Best thing ever (this week) - #ruinachildrensbook

If you haven't been watching @Midnight, you are missing out my friend! @Midnight is a game show in which comics poke fun at the days events. One of my favorite games played on the show is #HashTagWars and I like that people can play along. This week my favorite hashtag was #ruinachildrensbook. The idea is to take an established and popular children's book and put an ugly spin on it, thus ruining it.

As someone who reads children's books, it was really funny to make fun of it a bit. I even got in on the fun and my ruin a children's book title was Don't Let Lindsey Lohan Drive the Bus (instead of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus). Here are some of my favorites:

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe Malfunction #RuinAChildrensBook @midnight
— Judah Friedlander (@JudahWorldChamp) March 25, 2014

The Babysitter's Fight Club @midnight #RuinAChildrensBook
— Jacob Givens (@jacobgivens) March 25, 2014

#RuinAChildrensBook Charlotte's Web Browser History
— Not at Third Base (@morethanBrando) March 25, 2014

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret Thatcher. #RuinAChildrensBook @midnight
— Chris Hardwick (@nerdist) March 25, 2014

If you need a good laugh today, go check out the #ruinachildrensbook

Monsters Display - Library Life

Since October is upon us it was time to update my display! I was trying to think of a good idea for this one. I didn't want anything too scary or too cheesey. I didn't want to put 'Read BOOOOOks'. I like a good pun but I wanted something clever! When I came across the quote 'A Book a Day Keeps the Monsters Away'  I knew what to do!

I had my quote, now I needed some monsters! I thought I would use some literary monsters including: Leonardo (the terrible monster), Ed Emberly's Big Green Monster, Grover and Mike Wiskowski. I enlisted the help of our resident artists, Morgan and Annmarie. They constructed these guys and they came out awesome! The used some cool spooky fonts on picmonkey and cut the letters out on my silhouette machine.

Read Anything Good Lately? - The Familiars

So I have been trying to catch up on some reading lately, so I have
decided to introduce a new section to the blog, Read Anything Good Lately? I read quite a bit and I am especially fond of Fantasy and Sci/fi. I also read a lot of Children's and YA novels so if you were expecting reviews of the latest and greatest in more mature literature sorry to disappoint. For the very first installment I give you, the Familiars by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson.

Around Thanksgiving I was excited to have my family stay with me. This included my Dad's girlfriend Louisa and her daughter, Danielle and husband Brian. While talking Brian mentioned that his brother wrote a kids book so of course my hears perked up. So I was excited to see that we had it at my library!

The Familiars takes place in the magical world of Vastia. Young witches and wizards are taught magical abilities along with an animal companion known as a familiar. When Aldwyn a typical fish thieving back alley cat accidentally gets chosen as a young boys familiar he is thrusts on an adventure he is unprepared for. Aldwyn meets up with two other familiars, sparrow Skylar and a tree frog named Gilbert. Together they have to go on a quest to save their loyals (their human companions) that have been kidnapped by the corrupt queen of Vastia, Loranella.

The Familiars is a quick read but is jam packed with adventure. The book does a good job appealing to kids, its an easy read and the content, although suspenseful at times is not scary. Although the content is geared toward a younger set it, it doesn't skimp out on the fantasy and epic novel tropes we have come to expect, including humor, side quests and of course and open ending. The Familiars does take a new spin on the magically fantasy book, the main characters are the animal companions! The supporting characters end up becoming those given great power and tremendous responsibility.

The adventures of the Familiars continue in the Secret of the Crown and Circle of Heros. Production on an animated movie version of the Familiars has begun. The film's release is expected in 2014.

Spooky Bats - Kids Craft

Attention all Librarians, Teachers, Moms anyone in need of a simple kids craft! Check out my spooky bats!

I had a lot of fun developing programs for this years Summer Reading Club with the theme, Dream Big - Read! There was a lot of fun different ways to interpret the theme. Since author/illustrator Brian Lies created the art work for the theme this year, I felt it necessary to use his book, Bats at the Library as inspiration for this kids craft! The book was also a great companion to the craft! With Halloween around the corner these bats make perfect decorations that your youngin's can help make!

Materials & Tools: 

• Bat Shape
• Oak Tag (in both black and white)
• Tissue paper (in black and purple)
• Clothes pin
• Crayons
• Scissors
• Glue

Instructions:

• Create a bat body out of black oak tag
• Cut out two circles out of white oak tag
• Cut two pieces of tissue paper (black and purple) that measure 15 x 9 inches

• Glue eyes to the bat body 
• Use your crayons to decorate and customize

• Place your bat face down and get your clothes pin ready! 
• Dab some glue on the back of the bat body and attach the clothes pin 

• While your bat is drying, time to work on his wings! 
• Grab your pieces of tissue paper and lay one over the other, then begin to accordion fold the paper
• Pinch in the middle and fluff out your wings

• Take your wings and clip it to the clothes pin 

• Turn your bat over and clip him any where you want!

April Fool's Day

April Fool's Day is quite the fun kid friendly holiday so I decided to create an April Fool's program for the library. Here is how you can do it in your classroom, library or at home.

Great read aloud for April Fool's Day

Generally with a library program you need a story to go along with the theme of the program! There aren't too many great books for April Fool's to read aloud but Guess Again by Mac Barnett does the job. Mac Barnett is quite the funny man. This book features silhouettes and a little poem about what it could be and the audience is tricked every time! (My favorite is the Viking)



I had a hard time figuring out what craft to make. After researching some April Fool's Day facts I saw a picture of a Court Jester and had an A-HA! moment and the kids decorated and made their own Jester hats. It was pretty simple to make. Just a few construction paper triangles (of varying colors) then attached it to an oak tag strip used for the head band of the hat. To jazz things up a bit I put out some markers, scrap pieces of paper (junk that we needed to get rid of) and let them decorate until their heart's content. When they were all done we stapled up the hats and they were on their way. To make it look more court jester-y I took a marker and curled up the triangle on the top.

Dr. Seuss & Truffala trees!

In the Children's library world March is associated with a very special birthday, Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss)

This year I got to do a few special things. First I made this super awesome bulletin board.
I found this Dr. Seuss quote and loved it, it also fit in the library perfectly. Then I referred one of the Cat in the Hat books and sketched a mock up. I gave to Port Jefferson Library's resident artist, AnnMarie and she make a large scale version and TA -DA! it looks pretty neato

My Dr. Seuss March madness did not end there! If you must know the Lorax feature film was recently released (which I really hate what cinema has done to some Dr. Suess classics but that's besides the point). I figured it would grab the attention of some kiddies so I did a Lorax program! And if you don't know the Lorax.. why he speaks for the trees! So I decided we should make some Truffala trees.

You can to it's really easy! All that you need is:
Construction paper (I used yellow and red)
Glue
Tissue Paper
Stapler

• I took the red construction paper and made two circles measuring 6 inches
• Then I stapled them together in three spots and left and opening on the bottom
• Then kids then decorated the red circle with different colored tissue paper squares (this is the top puffy part of our tree)
• Then they got to decorate the yellow piece of construction paper that was 8 x 11 inches 
• After decorating the tree trunk we rolled it up and stapled it then place the puffy part on the top
• Instant truffala tree!

Doodle Day: A Children's program

I recently held a program form some young-ins at the library and it was very successful! So I decided to share it with the world!

 A while back I ordered this book, Doodle Day by Ross Collins. It was a silly little story and I loved the concept. It's about a little boy, Harvey who loves to draw. His Mom discourages from drawing on this particular day because it is Doodle Day! And everyone knows you should not draw on doodle day. Harvey thinks she's a little nutters, and draws anyway. To his surprise his little doodle comes to life. He tries to draw more doodles to get rid of the others but it ends in the near destruction of his town.

I liked the story so much when I read it I decided to create a program out of it! The idea was real simple, read the book, give the kids paper and colored pencils and let their imaginations run wild.

It was fun to read the story aloud. I got the kids to interact for example I asked "if they were in Harvey's shoes what would they draw?" They gave me all sorts of silly answers and they enjoyed it. After we read the story it was doodling time. But before they sat I joked, " Just be careful what you draw on Doodle Day." F.Y.I. I get a lot of flack for my bad jokes but to those 8 year-olds I am like George Carlin.

Getting back to the program, the kids loved it. And it was the most simple thing and little to no prep time. A lot of programs are usually very involved and we have to going over a big step-by-step process and kids get so caught up in making their craft look EXACTLY like the sample. Which is not what kids crafts are about... its about them doing their own thing and exercising their minds and imagination (which is hard to do in the digital age) It was nice seeing them do what ever they felt like. They created all kinds of master pieces. A lot of kids wanted to make monsters and robots (kids after my own heart). I also put out some How-To drawing books and they grabbed those to use.

I was also able to tie the program into a contest that google is having. A Children's librarian at work, Sandy, brought the contest to our attention. The contest calls for kids in grades K - 12 to redesign the google logo (also known as a google doodle) and this years theme is if "If I could travel in time I would go..."

Here is a sample I made! We are handing out forms at the reference desk and encouraging kids to make some great doodles! The contest goes until March 20th. For more info check out there website.

-Sarina

Book Review: Ghostopolis

Garth is a hopeless teenager, but not in a conventional sense, Garth is dying. His mom has dragged him to every doctor and they have all said there is nothing they can do. But Garth has somewhat come to terms with his mortality, that is until he accidentally is sent to purgatory. This happens to be just another mishap from the Supernatural Immigration Task Force and the last straw for officer Frank Gallows who is immediately kicked off the force. Despite being down on his luck, Gallows wants to save Garth and enlists the help of is ghostie ex-fiancee', Claire Voyant to help him get into Ghostopolis. Meanwhile, Garth explores his strange new environment (with his love-able skeleton horse). He comes across a silly kid named Cecil who shows him the ropes of Ghostopolis. Garth feels a strange connection to Cecil and rightfully so because he turns out to be Garth's long lost grandfather.

Now that your mind has officially been blown I can tell you how much I enjoyed this graphic novel. From this point in the story I had a feeling that Ghostopolis was something unique and special. This is due to author/artist Doug TenNapel. You may remember him from the cartoon/video game Earth Worm Jim. Ghostopolis is his latest graphic novel in which he displays his gift for creating compelling characters and putting them in situations that are just as extraordinary.   

The story itself is one we've all heard before, a boy is given extraordinary powers in a new world and of course there is a conflict of good and evil, but the story is still great and it is the world that TenNapel creates that I fell in love with. It is a supernatural backdrop that allows Mummy Pharaohs, Zombie’s, Bogey men and Bone King’s exist among each other. It also allows human inhabitants to be of an internal age (you look how old you feel, hence the young gramps) TenNapel also crafts simple yet noteworthy characters that are both comical and emotional. The first ghost we meet is Benedict Arnold and like what we believe from history he is a straight up jerk, but a funny one. Frank Gallows is a poor guy unhappy with his life just going through the motions until he falls back in love with Claire (and I don’t want to give too much away but there is a little love triangle!) The most moving characters are Garth’s Mother and grandfather, who are able to make amends.

This is a great read for any fantasy fans. The intended audience is children, but it is still enjoyable for nerdy adults like me! Another thing I particularly enjoyed about this graphic novel, is that it told a great story in a short amount of time and in one singular volume. It is a nice change of pace to not have the anxiety of anticipating more.

Released in the Summer of 2010, there is already a theatrical version in the works. Hugh Jackman has been cast as our loveable anti hero, Frank Gallows (which is pretty dead on). Let’s just hope they stay that accurate and faithful to the book.