"All About the Library" Storytime on Friday November 6, 2009

Even though our library system will be cutting four of it's seven libraries in the next few weeks, I thought it might be appropriate to emphasize how important libraries are with a "All About the Library" storytime. I found three really cute books about libraries but two of them were a little longer then the kids are used to so I decided to play it by ear and see how the kids were feeling.

Books

The first two are the longer stories more for K-2nd grade! Even though I wasn't certain about the length of the books, when I asked the kids if they wanted to read more or listen to a song they said with excitement, "READ MORE". Surprising Huh!

"Dewey: There's a Cat in the Library!" by Vicki Myron

I have to say this is one of the cutest books I have read, it may be because I have a little orange tabby at home. This book just gives me warm fuzzies and I wish we could have a cute orange kitten roaming around the library. Obviously this book is adapted from the adult book by the same author "Dewey: The Small Town Cat Who Touched the World". This title has great illustrations that are large and I think you just have to watch out for the length.

"Winston the Book Wolf" by Marni McGee

The kids thought this one was funny. Adapted from the Little Red Riding Hood, Winston the wolf loves devouring books at the library, he literally eats the books. Obviously the library staff puts a stop to this and kicks him out. Winston then meets a young girl named Rosie who helps him devour books with his eyes by teaching him how to read. Winston ends up sneaking into the library dressed up as an old lady and reads stories during storytime. The book ends with a cute "A note to the reader: If your story lady wears long skirts and floppy hats, she may be a wolf in disguise..." which made the kids giggle and asked me if I am a wolf.

"Read It, Don't Eat It!" by Ian Schoenherr

A fun easy book that goes through all the things you shouldn't do at a library or to your library books. For instance, "Find someplace else to sneeze" and "Don't overdue it, just renew it." The book is great because it teaches kids how to take care of their library books. After each guideline that I read I asked the kids if they ever did any of them and most of them said no, it was fun because they got to really think about their library books as highly valuable possessions.

After each story I went through some fun songs like, "Shake My Sillies Out", Teddybear Playtime" and "If You're Happy and You Know It".

Next Storytime will be our last, due to budget cuts so we are going to have a grand party to go out with a big bang.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance- Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Summary:

Grahame-Smith mixes up the high civility of Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice with ZOMBIES! He follows the same plot as the original text but just with more excitement and primal battling not just between Darcy and Elizabeth but also between the high class English and cannibalistic zombies. Grahame-Smith adds more interesting emotion to this classic by letting the characters take action with their strong feelings. For example Darcy is able to take out years of anger and frustration on George Wickham by beating him until he is crippled and bed ridden. Finally Wickham gets what he pays for and is now subjected to soiling himself in front of company.

Opinion:
"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" (PPZ) is my dream book come true, combining Jane Austin with supernatural beings, GENIUS! Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books of all time and PPZ is fighting for the number one spot. Combining Austen's witty attitude with a hilarious zombie atmosphere is beyond comical, I truly was laughing out loud. Grahame-Smith does too good of a job inserting zombie mayhem into this classic, I can't imagine PP without the zombies. To me, zombies have always been more comical to me then scary and I think this is one of the reasons the combination works so well. I would give anything to hear what Jane would say about PPZ, maybe "Well, zombies are quite miserable creatures, almost as miserable as a day with a selfish, ignorant man." I can't wait until "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" by Jane Austen and Ben Winters comes in for me!

Quirk Classic Series
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

Halloween Celebration Friday October 30 2009

This was our big Halloween Celebration event.













We had a Costume Contest Parade around the library where we sang "If You're a Monster and You Know It".













We made reflective necklaces for the kids to use when they went Trick-O-Treating. We cut out foam pumpkin, ghost, and cat faces and the kids decorated them and put reflective pieces where the eyes go. I had everything pretty much done for the craft because some pieces were hard to glue and took a long time to dry.

And lastly we had a Halloween costume contest where everyone got a trophy or medal for their costume. They kids LOVED this part, but it was hard for us to come up with quick costume contest titles, like "The Pinkest Costume"!












It was a great event!