It will give you the details for all the summer reading programs in the county, as well as contact information for each library.
Keep those kiddos reading this summer!
My 6-year-old asked me tonight what I write about for the paper. I said, “well, it depends. I write about whatever they ask me to, so it varies from week to week.”
“Oh,” she said. “So like Curious George.”
Ummm … okay, sure. I’m assuming she’s comparing me to Curious George because he’s always getting into something, and his adventures vary in every story. I’ll take that as a compliment.
Anyway, it reminded me of an Associated Press story that was posted Dec. 26 about George’s wartime escape. According to the story, while the famous monkey is known for mischief, he helped his creators escape the Nazi invasion, and there is now an exhibit about the escape in New Hampshire.
From the article:
“Margret and H.A. Rey are the husband-and-wife team behind the famous children’s books. They fled Paris in June 1940, two days before German troops marched into the city. Both German Jews, they rode bikes for several days and then traveled by train through Spain and Portugal before boarding a boat to the United States.
The Reys later built a summer cottage in Waterville Valley, N.H., where an exhibit about their escape is on display at a center dedicated to the couple’s legacy. Based on a 2005 book, it describes how they were allowed to continue their journey after showing their Curious George manuscript to suspicious officials.”
The 2005 book mentioned above is “The Journey That Saved Curious George: The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H. A. Rey” (Houghton Mifflin). It’s written for readers age 9 to 12, but I’m considering checking it out because I’m always interested to learn the back story of a favorite character or book.
The new school year is set to start in less than two weeks. This year all three Decatur elementary schools are using the same list for Battle of the Books, with the winners from each school competing against each other in a final showdown.
Here is the reading list for 1st and 2nd graders if you want to give your little ones a head start.
1. A Mighty Fine Time Machine, by Suzanne Bloom
2. Charlie Anderson, by Barbara Abercrombie
The teams trained intensely, devoured stories and fine-tuned their war cries.
Boys and girls donned team colors and even talked a little trash.
This wasn’t a decision to be decided on the court, football field or track. It was about books.
Battle of the Books 2010 was a few weeks ago at Rann Elementary, and it was an intense competition. As a parent of a first grader, this was my first year to attend and have a child participating. If you’re not familiar with the contest, it’s a quiz bowl featuring questions about books.
There is a list of primary books for 1st and 2nd graders to read, and the 3rd and 4th graders read chapter books from the secondary list. Students who want to participate are placed on teams with members of all ages. The contest is divided into three parts. Only 1st and 2nd graders answer questions in the primary round, and 3rd and 4th in the secondary round. All of the students work together in the third round.
The students took the competition very seriously. When a team got an answer correct, they whooped and hollered, even jumped up and down. As an observer, you couldn’t help but smile at their exuberance and excitement.
It’s something we’re accustomed to seeing at sporting events, but it was especially delightful to see that same unabashed spirit at a reading quiz bowl.
Word is that next year each elementary school in Decatur will use the same list for a Battle of the Books competition, and the winners from each school will then compete against each other.
It’s sure to be fun, so get started on those reading lists this summer!
Dr. Seuss was born March 2, 1904, and local libraries are planning festivities for young fans.
The Rhome Public Library will have a birthday party for Dr. Seuss at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. The party is for preschool age children and will include reading Dr. Seuss books and a birthday cake. Children may wear costumes or pajamas.
The Decatur Public Library invites preschool age children to a party at 10 a.m. Wednesday. Festivities include books, songs, games and a snack.
Although I was disappointed to see that the menus did not include green eggs and ham, the parties are sure to be fun and a wonderful way to get your little ones excited about books.
The Messenger received a strange request last week. Author Susan Lingo e-mailed asking permission to use Joe’s photo of the chupacabra in a children’s book. (See above.)
It’s true. The hairless, creepy creature (read: raccoon) will be featured in an elementary reader. The legend of the chupacabra is just one of the stories in the book, and Ms. Lingo said she plans to use the photo at the end of the book where she will give various theories about whether the legend is based on fact or fantasy.
When the creature was discovered last month, it sent Wise County into a tailspin, and the story received nationwide coverage. T-shirts were made, jokes ran rampant and of course, we had a lot of fun with it in the newsroom. And now, it will be remembered in the pages of a children’s book.
El chupacabra lives …
Author Peggy Sundberg, a.k.a. Cowgirl Peg, is visiting Rann Elementary in Decatur today. She writes books that feature real animals and deliver important lessons on character traits and values.
Sundberg was raised in Texas but now lives on a ranch in the Rocky Mountains where she runs a horse rescue operation. There was a sequence of events in her life that most people would perceive as negative, but she found a way to use those circumstances in a positive way, never giving up on her dream to become a children’s author.
Her first book, “Lonesome the Little Horse,” is based on a horse that she helped rescue, and it’s the first of six books in the Cowgirl Peg series. Most of the books feature horses with the exception of “Jazmine’s Incredible Story,” which tells the story of Sundberg’s beloved pet, a rescued German Shepherd.
Sundberg doesn’t charge the school for her visit, but she does sell autographed copies of her books at all events. Students at Rann brought home an order form where parents could designate which books they would like to purchase and to whom the books should be autographed.
This is a great opportunity for the students at Rann, and I can’t wait to hear more about it!
Every family marks the holiday season with various traditions, and one we started when our oldest was born, seven years ago, involves books.
We basically put our own spin on two Christmas Eve traditions – getting to open one present and receiving new pajamas. Every year we give our kids a Christmas book, which they open on Christmas Eve and we read before bed.
When the kids are grown, I plan to give them their little collection of Christmas books so they can share them with their own families.
It’s become something the kids look forward to and in fact, just yesterday they were asking me what books they were going to get this year. As if I would tell!
Do you have any family traditions at Christmas or any other time that include books?
“I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”
A sweet sentiment, right? In Robert Munsch’s “Love You Forever,” the message is on target, but the presentation is derailed by a creepy stalker mom.
It starts totally normal with a mother rocking her baby and singing this sweet song. The story goes on to describe the antics of a 2-year-old and how at night when he’s asleep the mother crawls across his bedroom floor and then picks him up and sings this song. Still seems sweet.
My only question at this point is why is she crawling? It’s just weird. If your kid is so sound asleep that you can lift him from his bed and sing a song to him without him waking up, the crawling is unnecessary.
And so the book continues … she’s still doing this when the boy is 10, a teenager and even an adult. Feeling ooged out yet? The really creepy part begins around 4:08 in the above video. The mother drives across town to her adult son’s home in the middle of the night with a ladder strapped to the top of her car. She then uses that ladder to climb into his second-floor bedroom (really?!) and proceeds to lift this grown man from his bed, cradle him and sing the song. Ewww! Wouldn’t a daytime visit be more appropriate?
Besides the breaking and entering issue and the awkwardness of cradling a grown man, I just want to add that the whole idea is ludicrous. I mean, my kid is 6, and I can barely pick him up. In a year, I won’t even try anymore.
Now the interesting thing is readers seem to fall into one of two camps on this book. They either think it is incredibly touching or through the roof creepy. I’ve made my feelings clear. And you?
A few months ago my husband and I started reading chapter books to our kids at night before bed. Since they’re only 6 and 4, I was afraid they would be bored since there are no pictures, but we’ve all been happily entertained reading the likes of “Where the Red Fern Grows,” “Freckle Juice” and “The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog.”
Our most recent selection was Thomas Rockwell’s “How to Eat Fried Worms” – a book I fondly remembered from childhood. I even purchased it because I thought it would be “bookshelf worthy.” I couldn’t wait to hear the kids’ giggles and gags at the descriptions of eating worms, and I was excited to revisit the story myself.
But here was the problem – I didn’t enjoy it this time around. And the kids weren’t that enthused about it either.
In the book, Billy makes a $50 bet with Alan that he can eat 15 worms in 15 days, and he plans to use the money to buy a mini-bike. Their two friends, Tom and Joe, pick sides – Tom with Billy and Joe with Alan. And that about sums it up.
There’s just not much else to the story, and much of it was awkward to read aloud. For example, the conversation on the opening page is confusing because you never know for sure which boy is speaking. It’s a book of 116 pages and 41 chapters – yes, that means lots of three, two and even one-page chapters, which made for choppy reading.
And at the end, I even had to do a little censoring when one boy says “you’re a bastard” to another boy.
What?! Why did I not remember that?
I think I said he called his friend stupid, or something lame like that. At this point, I had to know more about the background of the book because honestly, it was nothing like what I remembered. I was beginning to wonder if I had ever even read it.
Rockwell wrote it in 1973, and it won 10 awards. In the mid-1980s, it was turned into a CBS Storybreak episode (remember those?), and in 2006, it was made into a movie by the same name, which I have not seen.
Now here is the funny part: The book is on the American Library Association’s list of most commonly challenged books in the U.S. for 1999-2000 because apparently, a segment of the population thinks the idea of eating worms as part of a bet is disgusting. … Well, yeah. But I don’t think it warrants the book being pulled from library shelves.
The word “bastard” that I chose to skip over when reading it to my little ones – it was replaced by the word “fink” in later editions.
I’m beginning to think maybe I never read it, and all of my fond memories are from the Storybreak episode. We were all indifferent to the book, but the good news – apparently, we have a first edition.