Free Storytime Activities

Check out these great storytime activities offered in PDF form by the Vermont Center for the Book on their Mother Goose Programs website.

Coming soon…

I just looked through The Big Bell and the Little Bell which will be coming soon to a library near you. It’s a picture book of the 1954 Martin Kalmanoff song about a king, a big bell and a little bell. The moral of the story: “Yes, a great big bell makes a mighty sound, and a little bell just makes a tiny clink. But as you can see…Those who make the biggest noise aren’t always as important as they think.” What attracted me to the book was the music CD that accompanies is. It includes the original Julius LaRosa recording as well as a new recording. It’s a cute story and a catchy old song. Could be fun to read the story in storytime then play the song(s) accompanied by the attendees ringing bells!

*Because this is not a reading of the full text of the book, it will be cataloged as an E, not an ECD.

Coming soon to a library near you…

I just got back from rummaging around the new books trucks out in the annex garage and we have some good stuff headed your way!

Where’s My Mummy by Carolyn Crimi:  A baby mummy and his mummy mummy play a game of hide and shriek before bed.  While looking for his mummy, he runs into several scary monsters…but he’s not afraid of any of them…he’s afraid of the mouse!  I’d love to pair this story with Big Bad Bunny by Billingsley for a fun, “scary” storytime.

Everybody is getting a copy of If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Numeroff.  It’s sure to get as many laughs as the previous books in the series.

Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles #2: A Giant Problem has 14 holds on it, so you probably won’t see it on your shelves for awhile.

Olympic National Park by Jankowski includes photos and information on Olympic National Park as well as a password to log on to the website, myreportlinks.com, which lists helpful web links on the topic.

Patron with a biography assignment?  Hand them (esp reluctant reading boys,) Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing up Scieszka by Jon Scieszka.  At just over 100 pages, I think it’s the perfect length for the biography assignment.  School Library Journal gave it a starred review and said, “
Just try to keep kids away from this collection. Entertaining and fast-moving, silly and sweet, this homage to family life is not to be missed.”

Are elephants really afraid of mice?  Does lightning ever strike twice?  Find the answers to these and many more myths, mistakes, and misconceptions in, Actually, Factually by Guy Campbell.

A few weeks ago I was talking about the Noel Streatfeild books, Ballet Shoes, Theater Shoes, etc., and their continuing popularity.  Well I just noticed that we have several copies of the BBC’s Ballet Shoes DVD waiting for processing.  This is the 2007 version with Emma Watson, (of Harry Potter fame,) and is sure to be a hit.  Try and make a connection with the books through display or discussion!

New books

I just browsed the new book carts in the warehouse and a few books stood out. The Aliens are Coming by Colin McNaughton looks like a fun storytime book. The rhyming text describes the aliens that are on their way to conquer earth and the silly illustrations will have kids scrambling to get an up-close look at the details. It ends with a fun twist that should leave your audience in giggles.

Curse of the Night Wolf, the first in the new Barnaby Grimes series, should attract fans of horror and The Edge Chronicles. Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell (co-authors of The Edge Chronicles,) have teamed up again for this new series. The next installment, Return of the Emerald Skull, is due out in February ‘09. No word on when the third one, Legion of the Dead, will be published in the US.

And for your Adventures in Odyssey fans, we just received Adventures in Odyssey: The Official Guide, and it already has several holds!

In a Blue Room

A mother and daughter go through their bedtime routine in the sweet, new book, In a Blue Room by Jim Averbeck. If I was still doing Pajama Time Storytime, this one would get regular rotation. And there’s been some Caldecott buzz about this title.