A brilliant way to start storytime! Thanks, Mr. Palmer!
SO HAPPY YOU’RE HERE
Sing Doo wah doo, Tra la la, Yo-dle-ay, Sha na na
Hi dee hi, Howdy doo
It’s all a funny way to say, “We’re glad you’re here today!”
Now give yourself a pat on the back
Reach out and shake your own hand
Give a gentle squeeze to say you’re pleased We’re so happy you’re here today, today We’re so happy you’re here today
Sing Fee fi fo, Fiddly dee
Shooby doo, Golly gee
Skizzamaroo, An a hi to you
Now turn and face someone and say, “We’re glad you’re here today!”
Now give someone a pat on the back Reach out and shake a hand
Give a gentle squeeze to say you’re pleased We’re so happy you’re here today, today We’re so happy you’re here today
Activity:
This is a song to warm up our voices and welcome everyone to music and movement time. Listen to each funny phrase, then sing it back like an echo. During the first chorus, give yourself a pat on the back, shake your own hand, and give yourself a hug and squeeze. During the second chorus, give someone else a pat on the back, shake her/his hand, and give that person a gentle squeeze to say, “We’re so happy you’re here today!”
Instrumental:
Make up your own funny phrases. Write them on the board, then sing the song using your ideas. You can also create a funny motion that goes with each phrase and play follow the leader
New to the game of children’s librarianship, I watched an amazing puppet performance by a colleague — a fellow guybrarian — whom I truly respect.
After the show, I asked his advice about puppets. His words: “Choose one and stick to it. Develop its personality and you’re set for any show.” I asked him how long he’s had his “special friend” and he responded: “Thirty-five years.” Solid advice from a pro.
So, without further ado, I present my one and only “special friend” (other puppets may come and go for special occasions, but this guy is the main attraction at my storytimes) — Mr. Chester Brown, from Guilford, Surrey, England.
Introducing the second installment of THE INTERGALACTIC ADVENTURES of COSMIC PANDA.
If you’d like to read about Cosmic Panda’s intergalactic adventures, click on the PDF at the end of the post (please be patient while it downloads — the story is 62 cards long).
I’ve formatted the story to print double-sided so that you can read the story on the back whilst showing the picture front to your audience:
I hope you enjoy COSMIC PANDA and I invite your feedback.
In a previous post I wrote that I really liked YouTube’s “Cosmic Panda” Beta release graphic of a supercute panda and that I wanted to archive him for posterity by turning him into a flashcard story.
Ta da! …
Introducing the first installment of THE INTERGALACTIC ADVENTURES of COSMIC PANDA.
If you’d like to read about Cosmic Panda’s intergalactic adventures, click on the PDF logo at the end of the post (please be patient while it downloads — the story is 45 cards long).
I’ve formatted the story to print double-sided so that you can read the story on the back whilst showing the picture front to your audience:
I hope you enjoy COSMIC PANDA and I invite your feedback.
(BTW, Chapter 2, “Trouble at the Double Helix,” is in production. Stay tuned for its début on Guybrarian in the supernear future.)
Space Bunny!
… lots of penguins!
EXTRAS FOR STORYTIME:
Note that the dialogue in COSMIC PANDA is in script form. To liven things up, I’ve made a character chart and stick puppets. Before I start the story, I go over the characters using the chart and then pass out the sticks (multiple copies of each).
Whenever a character in the story has a speaking role, the members of the audience with that character stick hold up their character. In a few places, up to four characters speak at once. Try it — it’s fun!
To wrap things up, I hand out a Cosmic Panda colouring sheet and button.
I really liked the way my little felt monsters turned out and decided to photograph some close-ups of the little guys’ ID shapes and turn them into flashcards. PDF below.
Another article (link below) from The New York TImes about kids’ books and technology presented the view that many parents prefer the tactility of books over ereaders. Ivor Tossell of The Globe and Mail suggests that some children prefer the tactility of a tilting iPad. What do you think?
Illustration for The Globe and Mail by Graham Roumieu
PUBLISHING
For some kids, a book is just an iPad that doesn’t work
IVOR TOSSELL
18 November 2011
At the age of 2, Calvin Wang’s son seems to have learned a truism that is already ricocheting around the Internet: A book is an iPad that doesn’t work.
Wang designs interactive storybooks for the iPad. He was inspired, he says, by watching his daughter interact with a movable cardboard book. Since then, Loud Crow, his Vancouver-based firm, has turned an array of children’s picture books that take the pop-up concept into the digital age. Books such as Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit now respond to touch by moving, twirling, speaking and noise-making.
Having experienced the app, he says, his son is puzzled by the fact that creatures in the original cardboard books don’t move. “When he opens the book, the first thing he does is start tapping the creature in the book.”
Turning children’s literature into iPad apps is a new and potentially lucrative business; successful creators have seen products fly off the virtual shelves, and venture capitalists are showing interest. But traditional publishers face challenges entering this market: Interactive applications are expensive to make, difficult to perfect and tough to market in the App Store environment. And even children’s authors are asking: Does a product that blurs the line between a book and a game destroy the joy of reading? And is one more screen what young children need in their lives?
Adaptations of kids books have been around almost as long as the iPad itself, a device so entrenched in the public consciousness that it seems as though it has always been a fixture on the landscape even though it has been on the market only since April, 2010, a mere 19 months. The first to make a splash was an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, simply called Alice. The creation of a laid-off journalist and a former financial-sector programmer, the $8.99 app took Lewis Carroll’s text and the iconic original illustrations from John Tenniel – both of which have passed into the public domain – and used the iPad’s innovative capabilities to turn them into tactile experiences.
When the iPad is flipped, Alice grows or shrinks. When the device is tipped, the queen’s crown teeters, or even falls off its pillow. Because the iPad can sense acceleration, developers could endow objects on-screen with realistic physics – the kind that young users find especially intuitive.
Chris Stevens, the app’s co-creator, says it hardly sold at all for the first couple of days. Then, he says, he released a YouTube video of the app, went to bed and woke up the next morning to see that 500,000 had seen it: This new medium’s potential had caught the public imagination. The app would later turn up in The New York Times and on Oprah.
“It was the right market to get some attention,” he recalls. “There was some excitement about the idea that the iPad might be the future of publishing.”
The Alice app would be the first of a bumper crop, mostly coming from the heady world of new-media app developers. It was one of the inspirations for works that followed, including Wang’s growing business in Vancouver. (This week, Loud Crow announced that it had snagged the rights to adaptPeanuts TV specials, including iconic entries such as A Charlie Brown Christmas, into the app format.)
But for all the hubbub, traditional children’s publishers are approaching the emerging market with caution.
One challenge is economics: Flashy, full-colour, animated interactive projects that run on high-end tablets are a different creature from eBooks, which typically aren’t interactive and can be read on a variety of devices, such as simple black-and-white Kindle or Kobo readers. The eBooks adhere to popular standards, making them relatively simple to make, whereas each children’s app is a unique creation that requires attention from authors, designers and programmers.
However, publishers can typically charge more for eBooks than they can for apps, which consumers are used to buying for less than $10. For instance, Loud Crow’s Peter Rabbit books cost $3.99 in the App Store.
“The interactive apps cost a lot of money, need to be updated frequently and the price point is incredibly low,” says Barbara Howson, vice-president of sales at House of Anansi and Groundwood books. All the same, Groundwood is currently working on an interactive adaptation of one title, Cybèle Young’s A Few Blocks.
“I think we’re in early days for kids books, in terms of demand and technology,” says Denise Anderson, director of marketing and publicity for Scholastic Canada. The publisher has embraced eBooks, with 400-odd titles already available in the format. As for interactive apps, few are currently available from the publisher, but she expects that to change within a year.
“Our mandate is to get books into the hands of children, however they’re delivered.”
So far, many of the interactive apps that have appeared in the marketplace have been adapted from books that are already cross-platform properties, such as Stella and Sam, a series of children’s books by Montreal author Marie-Louise Gay, which has been turned into a successful animated TV show.
For Gay, it’s important to distinguish between books and games – and the app, she says, is primarily a game. Where it comes to replacing books themselves with apps, she worries that the immersiveness of the technology can break up the shared experience of a child learning to read with a parent.
“You could actually put an iPad in a baby’s crib, and the pages will turn by themselves,” she says. Apps that read stories aloud and present interactive widgets threaten children’s ability to explore pages at their own pace, turning a social experience into an isolated pursuit, she says.
“That’s something that’s dangerous, because it’s like putting a child in front of a TV.”
That is a sentiment that has some support, even within the app world. The best interactive kids apps are the ones that actively depart from the source material, says Jason Krogh, the founder of Zinc Roe, the Toronto developer behind the Stella and Sam app, among others.
“The least successful examples take the book, put it on the screen, and they make hot spots so that when you press it, something happens,” he says. That’s why his firm is pushing interactive children’s technology in a new direction: letting kids tell their own stories. A new app called DoodleCast encourages kids to draw on the iPad screen, while making a real-time recording of what they’re saying aloud. After all, a child’s scribblings can be visually indecipherable, but its meaning comes clear as they explain it aloud.
“If you’ve ever drawn with a four-year-old, there’s always a narrative. They’re telling you about their day,” he says.
Kids books have gone through the looking glass, indeed.
Ivor Tossell is The Globe and Mail’s technology culture columnist.
I thought that YouTube’s “Cosmic Panda” was extra-cute and thought I should grab some images of him before he disappeared forever.
I made some flashcards; now I’m thinking of how to incorporate them into a storytime. Perhaps a felt board story about Cosmic Panda’s intergalactic friends?
WEEKS LATER … Well, I didn’t go for the felt board idea. Instead, I’ve been working feverishly on a fairly long and complex story about Cosmic and his galaxy of friends that I’m printing on card stock. So far, I’m up to two chapters.
Click on the last link below to see how this project unfolded. I hope you’ll enjoy reading about Cosmic Panda and his intergalactic adventures.
I came across these two extraordinary — and strikingly dissimilar in style — books today and they prompted me to do some more research about collective nouns.
Who knew that the English language had so many strange names for collectivities of animals?
Woop Studios — Miraphora Mina, Eduardo Lima (photo, below), Harriet Logan, and Mark Faulkner — have a contemporary graphic style that is extremely appealing. The words are engaging, too!
The cover of A Zeal of Zebras sets the tone for what’s inside. The Studio’s artwork captures the essential “animalness” of each of the collective nouns they cover in this gorgeous book.
I’d recommend A Zeal of Zebras as a gift for your graphically-minded friends — they’ll appreciate its bold style.
Woop is, I think, bent on becoming a repository for all of these, as they put it, “eccentricities of the English language.” Be sure to check out WOOP WORDS (link below) for more collective nouns.
From their website:
We believe that making a comprehensive A-Z list of collective nouns freely accessible will help those who share our fascination learn new terms and enjoy and share familiar. We hope that irrespective of whether you are browsing for fun or researching for homework that you will find these words, images and facts entertaining and informative. If you enjoy exploring this list you may well find our forthcoming book A Zeal of Zebras worth a look.
Some of the collective terms listed have real pedigree and lineage and can be found in JThe Oxford English Dictionary, ames Lipton’s 1968 An Exaltation of Larks or even The Book of St. Albans published in 1486. Some are of a more dubious and newer vintage than the original terms of venery. We make no apologies for being eclectic and hope that you will have fun with the words and enjoy our graphic interpretation of some of them.
Brian Wildsmith is, to me, the Eric Carle of England (though he resides in France). He liberated children’s picture books in the mid-sixties with his emphasis on minimal text and brilliantly conceived (art directed, really) page spreads with lots and lots of white space to let his images breathe on the page.
Wildsmith has never achieved Carle’s level of success because he refuses to repeat himself. I think his artistry is unique and superlative and underappreciated.
Trust the Japanese to know a quality artist when they come across one: the Brian Wildsmith Museum is located in Izu-kogen, south of Tokyo (link below).
Here are a few words about Wildsmith pulled from The Guardian:
Brian Wildsmith’s work came out in the 1960s and he changed picture books. It was revolutionary stuff. One of his best books is The Hare and the Tortoise. He uses his own colours. He plays with scale, and his animals have characters: roosters strut their stuff, chickens are always eating, cats always sleeping.
What I like about his work is his wonderful use of white space; there are raggedy edges and extraordinary detail. He uses a mixture of media: watercolour, wash, then he works on top with chalk or pen. There is a lot of movement there.
My work is more spiky, but I love trying to create a fantasy world and to stylise it. Children’s books allow artists of all kinds to explore their own vision, how they see the world, and that’s what Wildsmith achieves so well. Exposing children to that teaches them that there are all sorts of ways of viewing the world.
Korky Paul has created illustrations for books including the Winnie the Witch series.
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Click on the links below to find out more about these brilliant artists and their fact books for children that illustrate the strange collective nouns we use to name animals.
These two books are full of strange and fascinating collective nouns accompanied by rich illustrations drawn with flair and élan.
Though utterly different in style, both are highly recommended for kids of all ages.
Five little monsters jumping on the bed. One fell off and bumped her head. Mama called the doctor and the doctor said, “No more monsters jumping on the bed.”
Four little monsters jumping on the bed. One fell off and bumped his head. Mama called the doctor and the doctor said, “No more monsters jumping on the bed.”
(Repeat with 3 and 2)
One little monster jumping on the bed. She fell off and bumped her head. Mama called the doctor and the doctor said, “No more monsters jumping on the bed.”
More Monsters!
Five Little Monsters ver. 1
Five little monsters by the light of the moon
Stirring pudding with a wooden pudding spoon.
The first one says, “It mustn’t be runny.”
The second one says, “That would make it taste funny.”
The third one says, “It mustn’t be lumpy.”
The fourth one says, “That would make me grumpy.”
The fifth one smiles, hums a little tune,
And licks all the drippings from the wooden pudding spoon!
Five Little Monsters ver. 2
5 little monsters sleeping in my bed
5 little monsters sleeping in my bed
1 crawled out from under my spread
I called to Mama and Mama said:
“No more monsters sleeping in your bed”
(Continue until there are no little monsters and then say):
No little monsters sleeping in my bed
None crawling out from under my spread
I called to Mama and Mama said:
“There are no more monsters, go to bed!”
Five Little Monsters Sitting on the Floor ver. 1
Five little monsters sitting on the floor
The [red] one said, “Let’s knock on someone’s door.”
The [green] one said, “Let’s act a little scary.”
The [white] one said, “Why are we so hairy?”
The [blue] one said, “I hear a funny sound.”
The [pink] one said, “There’s no one else around.”
Then “WHOOSH” went the wind and “EEK!” someone said.
So five little monsters ran under the bed.
Five Little Monsters Sitting on the Floor ver. 2
Five little monsters sitting on the floor
The [xxx] one said, “Let’s knock on someone’s door.”
The [xxx] one said, “Let’s act a little scary.”
The [xxx] one said, “Why are we so hairy?”
The [xx] one said, “I hear a funny sound.”
The [x] one said, “There’s no one else around.”
Then “WHOOSH” went the wind and “EEK!” someone said.
So five little monsters ran under the bed.
COPIES OF COPIES DEPARTMENT: I am in debt to the two superbloggers below, from who I got the idea and whose beautiful felt monsters I copied for my storytime. Merci beaucoup!
Guybrarian highly recommends Clker online royalty free public domain clip art. This site has some really tasteful clip art that you can have fun modifying.
This post is my repository of my favourite Clker images, some of which I’ve had fun toying with.
Please me know if you’ve found some other great site with NICE clip art images.
When I was a student learning how to become a guybrarian, I took a number of children’s literature courses and was delighted when La Trobe University in Australia accepted my paper about Frances Hodgson Burnett for publication.
The Secret Garden was the original The Secret — a New Thought parable written for an adult audience one hundred years. The real secret of this garden is that it has, over the course of its long life, found its way into the hearts and minds of so many generations of children.
ABSTRACT
Few children’s novels have been analyzed as much as The Secret Garden. Critical readings of the novel have filtered Frances Hodgson Burnett’s story through the lens of sexual awakening, class conflict, feminist and post-colonial theory, primitivism, and paganism. This novel is more than a children’s book — part of The Secret Garden’s longevity and “classic” status is that it appeals to adults. Indeed, it is a summation of an author’s belief system deliberately aimed at readers of all ages.
This study explores the author’s life through her belief system(s) and how she incorporated her ideas about life and death in her masterpiece, a “Beautiful Thought” fable that has endured because of its essential truthfulness in characterization and message.
Frances Hodgson Burnett
by Herbert Rose Barraud
carbon print on card mount, published 1888
9 5/8 in. x 6 7/8 in. (245 mm x 175 mm)
acquired, 1950
Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery Photographs Collection NPG x5179
“Frances Hodgson Burnett in garden” courtesy of NYPL Digital Gallery Image ID: 1664096
I love just about everything about Scaredy Squirrel — the books, that is. (The cartoon version of Scaredy, shown above, is another matter altogether and I’ll leave it at that … click on the last image in this post and judge for yourself.)
The books, though … ah, what delights for kids of all ages. I mean, what’s not to love about a neurotic little rodent?
(Scaredy and I share a fondness for contingency plans.)
I’m a fan of Mélanie Watt — she deserves the success she has achieved. The Scaredy Squirrel books are fabulously fun and their message — that our fears are often baseless — is couched in copious amounts of humour.
The stories are captivating, but it is Watt’s art that initially draws the reader into Scaredy Squirrel’s world. Watt is an extremely talented writer-illustrator who deservedly won the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator’s Award and the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award for Children’s Picture Book for the first title in the series.
The little guy has gone global and now speaks 8 languages, including Japanese, Serbian, French, Korean, Spanish and Norwegian. Go Scaredy! (The Japanese title, below, is decidedly bizarre.)
Mélanie is a Kids Can Press author whose other titles include include Chester and Augustine. She lives in Montreal.
This is my fan letter to her: “Mélanie, you and Scaredy are terrifyingly terrific!”
To find out more about the amazing Ms. Watt, visit her website or Scaredy’s Facebook page, below, or Kids Can Press.
CBA Libris Award for Children’s Author of the Year
American
Won:
ALA’s Notable Children’s Books
Independent Publisher Book Awards – Picture Books 6 and under (Bronze)
Children’s and YA Bloggers’ Literary Awards – Cybils
NCTE Notable Children’s Books in Language Arts
Shortlisted:
ReadBoston 2006 Best Read Aloud Book Award
ForeWord Book of the Year Award
Washington Children’s Choice Picture Book Award
North Carolina Children’s Book Award – Picture Book
International
Won:
“Le Prix de la Librairie Millepage” in Vincennes, 2006 (France)
If you go down to the woods today You’re sure of a big surprise. If you go down to the woods today You’d better go in disguise.
For ev’ry bear that ever there was Will gather there for certain, because Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic.
Ev’ry teddy bear who’s been good Is sure of a treat today. There’s lots of marvellous things to eat And wonderful games to play.
Beneath the trees where nobody sees They’ll hide and seek as long as they please Cause that’s the way the teddy bears have their picnic.
If you go down to the woods today You’d better not go alone. It’s lovely down in the woods today So please don’t stay at home.*
For ev’ry bear that ever there was Will gather there for certain, because Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic.
Picnic time for teddy bears The little teddy bears are having a lovely time today Watch them, catch them unawares And see them picnic on their holiday.
See them gaily gad about They love to play and shout; They never have any care;
At six o’clock their mummies and daddies, Will take them home to bed, Because they’re tired little teddy bears.
Words by Jimmy Kennedy in 1932; music by John W. Bratton in 1907
* Lyric change to make the original (“But safer to stay at home.”) less scary!
Guybrarian recommends Once Upon A Felt for great felt board stories. The owners (Vesna Krcmar Lukic and Sandy Yip) are extremely talented and share my deep concern for early childhood literacy > check out their website:
A brilliant way to start storytime! Thanks, Mr. Palmer! SO HAPPY YOU’RE HERE Sing Doo wah doo, Tra la la, Yo-dle-ay, Sha na na Hi dee hi, Howdy doo It’s all a funny way to say, “We’re glad you’re here today!” Now give yourself a pat on the back Reach out and shake your own [...]
A slightly adapted version of “London Bridge” makes a great closing song for storytimes! I LOVE MY LIBRARY (Tune: “London Bridge”) Now it’s time to say goodbye, say goodbye, say goodbye. Now it’s time to say goodbye — Un-til … next time! See you at the library, library, library. See you at the [...]
New to the game of children’s librarianship, I watched an amazing puppet performance by a colleague — a fellow guybrarian — whom I truly respect. After the show, I asked his advice about puppets. His words: “Choose one and stick to it. Develop its personality and you’re set for any show.” I asked him how [...]
Ta da! … Introducing the second installment of THE INTERGALACTIC ADVENTURES of COSMIC PANDA. If you’d like to read about Cosmic Panda’s intergalactic adventures, click on the PDF at the end of the post (please be patient while it downloads — the story is 62 cards long). I’ve formatted the story to print double-sided so that you can [...]
In a previous post I wrote that I really liked YouTube’s “Cosmic Panda” Beta release graphic of a supercute panda and that I wanted to archive him for posterity by turning him into a flashcard story. Ta da! … Introducing the first installment of THE INTERGALACTIC ADVENTURES of COSMIC PANDA. If you’d like to read about [...]
