as children, who will find it equally entertaining.

My own personal favorite letter comes from the Peach Crayon:

<<"Hey Duncan,
It's me, PEACH CRAYON. WHY did you peel off my paper wrapping?? Now I'm NAKED and too embarrassed to leave the crayon box.  I don't even have any underwear! How would YOU like to go to school naked?  I need some clothes.  HELP!
Your naked friend, PEACH crayon." >>

The single reason I was disappointed is that this is not a book I find to be conducive to the storytime format.  It is certainly entertaining, funny, and has a very sweet ending, but I can't see myself reading it to a large audience of preschoolers.  It's a bit text heavy for storytime, does not have much opportunity for participation, and doesn't have that much of a plot.  For what it is, however, it's great.  For a large audience, I think I'll skip it; but I will be happily recommending it to parents!

Meet Maurice

Meet Maurice (aka Sir Fluffington McSilkfur III), my new (best) storytime friend.  He's made by Folkmanis, a puppet company that I am really excited about finding even though my pocketbook (ha! pocketbook!) is scared. When I found this fluffy guy I couldn't resist the fact that a) he's quite pudgy and b) that surly look on his face.  I can't wait for the little ones to meet him.  I am going to try and see if we can cheer up Maurice by singing, "If You're Happy and You Know It"!