I love all of these books. And during this time of virtual programming I’ve found that they all inspired me in different ways.

“I Wrote You and Note” by Lizi Boyd

This book is so adorable. It starts off with a little girl writing a note with the words, “I wrote you a note. Did you find it?”. The rest of the text follows the note as it travels around; being used along the way by different animals–a bridge for a spider, a hat for a mouse. It eventually ends up in the hands of the girls friends! I used this one for a Book Adventure, which basically just means we read a story and then do a craft, science project or any other activity that is inspired by the book. So after I read this one I showed kids how to fold an envelope themselves (this video was really helpful), write a letter, and address an envelope! I’d never really done Origami before but it was quite a nice feeling to make something just through folding paper, no tape, glue, anything! (Now i’m just like describing what Origami is to you, sorry). It was a really fun project and I think the book pairs with it so well.

“Saturday” by Oge Mora

This book is so fantastic. It follows a girl, Ava, and her mother as they try to enjoy their Saturday (the one day a week they get to spend together). Every step along the way something goes wrong–the library has canceled storytime, the park is too loud and crowed–but each time “They paused, closed their eyes, and–whew!–let out a deep breath.” The ending is really sweet, the pictures are in a beautiful collage style, and Oge Mora is just one of my all time favorite picture book authors and illustrators. The book inspired me to finally incorporate mindfulness into my storytimes for kids–something I’ve wanted to do for a while. This book is such a great jumping off point to discuss these important topics, and I got a lot out of it myself. Emotional intelligence is actually important, who knew! Anyway, I sang this song, Sad, Bad, Terrible Day about brushing it off, and explained the distinction between brushing off the small things and ignoring your feelings. Doing what Ava and her mom did in the story is a perfect example of brushing off some of the small things. But this does not mean we should ignore our feelings or push aside our issues. I also taught them how to do a 4,3,2,1 Grounding exercise. And then we finished off with some Emotions Hokey Pokey, a fun way to talk about different types of feelings and teach kids how to notice their emotions. Next time I’d love to learn the words to this one!

“Hey, Water!” by Antoinette Portis

The text in this book does such a great job explaining complex things in such simple ways. I loved the way she talks about waters many forms by saying things like, “water I know its you!” when talking about fog, or snow. I used this one for a Book Adventure program and the book was a great jumping off point for an Ice Excavation activity. I instructed kids to freeze things like fruit or LEGOs in their ice cube tray. And then we placed the ice in water and tried to fish it out! We explore the ways that a little bit of salt can help that process. The salt causes the ice to being melting but since it’s just a little bit the ice re-freezes. The string we use to fish out the ice then gets caught in the newly formed top layer of ice. Once we fished out our pieces we used more salt to help melt the ice so we could chip away and get out pieces out!

“Big Mooncake for Little Star” By Grace Lin

Fun fact! In my graduate programs at Simmons College we got to go meet a bunch of picture book artists and see their homes/studios. Grace Lin was one of the people we had the privilege of meeting and at the time we visited she was working on this book! It was so cool to see the process and the originals of the work. The final product is truly stunning! I used this text for a Book Adventure. After we read the book we did a Moon Phase activity using OREOS! It was a super fun, and delicious project. I found it from this blog called “Gift of Curiosity”. There’s so many other great ideas on there for all sorts of topics. I made some of my own moon phase cards to use as models, demonstrated how to shape the frosting on the cookies to look like the models, and then showed kids how to label their models. And of course ended by taking an awkward bite of a cookie and giving a thumbs up.

I hope this was helpful! I had not really had a chance to start programs in my branch besides storytime before we closed for COVID. So it was really interesting doing a library program for the first time on Facebook Live. Still, it’s been fun to experiment and try new things. Now that I’m back at the branch (staff only still) it’s fun to shelve, or weed and just see what other books in the collection would be great for a Book Adventure.

Feel free to reach out with any questions or comments!