Polar Bear Flannelboard

The Cold, Cold Night

One cold, cold night in the snowy, icy north a man heard a crunching outside his little house.  He opened his door to look out into the night but suddenly it was quiet.  The cold wind blew, and the stars above twinkled, and the moon shone bright when over the snowdrift appeared two big, big ears.

“Oh, my,” he said.

“How strange to see such big, big ears in the cold, cold night!”

And the cold wind blew, and the stars above twinkled, and the moon shone bright

when over the snowdrift appeared two dark, dark eyes under the big, big ears.

“Oh, my,” he said.

“How strange to see such dark, dark eyes under the big, big ears in the cold, cold night.”

But still he stood in the doorway.

And the cold wind blew, and the stars above twinkled, and the moon shone bright

when over the snowdrift appeared a black, black nose under the dark, dark eyes under the big, big ears.

“Oh, my,” he said.

“How strange to see such a black, black nose under the dark, dark eyes under the big, big ears in the cold, cold night.”

But still he stood in the doorway.

And then the man said, “Where did you get such big, big ears?”

“Much listening, much listening.”

“And where did you get such big, big eyes?”

“Much watching, much watching.”

“And where did you get such a black, black nose?”

“Much sniffing, much sniffing.”

“And what brings you to my door?”
D
r
a
m
a
t
i
c
P
a
u
s
e 

“Snowshoes!”

Circles made with various die-cut patterns: planets, insides of 4" letter O, etc.
Black flannel is plain, but white flannel is fuzzy flannel that I keep hidden from the rest of the library. 

We've had snow down here all week, which is unusual for here and while I usually do something snow-related for pre-schoolers (many of them have not seen snow or ice - I had to explain icicles in December), I'm tired of doing the same stuff.  I saw a print-out online of some circles that could be cut out to make a polar bear and I decided it would make a cute flannelboard.  After looking at photos of real polar bears, though, I made the eyes smaller than the nose.  I'd been casting around for a rhyme to go with this when I remembered the flannelboard of "The Pumpkin Man" - so I used that as a basis forthe flannelboard story above.

Next I'll probably make a big book out of it!

Hit the Road, Hoppy-Toad

Adults are not allowed in the Children's Room of our library.  Well, not exactly.  Stray adults are not supposed to be wandering around the CR.  Adults with children can hang out.  Caregivers can come in without their charges and look for books.  There isn't an operating PAC station in the adult area downstairs, so they have to come into the CR to look up a book.  The die-cut machine is available to the public and it's pretty deep in the CR.  So many exceptions.  But how do you know if you have a stray adult or a caregiver?  Yesterday I lurked by the desk to tell a woman that, for future information, there are adult restrooms in the adult area behind the stairs.  I am not going to make someone turn around and go the whole length of the building in case it is an emergency.  I will let them know there is a better choice in their own area.  It turned out she had kids in the CR.  I'm glad she spoke to them as soon as she came out or I'd have been embarrassed.

My strategy has always been to ask what appear to be stray adults if I can help them, but often they say no and keep moving.  Next, I follow them and start a tour of the CR.  They've helped pay for it, so they should be allowed to see where their money has gone.  "You are in the Children's Room," I begin.  "Is there something I can show you?"  If they seem amenable, I will show off the computers for children, the puppet stage for children, the program room, the homework/tutoring rooms, etc.  Usually this will work.  In fact, I've given two tours already this morning.  I will then finish it all off by suggesting they see the upstairs as well ("Run along, now!").

I don't want to appear to be accusing someone of anything or singling anyone out.  I did monitor one man who didn't want help, didn't want a tour, but was just going to watch the children, he said, long enough to determine that he was actually there as a father who had finished what he was doing elsewhere in the library and was rejoining his wife and kid.  Anyone could be there with a kid.  The kids run down on their own (they're supposed to have an adult with them - and there's another thorny issue) and I have to look to see if an adult is coming along to be with them.  Which adult?

A new library generates new membership.  I don't know half of these people.  The last thing I want is to come off like some brassy library dragon who challenges every adult who walks in (not to mention intimidates young children who got ahead of their parents).  This is a tightrope I walk every day - without any set guidelines.  All I know is: no stray adults and no unaccompanied children unless they're old enough to be too old for the CR, at which point they should be annoying the teen center people upstairs. 

No adults on the children's computers - except we don't have the in-house use laptops yet, so parents often work or surf next to their children on the children's computers. 

And, while we're at it, absolutely everyone, even nice people, is ignoring the "Please Turn Off Cell Phones" signs.  I had a mom poke her head in the CR last night and say to her middle-school daughter, "You have a cell phone, look at it.  I've called you three times."  Ummm ... lady, she's not supposed to have it turned on.  That's, like, a rule - like the one about no food or drink. 

It's possible that we need signage, but the more you put up, the less inclined people are to read them.  And I bet the architect will have a hissy fit if we start putting up any big signs on his nice, clean walls and columns.  So it's down to me confronting people.  Sometimes I wish I had brass - but I just don't.  Why can't you just get in people's faces and tell them they aren't welcome in the CR for some reason?   Well, there you go.  If it's a child, I don't want to turn the library into some horrible experience (that kept me out of public libraries until I was in college).  If it's an adult, who is paying for the building and my salary (however distantly), I don't want them to write letters to the editor or to their councilmen (or keying my car, depending on how they tend to react to rejection) because they wandered unknowingly into Forbidden Territory.   I want them to see their library ... once, at least.   I'm proud of it.  I want kids to feel welcome, but not fall between some cracks (too old for the CR, too young to be in the adult computer lab alone). 

For now, this is my method of coping:
Step One: "May I help you?" [Who are you and what are you doing in here?]
Step Two: "This is the Children's Room.  May I show you something?" [You can't stay.]
Step Three: "Don't miss the second floor!  There is a really nice view of North Main Street from the rotunda upstairs!" [Now, scram!]

I'm working on polite ways of making people with cell phones not talk on them.  I'll stick with "Where's your mom, honey?" for loose kids.

Feline Exegesis

The Rabbi's Cat by Joann Sfar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I read this on the strength of The Professor's Daughter that I found so charming.  This was a totally different kind of story about a cat in a sephardic household in Algeria.  Why it's in our library I can't imagine, but I am grateful!  I may also be one of the few people in town who can fully appreciate the book.  There are three stories in this volume, the first about the cat's desire for a bar mitzvah so he can return to his mistress.  Once he learned to speak (after consuming a parrot that would not shut up), he learned to lie, and so the rabbi separated him from his daughter.  The cat, however, argues theology with him. Heh!
In the second story, the rabbi is poised to lose his position as rabbi if he cannot pass a French dictation exam.  His cat, unable to enter and help him, prays for a miracle.  This is always a mistake, as my friend who helped someone pray to be released from the curse of daily hiccups could tell you.  I wonder if my friend is still hiccuping in her friend's stead ...  While the rabbi is waiting to hear about his status, a young man come to his grandfather's funeral and also announces that he is a not yet official new rabbi for the area.  The rabbi's cousin has a solution, a sword, and a lion, but nothing works out the way you'd think in these stories.
The rabbi travels to Paris in the last story in the volume.  By the end of the book, he is an enigma to everyone, except perhaps, his cat.
There's a lovely photo of Sfar and his cat on the flyleaf.  The cat is the model for the much more rangy looking drawn cat.  The art in this book is rough and all the text as if hand-written.  These are wonderful, amusing, and surprising stories.




View all my reviews

It's a Long, Long Way from May to ...

The Professor's Daughter by Joann Sfar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I was utterly charmed by the story, the illustrations, and the printing.  The cavorting with mummies reminded me of the Adèle Blanc-Sec books, but this story is slightly less gruesome than those.  True, there are poisonings and shootings, but this is a love story between Imhotep IV and the daughter of the professor who planned to put him on display.  While capturing the surreal, the exquisite drawings evoke the past with the regularity of their size and the monochrome treatment of the early part of the stories that gradually increases in color as the mummy's life becomes more ... fraught.


The plot itself begins almost halfway into the story.  We don't know how the mummy came to be found or was discovered to be alive - only that the professor's daughter has dressed him in her father's clothes and taken him out for what can only be described as a date.  Imhotep IV lives up to his proper English clothing for only a short time and then a taste of tea inebriates him and what started as a harmless outing turns into high adventure and courtroom drama!  This short book leaves you crying for prequels! 



View all my reviews

Spoiling for Murder

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was soooo good!  I even read the footnotes!  Can you have spoilers in a non-fiction book?  If you think so, I recommend you stop reading right now!

I mean, it's not as if the alleged solution isn't telegraphed to you right on the cover, now that I look at it.  I'd sussed it by page 5 and a quick look through the photographs seemed to confirm it, so I guess it isn't meant to be that much of a secret.  It is still a mystery, and we'll Never Know the Truth, but we can get all gurgly while guessing (or maybe it's the high-test tea I've been drinking lately).


Summerscale certainly did her homework and shows the math.  She catalogs the influences of the murder on literature as well as the real life detecting, which became a passion for the population of England at that time, totally captivated as they were by the particulars.  Our Mr. Whicher walks into the investigation weeks late, but seems to pinpoint the most likely scenario immediately.  Unfortunately, he is unable to prove it or to pressure his suspect into breaking down and confessing.


There is no solution for five years, and then we have a bare-bones confession exculpating everyone else in a hundred mile radius.  The confessed killer is spared the death penalty by Queen Victoria and, despite continual applications for early parole, serves the entire life sentence and goes on to lead what appears to be a blameless life.  But, was there an accomplice?  Was the father infected early on with syphilis causing the madness in his first wife, the deaths of many of their children, and the blindness and early demise of his second wife?  Was the atmosphere in this family as poisonous as it would seem to need to be to cause the brutal murder of a young child?  Or was this all just the fevered imaginings of your typical angst-ridden teens?


I have one quibble with one of the photos that was represented as a mosaic of a cherub with the face of a young child as made by the confessed killer.  As one who pretends to artistic abilities, I know that I tend to use my own face and body, consciously or unconsciously, when creating the human form.  And if you look at the mosaic and then its creator, you will see the resemblance.  Oh, it would be nice if it were the head of the murdered child, especially because it looks decapitated, but I believe it looks ever so much like Constance.


View all my reviews

Titel ... Gut

The Totally Made-up Civil War Diary of Amanda MacLeish by Claudia Mills

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Keeping in mind that this is a children's book, this is a fairly sophisticated story.  Amanda's parents are splitting up (in a way that makes the mother at first look blameworthy) and her distress is paralleled by the class project: keeping a Civil War diary for Polly, a fictional girl her age who has one brother who supports the Union cause and another who supports Secession.  This is a careful distinction.  The younger brother does not necessarily support slavery, but does support the right of slave-owning states to determine their own regulations in this matter.  The older brother, not Polly's favorite which adds to the complexity, is against slavery.  And they all live on one of those border states that couldn't make up its mind either: Maryland.


The story lightly touches on attitudes about race and Amanda shows the typical attitude of someone who wants to be right-thinking, but still struggles a bit with her preconceptions while deploring prejudice.  She also parallels the conflict with her own behavior when her pain over her parents' separation causes her to avoid her friend, yet want her friend to pursue her, and then blame her when she doesn't. 
The message: I'm rubber and you're glue, if we go back far enough we'll find the problem was you.  In her fictional diary, the brothers reconcile, as she does with her friend.  Unless her parents can agree on an open relationship, that marriage is doomed and it looks like serial monogamy for Dad.  And I don't believe for five seconds that her dad didn't start that relationship with Caroline until after the split and I bet Amanda's sister Steffi doesn't either, cynical little slut.

This book covers so much in so few pages.  Amanda is confronted with the gamut of button-pushing situations: parental conflict, separation, adultery, pubescent sibling with attitude, shame, math homework, leaden political correctness, bad weather, racism, and a lost cat!  I cried and cried.  All of this is deftly written so that it doesn't seem like a ham-handed pulling out of all the stops, but just like normal life.  Good job, Claudia Mills.



View all my reviews

No Reality Here

Dating is Murder: A Novel by Harley Jane Kozak
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Contains serious spoilers - you have been warned.  This story was going okay. The previous book was better, but the author made the time-honored mistake there of relenting the sexual tension and letting the main characters hook up.  She had to undo it to free up Wollie in this next situation of date fodder for a reality show.  That's understandable.  And we were going along just fine until the earlobe business.  Yes, it was gruesome and I can tolerate a certain amount of that if we don't have to actually see it (it's just hinted at with the sausage-making imagery etc.), but no Martha-Stewartesque type person would be so inept as to let an earlobe, much less one with an identifying earring (!!!!!) get away from her.  First of all, she'd probably know better than to try to kill someone by cutting their throat.  That is way too messy.  You'd never clean that up, no matter how Martha-Stewarty you were.  If the M-S type were going to kill someone and dispose of the body, she would be much, much more organized.  Kill first and then cut up.  Much less messy.  And she just wouldn't let an earlobe get away.  An experienced cook wouldn't hack away like that.  I don't have an alternative, but this did make me set the book aside and put my head in my hands.
Also, the victim went to Pepperdine and I just don't see that type with that kind of earring, especially the son of a senator.
The characters other than that are nicely realized and likable.  The detecting stuff was delightfully screwball, but I didn't think much of the reality show stuff.  Then again, I haven't watched tv in a couple of decades now and the author is in the bidness, so I shouldn't judge that.


View all my reviews

Fun with Alzheimer's

Lunch at the Piccadilly by Clyde Edgerton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book was read by my book group a number of years ago when I was still caring for a parent (or maybe two - I've forgotten how long ago it was) with dementia so I opted to not read it.  I have my own painful and/or cute stories about elderly people and I didn't need more.  Then the library read Walking Across Egypt by Edgerton and that was so good that when I saw this book on display I decided to read it as well. 
Carl visits his aunt in a reasonably nice nursing home. She wants to go home, but he can see that she needs someone to keep an eye on her - and that she needs to stop driving, but he hasn't the gumption to bring it up. He also has his eye on Anna, the manager and is drawn into the orbit of a preacher who thinks churches/synagogues/mosques should merge with nursing homes so that old people get visited at least once a week.  Carl's life is enriched by these people, although caring for his aunt is tiring and writing songs with the preacher comes with the price of having to listen to the sermons.  Carl's aunt and the little old ladies get up to all kinds of mischief because of their memory problems and willfulness, which comes off as cute and charming.  The aunt's health declines rather quickly and her memory problems become more problematic and it was more depressing for me.  Of course, I cried.  I always cry all over books, but at least I didn't get angry like I do when I feel like I'm being manipulated.
I think maybe I like Walking Across Egypt better, although that book would easily turn into a tragedy if it went any further.  This book was good, though. 



View all my reviews

Growing Pains

We have a brand new library which is just fantastic and I thank people who come into the Children's Room to look everything over for the taxes they pay that helped build the new library and keep it going.  I'd say 99.999% of people are impressed and thrilled by the new library.
The Children's Room is the farthest point on the first floor from the entrance but it seems to be the first place people go.  For the first two months, the only copier available to the public on the main floor was in the Children's Room and it was around the corner from the desk.  We want to discourage adults from wandering in the Children's Room, but we couldn't help it for a while.  At last, the copier was moved closer to the entrance to the Children's Room so it could be networked with the children's computers.  Adults would walk right past it, though, if they had used it when it was around the corner.  That wasn't so bad, because it wasn't that much of an intrusion into the CR.  Now, however, there is a copier for public use next to the Circulation Desk.  It's not quite obvious - it's on the far side and against the wall.  Unfortunately, the people at the Info Desk who greet people as they walk in, don't seem to know about it. 
I help adults who want to make copies, but I let them know that for next time there is a copier next to the Circulation Desk so they "don't have to walk so far."  I'd consider making them walk all the way back without copies to be Bad Service and I hate giving Bad Service.
We seem to need something to update, not just the volunteers that staff the Info Desk, but all of us about changes.  We have the Intranet, but I don't recall seeing a message that there was now an operational copier machine for public use at the Circulation Desk.  This is something that everyone needs to know.  Volunteers don't have access to the intranet bulletins, so they need something on paper, perhaps in the form of a newsletter.  Our Volunteer Coordinator is good about keeping them updated, but she wasn't here today and two different volunteers directed patrons the length of the whole building into the Children's Room to make copies. 
We must do better.  Doing better, however, will not mean signage.  It seems the more signage you put up, the less they read it.  They still aren't reading the one that asks them to turn their cells phones off in the library.  [Patrons who were in the middle of asking me for help still answer their ringing phones and expect me to wait until they are done with their call.]  I think we need to update staff on the intranet about each change and find a way to alert volunteers as well. 

"Paradoxides" Bwhah-ha-ha-ha-haaa!

Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution by Richard Fortey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't want to give away who dunnit.
This book made me want to get a little hammer and go out looking for fossils. Okay, I've always sort of wanted to do that, but this intensified that feeling! Fortey might try just a bit too hard to be humorous which might go over well in a class but just made me groan.  It is plain that he has had a balanced education he's not letting go to waste, despite the childhood obsession that became his life's work.  Fortey weaves literature, personalities, and scandal into the trilobite story.  It was hardly necessary; trilobites and all the minutiae involved fascinate me.  Oh, and the eyes, their eyes!  I have two more Forteys in the stack to read.  They take such a gosh-awful long time to digest, but are worth it in the end.
I am also delighted that I too now know that Paradoxides is the "genus of the trilobite of the Middle Cambrian" just like Tim Brooke-Taylor.  You have to follow ISIRTA to find that funny.


View all my reviews

Bride of Frankencozy

Dating Dead Men by Harley Jane Kozak

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I counted 60 characters, all requiring their own names. Well, except the Vons bag lady. The main characters' names are a bit contrived (mostly the Shelleys), but this was a good read.  I will definitely continue with the series.
There is a certain amount of amusement with the rush to date 50 men, but mostly this is a Cozy Thriller - if there is such a thing.  Wollie is pursued by the mob, assassins, all in the week where her greeting card shop is being evaluated by secret shoppers to see if it's upgrade material, giving Wollie the chance to buy the franchise ... with the down payment money from the dating study.  Can she keep up appearances at the shop while her schizophrenic brother, the mob, an attractive ex-con, her funkily dressed assistant, and all her dates conspire to undo all she's worked for?  Oh, and let's not forget the ferret.
Good fun and romance. Can't imagine what is left for a sequel.



View all my reviews

The Ordinary Man

Fifth Business by Robertson Davies

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


An ordinary man's life cannot really fit into a paragraph - and Ramsay sets himself to fleshing out a tossed-off tribute in honor of his retirement that offended him by its lack of depth and revelation.  He writes his life history to the headmaster of the school for boys where he taught all his adult life.  Ramsay is what Davies refers to as "the fifth business": not the lead or antagonist, but a character in dramatic works who carries an essential piece of the plot.   
In essence, then, Ramsay's narrative is a tragedy from this fifth business's point of view.  He became obsessed with a neighbor's wife as a child because he dodged a snowball that caused a premature birth and the woman's descent into a gentle madness.  All his life he is burdened with the responsibility for her child, Paul, and for her.  In his eyes she has worked miracles and he comes to think of her as a Fool-Saint.  This leads him to research and write hagiographies, although he was brought up as a dour Scots Presbyterian. 
I didn't find the saint business that interesting, but Davies does a wonderful job of depicting life in a Canadian town, the horrors of the trenches of WWI, and developing characters.  Ramsay is self-deprecating in that stereotypical way we associate with Canadians.  His antagonist/best friend, "Boy" Staunton, becomes rich and influential from the most mundane of businesses: sugar.  He also takes Ramsay's "girlfriend" away from him, saving him the trouble of dumping her himself - but he is unable to disentangle himself from their friendship.  Even amid the tragedies there are some laugh-out-loud moments.  I am tempted to continue the series, if only the third book which may pick up where this left off.





View all my reviews

Words of One Syllable Dept.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A light-hearted romp through the study of life's most serious business.  I picked this up because I enjoyed Stiff so much.  Roach writes the same way people chat about things, with wry humor and personal anecdote (Boy, is her husband ever game), which is engaging and yet she manages to keep it informative.  I am amazed that these researchers let her anywhere near them, considering the official opinion on their research. 




View all my reviews

Oh, Gawwd, Nooooo!

Ghosts by Paul Auster

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


[Just tossing words out] This must be one of those deconstructed, existential, minimalist detective stories for people who consider the genre beneath them.  It spent a whole lot of time going nowhere, which I suppose is the point, and then ends suddenly and Spillainely.  Perhaps it is just a send-up of the genre in an artier form for the cognoscente, but the observer/observed and writer/reader confusion was done to death by the 1960s and done by much better writers (Borges, for example). I kept hoping Mr. Blue would get the point sooner and ask Caleb Carr to help him with that Mr. Gold conundrum so something interesting might happen, but alas it was not to be.  Mercifully, the book was short, however it took me two weeks to read 96 pages. 



View all my reviews

Pre-School Storytime Pattern

I've been asked to detail my storytime pattern - which is pretty fluid but usually goes:

Opening song (Usually "If you're happy and you know it")
fingerplay/flannelboard
book (the more difficult one)
fingerplay/flannelboard
book (the easier one)
this spot reserved for puppets, creative dramatics, music making, major movement stuff
closing ("Now's the time to say goodbye" or, currently, my goodbye couplets: "See you later, alligator" etc.)
[Handout of some kind]

It's not hard-wired.  The usual rule of thumb is Lead with the most difficult. 
I've done three books or one book.  I usually have more than two books available on various levels so I can adjust by what age I've gotten.  Sometimes it's mostly 3s, sometimes 4s.  And, if they're particularly squirmy, the whole thing can get thrown out the window.  And sometimes I let them decide - for Halloween they had the choice of the funny book or the scary one (and, of course, they almost unanimously went for scary).

Sometimes they want to do something more than once, which is okay for fingerplays but I don't like to do books twice in a row. 

There are some flannelboards that I also have Spanish versions of, so I will do it first in English and then repeat it in Spanish, such as "Juguemos en el bosque."  As the lobo gets dressed, kids learn some Spanish vocab. These materials were prepared for our foray into bilingual storytimes ... which went nowhere.  We might try to revive them as more of our Spanish-speaking population discovers the new library.

The puppetry and creative dramatics go towards the end because they have a tendency to get the kids wound up.  The creative dramatics will often follow or be within a particular book - acting out part of it.  With the puppetry (I'll have some little story I can act out), it's just hard to put the puppets away.  The kids don't like it.  And they want to hug the puppets, so it's best to do it at the end when they can get up and hug a puppet on the way out.  Puppet can be used anywhere in the storytime, but this spot is reserved for a whole story.

More on puppets: I don't like little hands up my puppets' bottoms.  I'm just that way.  Yes, they can hug them, but they are characters, not toys.  There is a puppet theatre just outside the storytime room that has puppets for them to use. 

The handouts can be as basic as coloring sheets or activity sheets, or I have created pages with one of the poems/fingerplays/flannelboards we shared that day.  They are either the Add To Your Traveling Flannelboard (the sheet of felt glued into the pocket folder) type where they also got some stick-on felt to make them hang on the felt sheet or the fingerpuppet generator: Five de-colored cliparts of frogs etc. and five strips to cut out and tape to the back of the clipart plus the poem.  Presto!

I used to have a Ning where I shared stuff like this, but they went capitalist on me.  Heh!  If anyone else starts one, let me know.

It's Impossible

Impossible Major Rogers by Patricia Lee Gauch

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Gauch paints a warts and all portrait of a figure from the French and Indian wars. Neither all good or all bad, Rogers is a fighter and determined, and for that much he can be admired.  The book is punctuated with the refrain of his impossibility.  By stressing this, Gauch also does not try to paint him too much as a hero.  She shows him as a man conflicted by his hatred and admiration of his chosen enemy and as someone at a loss when the fighting is over.  At least in war he could fight his way out of trouble. 
Although later forced to fight on the British side because the colonists viewed him as a possible spy, Rogers' style of combat (developed from his experience of fighting the Abenaki as well as trading with them and studying them) was what the colonists chose.  Rogers' determination could have been interpreted as unscrupulousness and he ended badly.  He was jailed, apparently for his enormous debts, for three years and eventually had nothing left but his braggadocio. 
 



View all my reviews

Dance, Dance, Dance!

The Animal Boogie by Debbie Harter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was a gift from a friend. Just got around to listening to the cd that came with it and reading the text.  Oh so cute!  This will be a lot of fun at storytime.
Lots of movement and movement vocabulary.
Lots of animals.
This book can be used many ways: just read and sing along with movement, set the book aside and do it again hauling out the appropriate puppets, let kids hold up appropriate puppets (perhaps on sticks - I made a quick sheet of all the animals in a black and white format so they could be colored and either backed with something to use on the home/travel flannelboards (made with 9x12 sheet of flannel on the inside of a pocket folder) that we've given out fairly regularly at storytimes or had a loop of paper taped to the back to make a fingerpuppet, make flannelboard animals to point to, OMG!, and just dance, dance, dance!
Can hardly wait to use it!
The cd has 2 versions: one with Fred Penner singing it and then next one more like a karaoke format that you do your own singing, but will animal noises backing you up.  Cuuuute.



View all my reviews

Doesn't Live Up To the Title

Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter by Phoebe Damrosch

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I was living in Manhattan in the early 1980s, eating at diners mostly (or whatever foreign food took my fancy), but occasionally at a fancier place (one time at La Grenouille where I learned what good service is) so I was interested in this book. 

There isn't much of a story, except the one about her love life which seems to build up some tension, but in the end she doesn't get fired or anything particularly interesting.  I sympathize with this, having led a more-or-less uneventful life.  Yes, I moved on my own to Manhattan to pursue acting.  I ate some food, had some escapades, but in order to make things interesting, I'd have to embellish.  One is almost hamstrung if she has to confine herself to the facts. 

The food wasn't anything I would long for, but the service sounds outstanding.  [Now, if you could have that sort of dining service with Indian food or Thai or even Mexican (Oooo, think of all the moles!)]  I'm afraid I'll have to side with David Rakoff on this - as nice an idea that even the middle classes who are willing to surrender a couple of months' wages on a four-star dinner will receive the same deference as the absurdly wealthy or famous might be, I prefer the stories about exceptional chefs who use their skills in elementary school cafeterias to improve the eating habits of the less advantaged young in this country. 



View all my reviews

Rich As Kugel

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Many years ago, when I was young and willing to read just about anything, I plowed through A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.  I knew nothing about the movie, although I may have seen posters.  I read ACO because I had read one of Burgess's other books and enjoyed it so I was working my way through his ouevre.  The first five pages were rough going because he had invented a futuristic cant and it was difficult to read at first.  Once I got the hang of it, though, I went back and started over.  It wasn't until I reached the end of the book (in paperback form) that I found the glossary that would have saved me so much time.  I'm glad, though, that I had the opportunity to stretch my linguistics muscles instead.
That said ... this book pushed my yiddish to the limit.  It was worth it though.  Chabon's book is rich in what I can only call wordplay and sly satire of the hard-boiled genre.  There is the main character who is an overworked policeman whose new boss is making his life miserable and his job impossible.  He has a partner who is his complete opposite.  The powers that be are on their case to get off the case.  As the story goes on, the main character no longer knows whom to trust.  Time is running out.  You know the stuff.
It might be difficult for the average goyim (say, ones outside of urban centers) to wade through.  I spent a lot of time on this book just savoring the the little twists of language.  As far as plot goes, it's the standard hard-boiled fare if you just substitute some species of hasidim for mafiosos, inuit for palestinians, and imagine an almost all-jewish cast.  Not having read anything before that was so steeped in the chosen folkways, I was amazed and delighted by little details such as guns being referred to as "sholems" [ha ha! peacemakers!] and phones as "shoyfers" [get on the horn to someone].  And if you are well-versed in yiddish, you might be a few paragraphs ahead in places.  Most of the characters are speaking yiddish to each other, but it's expressed as english.  "Woe is me!" says Landsman and the wisenheimer can retranslate it to "Vayz mir!"  There are many little treasures in this story.
The premise is that, post-holocaust, the jews were unable to take over Israel and instead were offered a temporary homeland in, of all places, Alaska.  The time is about to run out and there are some who have made other arrangements, some who listlessly do nothing, and others who have deep, dark plans.  Deeper and darker and sillier than you can imagine - but all of it drawn from contemporary headlines with parallels to history.  No, really. 



View all my reviews

SCLA Part 7 - What We Were All Waiting For: Music and Movement in Storytimes

Although I let Karen and LeVerne go to the Bouncing Babies session and I did something else, I had to go to this.  And we had so much fun, even though I was still yawning a lot.  LeVerne showed up with the pillows I'd "won" in the silent auction and the three of us cuddled together and prepared to have a good time.

Parachute for movement activities

It would be nice to be able to play the guitar for programming, but at my age I may have waited a tad too long to start.  So much for Strings and Stories.  But you can do the same stuff with just singing, which is what I do.  They use rhythm sticks (have plenty of those!), boomwhackers (OMG, don't have those!), shakers, scarves, and a parachute with beach balls on it.  They use some books we already have and I made note of a couple more I will try to use or acquire.

Boomwhackers (sorry, this picture seems to have disappeared)

This isn't the sort of thing you can describe, because there's not so much talking as there is doing.  We need lots more stuff like this going on to make it worth going.  Or maybe someone could upload inspirational storytime stuff to YouTube.