Party Animals

Well, the 2014 Summer Reading Program has officially begun.  This year's theme in California is "Paws to Read" all about animals.  So many great books and fun story time extras: flannels, songs, rhymes and crafts!  At my public library job we held a great big kick-off party and we registered almost 200 patrons for summer reading.  The theme was cat vs. dog, and one of the activities was to vote for the animal you like best.  Kids voted as they came into the children's area on our white board.  Dogs won, but it wasn't a terribly accurate vote as I caught a number of kids erasing tally marks several times during the day.

Dogs were the winners…but there was some voter fraud!

There were crafts as well.  The kids could make a cat or dog out of pipe cleaners/chenille stems, a dog or cat paper bag puppet and/or the most popular, an invisible dog leash and collar.  We lined a bent-out coat hanger with colored straws, and then kids decorated a card stock strip for the collar that was then attached to the end of the "leash" then they could take their dogs on a walk.  Watch for pictures on the library's Facebook Page.

It was this kick-off party that inspired the theme for this week's story time at the Base Library.  We did songs and rhymes about farm animals and pets and wild animals.  Even one that I made up directly relating to the theme:

Animals Love a Party

Animals love a party, oh yes, they do

With good things to eat Fun with friends.

A cake with candles, too

Rabbits, cows, lions and bears

They’ll even bring treats to share

Animals love a party, oh yes, they do

 So for your next birthday

Why not invite and animal or two?

Here are the books we read, the first two I previously reviewed:

The Surprise Party by Pat Hutchins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Lovely illustrations and simple text tell the story of rabbit, who is planning a surprise party, and all of his friends - who don't quite get the message right. Just like the child's game of "telephone" rabbit tells his friend owl that he is having a party and it is a surprise….as owl passes the message to the next friend, well, the message gets a little garbled…rabbit is hoeing the parsley tomorrow…then the next friend hears that rabbit is reading his poetry tomorrow ("how dull"). It isn't until it is almost party time, that the real message gets through to the friends and they end up having a lovely time. Most of my audience was too young to know how to play "telephone" but they loved the illustrations and still found humor in the story.

Big and Small by Guido Van Genechten
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a large board book, filled with pages of animals. Each two page spread shows a dozen or so animals (from hand/finger print elephants to sponge painted chicks and owls) and asks a series of questions like who is big and who is small? Who is asleep and who is awake? A Great book for getting an audience to engage with a book! It is bright and colorful and funny. Kids love shouting out the answers. The last question on each page is "and who is ready to go to a party?" and there is usually one of the animals is wearing or holding a subtle reference to a party (hat, present, candles) which foreshadows the final two pages where the animals are celebrating at a birthday party.

For today's craft I found a jungle animal coloring sheet and the kids turned them into a set of stick puppets that they could use to create their own animal party or feast. Great fun.

Hugs and Kisses 2014

It is February and love is in the air…even if you are only two or three years old. So, of course it is time for the annual hugs and kisses story time.  All the kids in my story time audience were gearing up for the big day and they talked excitedly about the Valentines they were preparing to give out and talked dreamily about all of the Valentines they hoped they would get.  At today's story time we had a class visit, so there were more than 25 kids in the audience.   We all had great fun, the kids interacted with the stories, were engaged and participated.

First, here are the "hugs and kisses" books we read:

Pete the Cat: Valentine's Day Is Cool by James Dean
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Pete the cat, the very definition of cool, believes that Valentine's Day is not…that is until his friend Callie convinces him otherwise.  With a little help from his mom he learns how to make the perfect Valentine to celebrate the cool in every cat and to express to everyone how much they are appreciated.  Wonderful, brightly colored illustrations complete this Valentine book with a slightly different message.  Fun read-aloud (although not as much fun as being able to play a sung version of a Pete book) and my story time audience loved it.


A Kiss Like This by Mary Murphy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
My story time audience loved this one.  With brightly colored illustrations and rhyming text we see all sorts of animals exchange kisses, "A giraffe kiss is gentle and tall….a mouse kiss is quick and small."  There are half pages to turn to display the actual kiss which my audience loved.


Love, Splat by Rob Scotton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Beware - open a Splat book and it will be love at first sight.  Splat the cat has a universal appeal.  He is good, but slightly goofy, looking and he has an innocence, honesty and openness that kids and adults can identify with.  In this book, it's Valentine's Day and he is getting ready for school, to give Kitten an extra special Valentine.  Splat has a major crush on Kitten.  Unfortunately, Spike the class bully, also likes Kitten.  In spite of Splat's insecurities everything works out in the end!  My story time audience loved this one, hanging on each detailed illustration and cheering Splat on.


Then we read a "just for fun" book:

Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Great fun book which requires reader involvement.  We follow a tree through the seasons, and the reader is asked to tap, rub, knock, jiggle, and shake the tree to effect changes…growing leaves, budding flowers, picking apples, making snow fall.  Even though I read this to a fairly large group, everyone could be involved with a tap or knock and it didn't take my audience long to anticipate the changes on the next page.  One of the instructions is to blow the tree a tiny kiss…so that is my justification for including this in a Valentine story time.


There were rhymes and songs…and even this flannel:

Colored Heart

(Tune: "London Bridge")

Here's a heart that's colored red

Colored red, colored red

Here's a heart that's colored red

I made it just for you.

Our Craft today was a Magic Heart, which could be worn as a hat (if one is crazy enough!).The kids folded a paper plate in half and cut some swirls. Unfold the plate and up pops a heart!

I was told that the class really only wanted a book or two and then the kids really wanted time on the computers.  I am very pleased to say that all of the kids really seemed to enjoy all of the books, and many of the classroom kids wanted to make the craft.  Isn't it nice when the magic of books and simple crafts takes hold?

Bath Time Fun

January is National Bath Safety Month and contains "Rubber Duckie Day" (1/13) and "Bubble Bath Day" (1/8) so it follows that my January 14 story time theme would be Bath Time Fun.  I already had a powerpoint of songs and rhymes so there wasn't much preparation required.  I did look at a number of different books, and I tried something new: downloading a book onto my iPad and reading it - in that format - at story time. It worked well, almost TOO well.  Maybe it was just the novelty of a new format, but when I looked out over my audience, there was a focus that I don't usually see!  It was a group of nine kids, so everyone could see the pictures, I would have had to run it through my projector for a significantly larger group.

Here are the books we read:

Big Smelly Bear by Britta Teckentrup
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
My story time audience loved big smelly bear - who is cute - once you get past the cloud of flies that surround him because he never washes or brushes.  Perhaps the kids could identify with him not wanting to get cleaned up…or perhaps it was just the humorous illustrations but my audience giggled as we moved through the story.  Bear eventually meets a girl bear and after a bit of arguing, agrees to clean up his act, and there is a happy ending. This is a board book, so it wouldn't work for a large group.


Clean Enough by Kevin Henkes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a charming book with sweet illustrations all about a young boy and the bath.The text is simple and voices all of the fears, joys and frustrations of taking a bath.  Our young hero leaves the door open...just a little whenever he takes a bath and has to struggle to get the water just right.  He spends his time in the bath daydreaming, playing and remembering how things were when he was really little.  There is also a cat that moves in and out of the pictures - the kids at storytime loved finding the cat - and sharing some of their own bath tub memories.  The book is small and the pictures very detailed, so this book would be difficult to read to a large group, but this book was very appealing to my young audience, probably because as the book jacket states the author-artist "catches a mood and an experience that are universal and makes them unforgettable."  So true!


Five Little Monkeys Jump in the Bath by Eileen Christelow
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It is the illustrations that make this book.  Eileen Christelow's crazy, energetic five little monkeys are back - eating ice cream and jumping in mud and five "icky , sticky, yucky, mucky monkeys" are just happy as clams about being dirty.  They splash through a tub, slip and slide through the drying process and then head off to dinner…this is the first time that I read an ebook at story time, and it worked well, as the kids seemed to pay extra attention to my iPad, which I was using much like a book.  


Love-a-Duck by Alan James Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Big, bold illustrations  and text sprinkled with words like "squidge, squoo, and squark" the reader follows a little rubber duckie on a giant adventure.  My story time audience lingered over the illustrations, and seemed generally concerned for our duck hero when he falls out of the bathroom window and has an adventure of a lifetime.  At every page turn we wondered out loud if he would ever make it home….he does, of course, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.  Great story time read aloud and the favorite with today's story time audience.


Little Bunny's Bathtime! by Jane  Johnson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Mrs. Rabbit bathes all her children, except her youngest, who wants to keep on playing….and then feels left out when he refuses to participate in the nightly bath routine.  The illustrations held my story time audience's interest - they are soft and cute and guaranteed to make you fall in love with Little Bunny.  The simple, easy, read aloud text works well with the illustrations to convey the depths of a mother's love and frustrations felt by the youngest competing for Mom's attention in a large family.  My story time audience loved this one.


For our craft, we colored a rubber duckie, who could float in a bathtub:

 This was a fun story time for all of us - one of those story times where everything works!

Babies Invade the Library

This week's post is about my public library job. The branch is located in the northern suburbs of San Diego. The schools are good, the houses on the newer side and the kind of community where there are a lot of moms home with their kids. We are a very diverse community with one thing in common - all the residents want the very best for their kids and want them to succeed. Many of the parents in the community value the library and the services and programs it provides for their children.

Probably because we are in a community with good schools and lots of parental involvement, we have a very active children's area - filled with waves of children all day.  There is a play area, where moms and toddlers socialize after story times, tables with crayons and coloring sheets and drop-in crafts on Saturdays.

And there are the babies.  Babies in strollers or in a mother's arms at the library because of an older sibling's needs.  Lots of babies.

So, this month we launched our Baby Bookworm Storytime and Baby Signing Storytime on alternating Mondays.  We have contracted with the presenter for the Baby Signing program, and her first presentation at our library was a great success.  Last Monday was our first Baby Bookworm Storytime...and that was all me.

I was pleased that I had twelve baby/toddlers in my audience.  Four were truly babies in their mothers' laps, and three were on the older side of "toddler" but the program and the audience were well matched.  The atmosphere was cozy and friendly, the audience participated in the songs and rhymes that we did and listened to the tips and advice that I gave out along with the stories.

Our first theme was "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and the weather cooperated since we were experiencing some of the coldest temperatures we have had in five years.  (Okay, so I know this is San Diego were 50 degrees is cold!)  We all learned our opening song, "If You Want To Hear A Story" (Tune: "If You're Happy and You Know It") and Moms got comfortable manipulating their baby's hands and arms.  We moved on to an action rhyme:

and then I read the first book:

I Am Small by Emma Dodd
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The world is very big for a very small, very cute penguin.  With good contrast, simple shapes and a very simple, touching text, this book if perfect for a very young storytime audience.  There are snowy scenes and scenes where our little penguin stands against an enormous cloud filled sky, on the edge of a very deep ocean filled with swimming penguins, and curled up with with it's mother.  Many of the pages have cool silver metallic sparkles.  A touching story of the love moms have for their children that made the moms in the audience hug their children a little tighter.

We did a finger play,

Warm hands, warm hands

(rub hands together while saying the first 3 lines)

Do you know how?

If you want to warm your hands

Blow on them now!

(blow gently on baby’s hands)

and then we were snowflakes. If the children were walkers, they were encouraged to get on their feet and whirl and twirl like snowflakes:

Snowflake, snowflake falling down down (Flutter hands down) 
Twirling, whirling to the ground. (Touch floor) 
Softly, landing on my nose (touch nose) 
Softly landing on my toes. (tickle baby’s toes) 
Snowflake, snowflake falling down. (Flutter hands down) 
Twirling, whirling to the ground (Touch floor)

Then I read:

I Like It When . . . by Mary Murphy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Another cute small penguin tells the reader about the things he likes to do with his adult penguin.  Simple text and pictures with simple shapes and bold colors make this a perfect book to read to very young storytime audiences.  I like it when...you hold hands with me...let me help...dance with me...hold me tight...and (of course!) read me stories.  Simple, but engaging.


We ended with a tickle:

And then a closing song.  Adults were encouraged to reach into a bin of board books to read more to their children and introduce and to get to know one another while the young ones played with toys.  All in all a great success.

An Autumn Celebration

Today's storytime was all about the delights of Autumn, changing leaves, cooler temperatures and "the orange smells of Fall." Today, in San Diego, it was sunny dry and over 90 degrees! My storytime audience loved the books and rhymes about Fall anyway. In fact, we did most of the finger plays and songs twice. One boy even wanted to do an action rhyme about pumpkins three times! There were more than 20 children in attendance - so different from my early storytimes on the base where I may only have three or four.

 We sang as we counted flannel leaves, and our fingers became five furry squirrels and five little leaves. We even participated in an informal poll: for Halloween, did you carve a happy pumpkin or a scary one?  One little girl had three carved pumpkins at her house and so skewed the results somewhat!  The books, with their lovely illustrations in the bright, rich colors of Autumn, were lovely:

When Autumn Falls by Kelli Nidey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book, with its rhythmic text and wonderfully bright illustrations, introduces young readers to all that falls in Autumn.  Leaves, football players, the temperature, the sun. The three dimensional paper collage pictures are vibrant and detailed and the kids loved finding the hidden images that can be found throughout this book.  Birds in trees, a dogs eye peeking out from under a pile of leaves, the back of a child running behind a tree.  There were many opportunities for interaction with my storytime audience, as we counted crows, pumpkins, and students off to school.  My audience loved this book.

I Know It's Autumn by Eileen Spinelli
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a beautifully illustrated book about a family enjoying the delights of Autumn.  In rhyming text the reader learns about getting out jackets, and the joy of pumpkin muffins for breakfast; picking apples and raking leaves.  A wonderful book to introduce all the joys of Autumn.

In November by Cynthia Rylant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Cynthia Rylant does a beautiful job "explaining" November in this book.  The text is gentle and rich with description. (For example, "The trees are standing al sticks and bones.")  The illustrations are perfectly matched with the text and are soft and gentle as well. We counted the cats "piled up in the corners of barns" (6) and the dogs lying before the fire (2) The foods of November with their "orange small" and all the warmth of Thanksgiving are captured between the pages of this book.  A very  special tribute to a very special time of year.

The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a charming story about a little yellow leaf who does not react well to change.  When all the other leaves are falling, this one holds on tight and states that he is not ready...even when snow falls and he is lonely and cold.  Finally, he spots another hold out, a scarlet leaf, and together they let go and go soaring off into the sky.  The simple illustrations are beautiful and bright and the text contains rich vocabulary - the afternoon sun "beckoned and teased" and "flocks of geese took wing." My storytime audience could identify with the little leaf's fear and loneliness, and rejoiced when the two leaves went soaring off together.  Lovely story.

I'll be encoring this story time on Thursday at the public library so I'm glad I like the stories and songs, rhymes, etc.  Next week, we are off for Veteran's Day and then in two weeks I will be presenting a Thanksgiving storytime at the base, complete with a multicultural potluck feast.  Stay tuned.