November 2004

Dear Fellow Book Lovers:

WILD ABOUT BOOKS

Children's Book Week is celebrated each November to promote books, children and the love of reading. Let's Book is the 2004 theme, and libraries all across the nation will display and distribute the promotional materials available from the Children's Book Council (www.cbcbooks.org/cbw). This special week is a time to get creative with programming and allow children of all ages to go wild with book ideas. Wild About Books by Judy Sierra and illustrated by Marc Brown is a good way to get young patrons excited about books. Something literally amazing happens when librarian Molly McGrew drives her bookmobile into the zoo, and pulls out a copy of her favorite Dr. Seuss. The playful, rhyming text, and the warm, friendly, and funny illustrations appeal to the natural sense of humor in children. "In a flash, every beast in the zoo was stampeding to learn all about this new something called reading." Here are a few programming ideas to Let's Book with Wild About Books:

• Create a mural with zoo animals. Children may want to use paper of various colors to cut out silhouettes of animals. Have them draw in the features of each animal.
• Ask children to think of an appropriate title for each of their animals to read. For example, the elephant may be reading Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss, or The Story of Babar by Jean De Brunhoff; the lion may read The Lion King, a Little Golden Book, or The Happy Lion by Louise Fatio; the wolf may read Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev and Janet Schulman.
• Ask children to vote on their favorite animal stories, and then print an Animal Bookmark for distribution in the library.
• Have children dress as their favorite animal. Sponsor a Wild About Books animal parade. Children should carry their favorite book in the parade.
• Sponsor a writing contest, and ask children to select one of the animals from Wild About Books and write a story about why they would like that animal as a pet. For example, Why I would Like a Zebra for a Pet.
• Have a fact or fiction trivia contest. List interesting facts or myths about the animals in Wild About Books and allow children the opportunity to guess whether the statement is fact of fiction. For example, a hippo loves wallowing in the mud.
• Some of the animals in Wild About Books become authors. For example, the python writes a story called "Mice are Nice," the porcupine writes "The Famous Porcupine Spy." Ask children to pick an animal and write the story that the animal might write. Talk with children about the purpose of a dedication page in books. Then ask them to write an appropriate dedication in the book the animal writes.
• The animals build a Zoobrary at the end of the book. Ask children to select 5 works of nonfiction about animals to be included in the library.
• Write a letter to Molly McGrew that the animals might write to her thanking her for introducing them to books and reading.
• Connect fantasy to real life by reading aloud True Animal Tales by Rolf Harris. Then ask children to share something about their pets. Encourage them to bring in pictures of their pets, and ask them to find at least 5 books (fiction or nonfiction) about similar animals.

Whatever you do in your libraries to celebrate Children's Book Week, ask local bookstores to publicize your programs, and display books that connect to your celebration. This way, the entire community can Let's Book together.

You may email me at pscales@scgsah.state.sc.us.