True confessions of a lazy person

Hey everyone, it's that time in the life of a blog when the blogger says why they haven't updated in so long! Well, it turns out:
-I am a shitty blogger
-Because I hate blogging.
I guess I wish I didn't, because I like this project, but I do. I just find it really tedious and boring to pull all the pieces together. This is ironic for someone who will happily perform such mindless repetitive tasks as knitting, filling out forms, taking online quizzes,  highlighting rows on a spreadsheet etc, for hours.

It's Wednesday morning and I'm waiting for my preschoolers to arrive. I have two Thanksgiving books picked out for today, because they might not come next week. But they might, in which case I'll have to find at least two MORE, and there are not a lot of thrilling Thanksgiving readalouds for squirmy packs of preschoolers.

I'm still challenging myself with reading some longer stories. Mostly, they like it-- the one story that tanked hard was, sorry to say, Bea and Mr. Jones by  Amy Schwartz. I thought this book was hilarious when I was little. But then, I had a father who took a train to work, in an office, carrying a briefcase, so I was a little bit familiar with that world. The blank expressions crossing my preschoolers' faces as I read about Bea coping with executive pressure were enough to convince me NOT to try reading it to the second group as well. Squirmy? By the end of the story they were in full on squirm revolt. They HATED this book. The pictures are black and white, which didn't help. Sorry, Amy Schwartz, but the babies of East Oakland do not approve. I swapped in Doreen Cronin's Wiggle for the second group.

Today, in addition to the Thanksgiving books, I'm planning to read The Quiet Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown. I think she is a surrealist genius. Maybe I will talk more about that later, but don't forget I am a shitty blogger.

Week 4 results

Apparently I am VERY good at avoiding writing-- I'm behind again on this. And kind of forcing myself to do it today.....

So: Don't Squish the Sasquatch! was universally liked. Both groups of kids nodded with understanding when I asked "how many of you hate getting SQUISHED?" (Note that by aforementioned rug-rolling-up I save the kids a lot of squishing during storytime.) And they liked the sasquatch's increasing discomfort (nice) over the course of the book. Here's a surprising thing: the resolution involves making the sasquatch feel better by "smooching" him, and none of these kids knew what smooching was. What?! They'd never heard that word. I told them a smooch is a kiss and only then did the blank stares turn into giggling.

I have to say: the way a kid's eyes look when they're really into a story you're reading is one of my favorite sights. They turn all shiny, and you get this strong impression of their roundness-- wide-eyed, that's the word. Their mouths hang open just a little and you almost feel like you've lost them. (I did, in fact, think this, the first time I saw what my colleague called "the doe-eyed stare"--she set me straight.) But they're not bored, they're in love! The words and the pictures are this perfect thing happening inside their heads right now. It's a kind of joy, and I love to be in charge of that.

Anyway. Then we went into One, Two, Three O'Leary. This one, I think, did lose them a little bit- it's long, and the "story" is just verses of nursery rhymes. But oh well, I like it. They liked doing my Martin family fingerplay again, too, only this time with O'Learys instead of Martins.

Father Fox: I only read one pennyrhyme, so I'm not really sure how they liked it. They smiled, they patted their knees along with me, but sometime each of them really needs to spend some one-on-one with the furry red foxes. It's from reading this book that I developed my love of black ink drawing on top of watercolor...

Okay, the winner this round: There Are Cats in This Book. The last page asks "did you like the cats?" and each group gave an enthusiastic "YES!!" before I could finish reading. I love those cats. I really should finish the ones I started knitting from her pattern years ago and never finished.

Happy moment: one of the Head Start teachers who'd been bringing her groups for most of the few months I've been here told me she felt I've really hit my stride. Her smile was huge as she walked her line of anklebiters out of the room and back to school.

You will note that I got through four books this time. I used to always read four books in preschool storytime. But I've been doing longer stories, and with a squirmier group..... check back for week 5 to see me bite off more than I can chew!

Week 4: What to read now, what to read....

Week four arrived and put me in a bit of a quandary. One of my own making, as most are. I didn't get my butt back to the big library this week, so I didn't get to search through the stacks and develop a new theme and pick up a stack of books for it. I did have a couple books left over from my searching the first week.... but they are both on the theme of "my dad." I'm not ready to talk about my dad. I'm really, really good at avoiding the subject, actually. In my autobiography, this is not a happy chapter.

An autobiography that's not truthful is useless. Who cares what someone imagined their life to be? I think we know how easy it is to lie to oneself and that's why people get so pissy about autobios that contain inaccuracies--actually *living* something is the impressive challenge, and that's the story people crave.
But look, I'm doing it again- avoiding. See?

So basically, with time running  for this week, I had three options:
1. Go with the theme "My Dad," even though I'm not ready to talk about it-- there are a lot of happy chapters there, too, and I could go with one of those
2. Weakly, hastily construct a new storytime on a poorly thought out theme like "my sisters AGAIN" or something
3. Phone it in and break theme for a week.

Fortunately, I have backup: personal copies.

Personal copies are an important part of one's storytime arsenal especially in cases such as the delightful One, Two, Three O'Leary, written by Malachy Doyle and illustrated by (sigh!) Will Hillenbrand. This book is all about rhymes and nonsense sounds and silly words (and a dad who looks like Conan O'Brien). I've read it so many times out loud, and I've found that the fast you can spit it, the better it's received. 

Ibble obble, blue bottle, Ibble bobble bout

Turn your silk pajamas inside out

First you turn them inside, then you turn them out,

Ibble obble, blue bottle, ibble bobble OUT!

On each repetition of "OUT," another adorable O'Leary child falls out of bed, until the only one left is the father who has chased the last one away by putting on a sheet and pretending to be the boogeyman. Dude needs his space, okay?

I have always related to this one since there were sooo many of us growing up, and because my family was super into our Irish heritage. I mean, into it in an American way, where I watched Darby O'Gill and the Little People over and over and wore my Irish Rovers record into dust. We were Irish way way back, but I think the most recent immigrants in my family came over in the 1860s.

I love Father Fox's Pennyrhymes (written by Clyde Watson, illustrated by Wendy Watson) far more as an adult than I did as a child, and I was pretty attached to it then. The pictures had this perfect blend of sweetness and scariness. Look at those soft, pretty colors, cute black ears, and sharp, SHARP TEETH.

This one is poems, and there are a lot of them, so I didn't plan to read this whole book-- just one poem. I planned to have the kids pat the rhythm on their knees while I read it:

Nanny banny bumblebee

Nanny is my cup of tea

I'm as happy as can be

When I've got Nanny on my knee.

Incidentally, I was surprised to learn as an adult that Clyde and Wendy Watson are sisters, not a married couple as I'd always pictured.

Also, I should note here that I once spent about two weeks refinishing a bookshelf with color photocopies from Father Fox, and that I still own that bookshelf and would never, ever give it up. Full disclosure.

Ohhh, the joy of There Are Cats In This Book (by Viviane Schwarz). It's a teeny bit awkward to read with a group as the cats spend a lot of time exhorting "you" to turn a page ("well don't mind if I do, kids! no, you stay sitting! Miss Amy turns this page!"). But generally kids are so charmed by the bright, happy illustrations that they forget they aren't actually turning the pages.

My family had six cats growing up. They were mostly my fault-- I captured the mother, then puppy-eyed my mom into letting us keep her. And all her babies. And the kitten she cornered under our porch a few months after the babies came along. There were most certainly cats in this house.

Okay, this one I don't own: Don't Squish the Sasquatch, by Kent Redecker, illustrated by Bob Staake. But I spent a lot of kid-time expressing my desire--loudly--to not be squished in the car. I totally understand Sasquatch's decision to explode at the end.

Coming up: the results!!

Week 3 results

First, let me welcome a fellow storytime blogger: Ted McCoy, of Your Magic Storytime Hat. There are lots of storytime bloggers but this situation is unique because Ted does Thursday afternoon storytimes at the same Head Start for which I do Wednesday morning storytimes. Different kids, same school. He travels to the Head Start; I host the kids at the library. Might be interesting to follow us side-by-side, no?

This week's lesson: yes, a longer story can be done and done successfully with a wiggly group. It just might not look like how you think it should look like. Know how you can make a recipe from a book but no matter how closely you follow the instructions or how good it tastes when it's done, yours will never, ever look like the picture? Similar.

Oh but wait, here's the REALLY awesome thing from this week. I WROTE MY OWN FINGERPLAY, ABOUT MY OWN FAMILY. AND THE KIDS LOVED IT. IT'S CALLED "TEN LITTLE MARTINS." IT INVOLVES BUTT SPANKING. 'kay I can stop shouting now. BUT IT'S REALLY COOL THAT THIS HAPPENED.

First things first:

We opened with sit-down-shut-up, which I am going to start referring to as SDSU, so don't start thinking of San Diego colleges when you see it, and then the usual songs. Then on to Stella....

Group #1 liked this... wouldn't say they loved it. Reading "verrry, verrrrrrry" slowly and quietly was effective in keeping them involved in the story-- there's a repetition to the text that pops out when you emphasize those lines. Otherwise it's just... repetitive. 

Group #2 felt the repetitiveness, I think. Though, I blame Louis. Have you read Interrupting Chicken? by David Ezra Stein? 

Of course you have, it was a Caldecott Honor. And friggin' hysterical.

So Interrupting Chicken pops into the middle of every story his father reads him and adds what he thinks should be happening. Well, picture Interrupting Chicken as a chubby-faced African-American boy, and Chicken's father as a long-suffering Head Start teacher. Louis is one of those kids who is having a lot of trouble adapting to a school setting. I usually just leave Louis out of my recaps; in some ways, he's kind of irrelevant. He bops around on his own on the edges of storytime, jumping in when something catches his attention. A typical storytime interaction with Louis goes something like this:

(class files in. All sit neatly except Louis.)

MISS AMY: Good morning, cla--

LOUIS: I know you!

MISS AMY: ss!

CLASS: Good morning, Miss Amy!

MISS AMY: I

(Louis slumps over onto the floor as if dead, one arm limp across his prone body)

MISS AMY: am so happy to see you here this

(Louis gets up, grabs a toy and throws it)

LOUIS: Aaaaahhh!!

MISS AMY: morning. 

(teacher grabs Louis and loud-whispers "shhhh!!!")

MISS AMY: We're going to read some

(Louis runs three laps around the room)

MISS AMY: wonderful stor

LOUIS: I know you!

MISS AMY: ies.

I kind of barely notice at this point.

I suspect the kids in the class are heading that way, but it's hard for them not to be distracted when Louis gets loud or has a meltdown, which he usually does about twice per storytime. 

Anyway, Louis was not super into Stella. He slumped over. He did laps. And eventually he had a meltdown. I pressed on while the teacher did Louis repair, but the pull of "verrry verrrrry small"s was, sadly, not strong enough to bring the kids back to the story. Not the best setup for the next one, one of my favorites, but also one of the longest books I've EVER read in storytime.

Oh, I love that I can say this. It went so great!! I kept my pacing slow, drawing out words long and adding emphasis on some, and even wiggly Group 2 stayed with it. I was right that the first half is kind of slow, but: the wording is perfectly constructed. Each animals says, each time, not just the amount of cake she/he is taking, but restates that it is half the previous amount. In the second half, the same thing-- they each work in the number of cakes AND the fact that it is twice as many as before. And it doesn't get boring! McElligott varies the wording enough on each that it reads like a natural conversation rather than math homework.

Group 1 stayed with the story better than 2, less bored-looking wiggling. But both groups did eventually squirm. It took probably more than 10 minutes to read this one story. At the end, though, in group 2, I heard at least three voices shout "again!" Surprised me because they, okay, they weren't just squirming, they were falling over on the floor and in some cases moaning. But as soon as it wrapped they could not stop talking about it. And all the yummy cakes!

So, yaaay for The Lion's Share. Thumbs up. Oh and Louis listened to a little bit of it.

Now is when I inserted my OWN, PERSONAL FINGERPLAY, TEN LITTLE MARTINS. I told the kids "guess what? this song is about MY FAMILY! Once we were all little Martins!" Are you ready? You just think you are.

(To the tune of every Ten Little ___ song ever written)
One little, two little, three little Martins,
Four little, five little, six little Martins,
Seven little, eight little, nine little Martins,
Ten little Martin children.

Give them milk and make them finish it, (pretend to hand over glass of milk, then shake finger, looking fierce)Give them milk and make them finish it,
Give them milk and make them finish it,
Ten little Martin children.

Catch 'em in the mud and scrub their hands, (mime grabbing child and then vigorous hand scrubbing)Catch 'em in the mud and scrub their hands,
Catch 'em in the mud and scrub their hands,
Ten little Martin children.

Grab them up and spank their bottoms, (mime scooping up child, then spank self. eee!)Grab them up and spank their bottoms,
Grab them up and spank their bottoms,
Ten little Martin children.

Hug them tight and kiss good night, (hug self and then air-kiss)Hug them tight and kiss good night,Hug them tight and kiss good night,Ten little Martin children.


I promise you, it represents all of my childhood, in its entirety.
And yeah, they loved it. You should hear a room full of kids spanking themselves and giggling one day. (I know, spanking, not so popular. But I was spanked. I'm not opposed to it within reason.)

I didn't even get to this one with Group 2. It was slow progress through Stella, Lion, and Louis. I did read it to Group 1, and heard comments like "the baby is cute!" The person who really loved it was one of the Head Start teachers, who immediately asked if she could come back later and check it out, because her baby son is named Leo. And she did.

On to Week 4..... in which I face a bit of trepidation. Oh no, not that! she gasped! Heh.

--Miss Amy

Week 3: Now there are lots of us

So first there were two...
And then, there were many.

I grew up in a big family. I didn't realize this when I was very little-- my four siblings were just "the others." I had a vague awareness that we weren't able to do things like go to Disney World or buy snacks at the movie theater because there were so many of us, but I don't remember ever resenting my siblings because of this. It was just another science fact: the sky is blue, objects of different sizes fall at the same rate (unless they're feathers, because wind), we can't afford that. I never really had a chance to think about whether I liked having that many siblings; by the time I was aware of it, it just was. Poor Big Sister probably did struggle with this a bit.

My Middle Sister was born when I was four. I remember sitting on my grandma's lap, holding my plastic ET doll, which was my favorite toy for ages and ages, when we got the phone call that my sister was born. Okay, now I have gotten distracted trying to find a picture of the ET doll that was my constant companion in those days and believe it or not I CAN'T FIND ONE. What good is the internet anyway?? I have scanned the 1st and 2nd pages of google image results for at least five different queries and while there are certainly a lot of ET toys represented, I can't find the one I used to have. It was big enough to hug, because I did it a lot, poseable arms and legs (but not jointed), light colored plastic, and it had a little heart. Where are you, ET? Anyway, the good news is that I found lots of pictures of other plastic toys I had in the early 80s and I will post them at the end of this. You're welcome.
But anyway. Middle sister.
Middle sister was/is the quiet one. She was docile about submitting to Big Sister's "makeovers" (I put up a fight). She was easygoing, afraid of lots of things, and generally pleased to do what people expected of her. Once we were eating lunch and she had finished and was talking to my mom when suddenly she threw up on the table. We were all stunned and just stared at her for a few beats- and then she started crying and said "I don't WANNA eat it." God knows where she got that idea but we all laughed at her. Also, Big Sister and I once rolled her up in a sheet and threw her in the kiddie pool. She was mad, but she never stayed mad long. She's a sport. She's a speech therapist now. I love her lots.

Little Sister is the fireball. She came along when I was seven or so, and she came KICKING. She had a summer at age two when we couldn't take her to the pool because she would chase boys and bite them. She has a temper, does what she wants, and in between fiery blasts of being her, is very sweet and loving and loyal. She's a high school teacher. I love her lots.

Little Brother-- well, he's a little brother to four sisters. Let's just say he got put in a dress a lot. Makeovers!! I was enough older than him that I ended up babysitting him a lot. This was hard- he was a handful, a willful little guy. All of us were big tantrum-havers, but he had it down to an art. I'm kind of shocked sometimes at how cool he is as an adult. He's in a rock band. I love him lots.

(This makes me realize that I never updated on Big Sister. She's a nurse practitioner and has three sons. I love her lots.)

The Storytime:

I wanted to find books that captured some of the unique pieces of being a big sister to so many young ones. Bonus challenge for this round turned out to be that all the books I picked were really long. I stuck with only three:

When Stella Was Very, Very Small, by Marie-Louise Gay

Very sweet story that did make me think of myself when I was little. Stella spends a lot of time pretending to be animals, and when the story progresses to where she has a little brother, she teaches him how to pretend as well. I used to make my sisters be wolves. Under the dining room table is a very good cave. 

The story is slim here, but there's a lot of room for drama in the way you read "verrry, verrrrrrrry small" (may I suggest reading it quieter and quieter as well).

The Lion's Share: A Tale of Halving Cake and Eating It, Too, by Matthew McElligott

I LOVE this book. I can't understand why it's not more popular, except that it is a little long. But it's so well paced that it doesn't matter. There's a lot of buildup during the first half, when all the animals are taking half the portion of cake that is left at the dinner party, until it gets to the ant and the crumbs fall apart and there's nothing for the king and she promises to make him a new cake tomorrow. Then the falling action begins and moves like a ball rolling downhill as the animals each promise to double that until one unlucky customer is making two hundred and sixty something cakes. Slow start but the payoff is huge. And the art is well done, with big dramatic pictures of the animals and yummily rendered cakes.
I chose this one because... I have said so many times that one of my biggest takeaways from growing up in a big family is the sense that EVERYTHING, whether it's a pile of french fries or time with a baby doll, must be divided equally between all potential recipients, and I do mean EQUALLY. I am a pro to this day at handling a big sharp knife and dividing exactly like portions, because god help you if you cut your own piece just a smidgen too big and shortchanged someone else.

Someone told me recently that her father just declared that the cutter chooses last. Wow.. that's... wow.

Lola Reads to Leo, by Anna McQuinn, illus. Rosalind Beardshaw

My parents were fond of telling me that my first words were "read read." And I said them often. Thankfully, I was generous about reading to my younger sibs when I got older. I spent a lot of time just like Lola. And can I squee a bit about Rosalind Beardshaw's art? If I could take her art and insert it into myself, so that art that looks like hers would come out when I make art, I would do it.

So there's my sibling-hood in storytime. Outcomes next!


ETA: omg almost forgot.

Week 2 results

First, a detail I'll explain a bit: I do *two* preschool storytimes for the Head Start, meant to be the exact same storytime twice back to back. I do this because this Head Start is the biggest in Oakland, with more than 80 kids enrolled. They're divided into four classrooms, and I read to classrooms 1 and 2 at 10:30, 3 and 4 at 11. When I first started at this library, I had all four classes come at 10:30, and it was so big and noisy that the kids had no hope of paying attention. I asked the director if she would like to send just two groups at a time and she said yes.
This will be especially relevant this week...

Okay, so group 1. I started with the sit-down-shut-up song, then my two standard openers:

Good Morning, Dear Earth (note, I do not know this kid, and the video's not mine, it's just really cute)



and Two Little Bluebirds, aka Two Little Blackbirds, aka Two Little Dickey Birds, which I could never say to a class without laughing.

(again, not my video. Also I don't end by running into the wall.)

On to the first book: Big Sister, Little Sister, by LeUyen Pham. Sorry to say it because I like this book quite a lot, but the little ones were not impressed. There's not much of a *plot* to speak of, it's mostly a list of things the big sister does with responses as to what the narrator can/can't do because she's the little sister. As I was reading it, the lack of a dramatic storyline jumped out at me for the first time.

The kids looked bored and started getting squirmy by the 10th page.

Book 2: To Hilda, for Helping, by Margot Zemach. WOW, was this a polar opposite from the first book. Barely any dramatic tension in BSLS-- the sisters compete a little, but always in a fun-loving way. It's not hard to picture the sisters in THFH someday having really awkward Thanksgiving dinners that turn into screaming fights with hair-pulling. And the kids were *riveted.* When the mean sister started saying mean things, they repeated them with that glassy doe-eyed stare. Hilda's sister calls her medal "nasty," which I read like nay-aaassty, the East Oakland way. Local pride! At the end, they had a lot of comments about how medals don't really grow on trees and we talked about how that's in her imagination. Even the ending of the book isn't what I'd call positive-- it's Hilda rubbing her medal in her sister's face again. But yeah, they liked that too.

The truest sign that this one worked? In week 3's storytime (yeah I'm behind), a character was helping and I asked what reward Hilda got for helping last week, and one little boy called out "a medal!" Week-to-week retention!

Book 3: George and Martha, by James Marshall. Fortunately, I did not make the mistake I've made before and pick up the G&M book where Martha smokes a cigar.

George and Martha is a subtle book. The humor lies in a difference in scale; the words will say "Martha was mad" while the picture shows her fuming. I've had classes that didn't get these books. This one did, but I think the stories dragged on for them-- there are several short stories in the book and they started squirming around story 4. All was redeemed though by the image of George creeping on Martha in the bathtub, and then the next picture with the bathtub on George's head.

So remember how I said the two storytimes thing was relevant? The second group showed up early. We were nearing the end of G&M and they all started filing in. Bad news! I ended the book a bit early (just skipped the last story) and segued into our goodbye song and dismissal routine. Still a little hard getting all the kids around each other. The aisles are not wide.

When I give stickers, the kids always yell out "I want blue!" I want red, etc. I tell them "you get what you get!" meaning you don't get to choose your color. Seems simple, but come on- we'd be there all day.

Next week, I explore BEING the big sister. Circle up!

--Miss Amy

Week 2: My Big Sister

For the first few years of my life, the world was my big sister.

It was just the two of us. The four other kids my parents would produce were years in the future, and there were no pets, no cousins, no relatives close by. Our parents chose friends for us by noting who in my sister's classes had one younger sibling; Katie was friends with Shana, so I was friends with Stevie. And actually, we shared some friends, like Reagan and Elizabeth, though we didn't share them well-- we fought over them.

We fought over everything, now that I think about it. We had a lot of similar, though not the same, toys, and we fussed and smacked each other over whose was that Barbie, that My Little Pony, that baby doll. Our parents circumvented this in the next generation: my two younger sisters, also born three years apart, received the exact same presents for every birthday and Christmas until the Christmas morning the older one broke down in tears when the younger opened a present, because we always opened youngest to oldest and that meant she always saw what her presents were before she got to open them. Nice try, Martin parents.

Big sister was my only company and therefore she was by default my best friend. I don't think I was always *her* best friend. But she had no choice but to include me in everything. Like the time we touched our poo* and proudly announced to our mom that we had done so. My mom was never a germ freak and so the frenzy of scrubbing that followed caught me slightly off guard.

The Storytime:
This one was harder than the last to put together. "Babies" is kind of a softball topic. This time, I went with a loose theme of "big sisters" but looked for books that reflected something about big sister's and my relationship. I knew this was going to outstrip my current collection, and I left myself without enough time to place holds, so off to the Main Library I went.

I already had a couple in mind:

Big Sister, Little Sister, by LeUyen Pham

This one's pretty recent and I've used it in storytime before. It's all about how the big sister can do things the little sister can't, then ends with the little sister asserting that she is best at being the little sister. Aww. It has brief, catchy text and bright, cartoony illustrations, and I thought it would go over well.

No Fighting, No Biting! by Else Holmelund Minarik, illus. Maurice Sendak

This is one Big Sister and I read often as kids. It's got great dialogue, the ever-intriguing subject of "biting," and pen and ink illustrations by Sendak that show his terrific skill with realism. It's an early reader and a little long for storytime, but I wanted to revisit it and see if maybe I could read an excerpt. I am pretty sure I tried to bite Big Sister a couple times and may have landed one or two. I remember little circles of teeth marks on skin. That's okay, she once kicked my front tooth out (it was loose).

So I went to the Children's Room of the Main Library. I tried using Goodread's mobile scanner, but it couldn't read some of the barcodes--maybe the mylar threw it off? Also, I didn't realize you have to physically save everything you add, so sadly, I created some really nice lists that were not there next time I logged in. If you want to see all the contenders for this week's storytime, check back for a link to the Goodreads list; I'll be keeping lists on Goodreads for all books used and considered for autobio storytime.

Here's what I decided on:

the aforementioned Big Sister, Little Sister, by LeUyen Pham

To Hilda, for Helping, by Margot Zemach

This is the reason I'm doing this: To Hilda, for Helping is TERRIFIC. There are three sisters, one of them is helpful, the others are not, their dad makes the helpful sister a medal, one gets intensely, diabolically jealous. Not content just to push and not share, Gladys opens her mouth and gives Hilda some major attitude:

"Someday you're going to lose that medal. In the summertime you'll take it outside and you'll drop it in the dirt. It will get dirty, and the rain will rain on it and make it rusty. People passing will step on it and kick it under a tree."

It goes on for... pages.

Interestingly, though I could not find a picture of Hilda online, I did find this one, also by Margot Zemach, which made the email rounds at my work as WTF book of the year:

George and Martha, by James MarshallBit of a curveball. I did actually put together a lovely "sisters" storytime with four titles that fit my theme and my relationship with my sister. Unfortunately, when I put them all together, at least three out of the four looked really similar. I knew I had to vary things a little more or my audience would be just sitting there daydreaming about graham crackers and juice. I went for George and Martha because a) I've used them successfully in storytimes of the past, and b) the way those two lovingly squabble totally reminded me of older sister and me as kids.

Close Your Eyes, by Kate Banks

No, I didn't just cop out and pick something cute. Big Sister had a tiger collection as a child, one I coveted ceaselessly. There were rules around which tigers I could touch and how and when. I had the most free reign with Fudge Stripes, who I was allowed to hold up high with one hand and plop into the other hand. This little guy looks like Fudge Stripes.

Roundup to come!

*I don't actually remember whose poo it was.

Week 1 Results

This was also my first preschool storytime of the school year, so I'm going to spend a bit of time on this one.

Ahh, that first preschool storytime. They never come the first week of preschool, because everyone's still adjusting to the shock of getting dropped off by mom* and then STAYING THERE for several hours, WHILE MOM GOES SOMEWHERE ELSE. I don't personally observe much of the first week, but I picture it being like a combination of an efficient trauma ward and an adorable children's tv show, with teachers flipping back and forth between crisis management and cheerful songs about colors. I stopped in on Wednesday at the Head Start that first week to ask the director if they'd be coming, and just as I thought, the answer was "nooo, we think we'll start next week, if that's okay."

That's okay. So it's actually week 2 of preschool that the new classes shuffle in. They are new to walking in line, so they go a little like prisoners, prisoners emblazoned with stickers on their shirts that say "Great Job!" They wobble, fall out of place, and are nudged back into line. Some are crying. Many look terrified. The rest look confused. And there's always one who appears completely oblivious to everything that is going on and is just bopping along happily and yelling and grinning and eventually has to be the teacher's sitting buddy.

I set up the room carefully for preschool story time. It's a process I honed last year, when the months from March-June were my first at the library and working with the Head Start, which is two doors down from us, inside our big abandoned mall. (Yes--it's a long story.)

• I roll up the rugs and put them away. They are decorative rugs, and seem like the ideal story time setting with their huge colorful fish and letters and numbers. However, after watching kids pushing each other incessantly, I realized that they were all trying to fit on the rug, which is not possible with such a large group. So now I roll up the rugs. Much better.
• I place a line of masking tape on the floor, in front of where I sit, to give them an expectation of where they will sit.
• I put my chair out, and my story time easel with all the books on it, and my props hidden behind.
• I move the tables out of the way and put a circle of chairs in the back for the teachers and other adults.
• I get out my number signs--the HS has classrooms 1, 2, 3, and 4, and to make dismissal time easy, I put numbers out corresponding to the classes that are attending, and then tell kids at the end to line up by their number and I will give each one a sticker. Sounds a little complicated, but I don't think you want to know about the chaos and trauma that ensued with each story time dismissal before I put this in place. Inevitably one kid would jump up to hug me..... and then TWENTY kids would jump up to hug me. And all run at me at once. And TRAMPLE each other. Seriously. A couple times they, no joke, almost knocked me off and I would have taken out at least two behind me if I'd gone down. I had to create some kind of process so we wouldn't have any story time dismissal trampling deaths. It actually works really well.

I do two story times for the HS, since they have so many kids-- two classrooms at 10:30, two at 11.

At 10:30 on the dot the wobbly line breached the front door of the library and snaked and sniffled its way back to me. I welcomed them, and directed them to the line on the floor. They sat all over the place. I went around telling each kid "let's move your body so that you are sitting on this side of the line," etc, until they were all in a semblance of group audience seating. This took about five minutes.

Some of the kids know me from last year, and they wave and smile and shout "Hi Miss Amy!!" This makes me feel great. Awwws.

The new ones have no such comfort or familiarity. They stare at me with a mixture of nervousness and the dullness that comes with resigning oneself to a crazy new reality, a stage in the process of accepting that Mom Is Not Here.

"Good morning, everyone!" I say with a glowing, nurturing smile. A child in the front row immediately bursts into tears. I take a hand and lead the child to teacher while assuring everyone that it's okay to feel sad or nervous, everyone does sometimes. "Maybe he misses his mom!" one cries. "Yes, and that's okay," I say. Another in the front row yells triumphantly "I'm not crying!" "That's great" is my reply. I just want to start story time now, okay. "I'm a big boy, and big boys don't cry!" he adds. "Well, sometimes they do," I say. "Sometimes big boys need to cry." Sink in, Life Lesson.

And finally we can start. I begin by singing their own version of what I call the sit-down-and-shut-up song. It involves lyrics around eyes watching, ears listening, etc. I will sometimes have to sing this upwards of five times during a half hour story time.

I kept the finger plays minimal for this one; most kids don't know them yet, so we need to ease in. After Jiggle Joggle Jee, we did "Here Comes the Choo Choo Train," which went over well. And we sang "Rock-a-Bye Baby," which was also a hit.

So. The books!!

Jiggle Joggle Jee: the first reaction was a yell from a child in front, "this is a baby book!" I ignored him. Soon he was enraptured like the rest. Oh, they liked this one. Immediately I had kids repeating the "loky smoky stoky" refrain. Lots of smiling faces as this one wrapped up. One good reason, with my group, to choose a beginning book with a fun nonsensical refrain like this is that a good number of the kids don't speak English yet, having only spoken Spanish at home with their families. It's easy for those kids to repeat fun sounds with the others.

The Baby in the Hat: this was a surprising hit. The baby-in-hat image seemed to rivet a large number of the kids right away. "He's in a hat!" "Baby in a hat!" "He fell out the window!" Okay, it's a female baby, but whatevs. Moving along. The story is actually pretty easy to follow, despite the old-fashioned setting and characters, and they loved hearing that the boy fell off a bridge and into a ship. They loved the pirates! And they liked shouting "ahoy matey!" with the pictures. And at the end of the book, after the couple gets married, there's a picture where the two are on a ship and the baby is behind them, clinging to a rope and flying in the wind--they LOVED that. "The baby's flying!" One little boy, doe-eyed stare and all, said "baby in the hat" at random through the rest of story time. So, the one I was unsure of actually went over *great.* This one's going on my regular story time roster.

Baby Goes Beep: total win. I read the sounds, then pointed to them and had them repeat "beep beep, beep beep" etc. It took a while for them to get it but they did with teachers' help. By the end of the book, they got the repetition part and were smiling.  

We finished up, sang our goodbye song, and got in line. Everyone got a sticker. No, you don't get to choose your color, you get what you get. And we'll see you next week.
I was really happy with this as a first story time. The kids were into it, and most left smiling. Next week will be a bigger challenge, as I delve into my childhood beyond birth and explore my bond with my older sister. Of course, they won't know that. But I will. And so will you, dear reader.

See you next time...

--Miss Amy



*In my library's neighborhood, yes, it's almost always mom. I see very few dads with young children. A lot of the moms are single. Sometimes I'll say to a preschooler something about "your mom or dad," and when I do 90% of the time I get a response of either "I don't have a dad" or "my daddy's dead." Guh.

Week 1: I Am Born

Starting with an easy one: what's the first thing that happens in anyone's life? Well, you get born, right? Natch!
New baby books are everywhere-- though never quite as many as you need, am I right? And I always make sure to ask parents, when they want a new baby book for an older sibling, if we are (trans: "child is") happy to be getting a new little brother or sister, then base my choices accordingly. If the kid is thrilled, I don't want to give them a book where the character is groaning about "that new baby" and introduce the idea that they should be unhappy; if they're unhappy, I can ease them into a choice where the character gradually decides that new baby's okay. No need to introduce drama where there isn't any.

The Storytime:
I kept this simple on me and on the kids and picked out three books about babies:

Jiggle Joggle Jee! by Laura Richards, illus. Sam Williams

I love this book. I used to read it at storytime in Chicago and was dismayed to come to California and find that almost no one had it. It's got great rhythm, a TRAIN, beautiful watercolors (love me some Sam Williams-- he nails the sweet but misses the treacle), a TRAIN THAT CAN FLY, and a fun-to-say refrain: "Loky moky poky stoky smoky choky chee!" This book is out of print and I have no idea why except that life is unfair. I bought my own used copy and recommend you do the same.

The Baby in the Hat, by Allan Ahlberg, illus. Andre Amstutz

This book popped into my head as soon as "baby theme" did, and I tried to nix it. It's set in Colonial England-- a long long way from East Oakland, California-- and is a weird story. Baby falls out of window, kid catches her in his hat, kid grows up to become sea captain, kid meets baby as adult and they get married. Simple and classic, I think not. (Plus it uses words like-- okay, scratch that, that was my own misguided perception, because I just looked through the whole book and the language is actually very simple. "Got lost in London--/Oh, the Fog was thick--/Fell off a bridge/And landed in a ship." So okay, colonial England assumptions were made on my part.)

But something told me this one might work. To begin with, it's unusual. It has a strong, weird image in that baby in a hat. Also, the text is very short so I thought maybe with good pacing I could pull it off. This is all an experiment, right?

The Baby Goes Beep, by Rebecca O'Connell, illus. Ken Wilson-Max

Something fun to wrap up with. I like this one better in a board book than in the trade, though I don't know why--perhaps it's the smooth, clean flip of the board book pages. Or the fact that the type makes the words stand out so clearly you want to grab them, and in a board book, YOU CAN.

Next post: Week 1 round up! How did my first autobio storytime go over? What fingerplays did I use? How many criers were there? Tune in!

On storytime, themes, and High Fidelity

The Challenge: revitalize my preschool storytimes by following a thematic unit based on my own life.
The Time Frame: 17 weeks
The Tools: all of children's literature, and an undergraduate degree in literary studies.

I really love doing storytime. It's one of my favorite parts of my job. But lately, I've been sagging. I took a new position within my library system in March of 2012, and storytime here is really, really different.

To begin with, my picture book collection is tiny. And I weeded it immediately upon arrival to make it even tinier. Circulation is low at my branch, and I found myself weeding clean, sturdy copies of classic books because they hadn't been checked out in oh, a dozen years. So I'm starting out with about 18 shelves' worth of circulating picture books. The last library I worked at was the main library for my system; I was in the children's room, which was basically its own small library. We had everything. Everything Margaret Wise Brown wrote that's still in print, and a few that aren't. And if something wasn't on our shelf in the children's room, I could creep into storage and probably find a historic copy, usually not a first edition or anything but still old enough to smell good. We had a copy of the Gertrude Stein picture book, the one printed on rose-colored paper with navy-blue ink that is just kind of long and incomprehensible, and I would never use it for storytime but oh, wow-- just to touch it. (Thanks to the OMCA White Elephant Sale, I now have a copy of this as well.)

Before that, I was at a tiny branch with a HUGE picture book collection. It was a really wealthy neighborhood with a lot of young kids and the picture books circed like crazy. I had to buy *everything* new and noteworthy, and I had to have the classics on the shelf too.
Storytime here was kind of optimal storytime experience. The kids listened, laughed in the right places, didn't push each other over during "Twinkle Twinkle," etc. And their parents came. They were used to storytime, already loved it, and pretty much ate out of the palm of my hand no matter what I read.

Which brings me to the other storytime obstacle I'm having at the new branch: with a few exceptions, the kids are not accustomed to storytime, and their attention spans and verbal skills skew young. Last year I tried reading mostly fun! books! with lots of funny sounds and interactive elements--the kind of thing I might read to a toddler group. But they didn't necessarily love these. They had fun with some of them, but at four and five years old, they were really craving a story.

By summertime, when the Head Start took a summer break and preschool storytime dwindled to just a few kids, I was putting very little effort into preparing for storytime. Some of that was by necessity because we were summer-busy, but also, I was bored. Somewhere in August I realized that I was just grabbing things off the shelf in the morning before 'time and doing the same songs and fingerplays every week. Very interesting it wasn't.

Feeling frustrated at being uninspired by something that had always been so joyful for me, I decided to kick it into high gear by using THEMES! We always did themed storytimes at my first library, and while in the past it's felt like a school assignment to me (blurg), I've also noted that it's a challenge, and a challenge is what I need right now.

What theme? Bugs? Been done. Animals? Meh. And then I remembered the great scene from the great movie High Fidelity where Dick asks Rob what order his record collection is in, and he tells him... autobiographical.

And that's the moment autobiographical storytime was born. For 17 weeks-- roughly half a school year-- I will do my weekly preschool storytime on a theme based on my own life, running in chronological order. Barely talking in school, deaths of cherished pets, family members' eating disorders, happy vacations, moving cross-country, depression, falling in love with my career---it's all fair game. Though it may not be super recognizable once converted into a 30 minute children's storytime. That's why I'll be keeping this blog, to record the process.

The Goals:

• Using my own life as a theme, create a developmentally appropriate storytime each week
• ...that will be enjoyed by kids who are new to a storytime setting
• Refresh my enthusiasm for preschool storytime
• Discover books I haven't read before
• Use new rhymes and fingerplays that match the themes
• Engage kids in books that aren't necessarily crowd-pleasers

Vive la storytime!