Valentine's Day Ideas

One of the ideas I have always had for Valentine's Day is the creation of a Valentine Mailbox utilizing either a shoe box or a Kleenex box (especially as Kleenex boxes already have built-in slits for Valentine cards to go through). The book Queen of Hearts by Mary Engelbreit gave me some of the ideas for the Valentine mailbox. If you haven't read it, please do! It's one of the best Valentine picture books I've come across, and it introduced me to Mary Engelbreit. I have now fallen in love with her dog and Scottie illustrations.

Ask for donations of Kleenex boxes early to make sure you have a good amount for the number of children you expect at your St. Valentine's Day event. You can cover the boxes with construction paper beforehand, or allow the children to cover them on their own. Use die cuts to create shapes such as hearts, castles, fairies, dragons, and other Valentine-related shapes. These can be used to decorate the box. The children can then use the box as a mailbox for all of their Valentine cards.

I have not yet managed to collect the 30 boxes I was hoping to have by Valentine's Day, so I came up with a quick and easy craft that children could do if there were not enough boxes. As it turns out, I love this craft just as much, and I'm not sure which of the two is my favorite. This craft consists of cutting the top of a brown paper bag about an inch or so, and decorating it with a Cat, Dog, or Giraffe template and heart. I found this adorable idea over at Craft of the Day, a daily craft blog from the makers of The Best Kids Book Site. There is also a very cute Panda Bear template you can use as well.

You can also check out this adorable Dog Box for Valentine Cards from DLTK.

And finally, this last craft was originally from Family Fun (by Disney, which is now Spoonful, I believe). You take the Conversation Hearts by Brachs or Sweethearts (there are also some small Valentine tattoos at the stores that would work), and you cover them with construction paper and an iPod template to create the illusion that it is an iPod. You can pretty much use any candy, however. There was a box of 30 Twizzlers and Jolly Ranchers (15 of each) that was much cheaper than buying conversation hearts, and that is what I decided to use. The candies were covered with construction paper and tape, and the iPod template was glued on the front. The adorable iPod template was incredibly hard to find, especially with the moving around on the Family Fun crafts site to the Spoonful site, but I was able to find it. I can't find the exact link I used, but I did find it available for download on this site. The iPod (or iLove) shows Valentine songs, but you can edit the template to add your own songs. For this craft, I added the following book titles: Bunnicula, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Goosebumps, and Harry Potter. 

You can see Reese's candy because you can add two strings to the iLove and attach one Reese's peanut butter cup (small) to each string to create headphones! Very cute indeed.

You can visit these websites to see how others have created Valentine iPods.

U Create Crafts

Y2K Mom

MeckMom

Mom's Crafty Space

Picture Book of the Month: Otto the Book Bear

To coincide with National Library Card Sign Up Month (and because this book is just too darn incredible to pass up), the Picture Book of the Month for September is Otto the Book Bear by Katie Cleminson.

One of the reasons I picked up this book is because of the books on the cover. I really love books about books. I also really love the little bear, Otto. I have a small teddy bear (as I'm sure many children do) that reminded me so much of Otto. I think children would love to see Otto, partly because he comes to life and comes out of his book.

The illustrations in this book are absolutely beautiful, and it is a lot of fun looking through and finding the literary characters included within the book. Otto's adventure is something that children will enjoy following, and his happy ending will leave everyone - adults included - feeling good inside. The possibility of characters in books coming to life is something I feel children - and anyone really - will enjoy. I hope to own my own copy for my picture book library someday soon.

Pokemon for Libraries

Picture Book of the Month: City Dog, Country Frog

It has been quite a while (more than a year) since I last made a Picture Book of the Month post. I want to start posting one picture book every month from now on. This picture book will count for August and I'll post the September Picture Book of the Month in a few days.

For August, the picture book I've chosen is City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems, illustrated by Jon J Muth. I really love everything about this book: the characters, the illustrations, the dedications, and the message on the back of the book.

The writing is so crisp and clean, so simple but so beautiful. As you follow City Dog and Country Frog and see them become good friends, as you see the beautiful seasons pass by, you begin to wonder what will happen next season. When Fall comes around, you begin to feel somewhat of a sadness in your heart, and Winter just breaks your heart.

This is an absolute must-have book for every library. Young children and adults will both enjoy this book and understand what has happened. This book teaches us to appreciate those we love and care about and to spend as much time with them. I definitely plan on purchasing this book for my personal library in the future.

It is, as the back states, "a heartfelt meditation on time and the lasting impact of friendship." It is "a reflection on the natural course of friendship - and life - that will resonate with readers of all ages."

Similar Books

Every so often I find books that are really similar to one another and I've started a document with all of the similar books grouped together. I've been able to suggest books to children based on this list of books I've gathered, and I've been wanting to post it for others to be able to use for some time. This will be the first of the groups, and all of the posts with similar books will have the same tag in case you are looking for more themes. I will continue to edit the posts as I add more similar books to groups I have already posted.

For this first theme I am going with some of my favorite books (although you will find that all of these books are wonderful!). All of these books have animals that write help columns or letters. Animals + Writing = Awesome!!

 





Harry Potter Kids Club

Rowling Webcast Will Promote New Potter Kids Club

Associated Press, Tue, July 31, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) — J.K. Rowling's next book is for adults, but she will be on hand this fall to help promote a new club for kids, the Harry Potter Reading Club.

Scholastic Inc. announced Tuesday that Rowling will participate in a live webcast at noon, Oct. 11 from her hometown of Edinburgh, Scotland, taking live questions from her young fans for the first time since 2007, when the last Potter book came out. The discussion will take place on www.scholastic.com/hpreadingclub , the website for an online Potter club launched Tuesday by Scholastic.

Designed for schools and libraries and parents, the new club will include discussion guides, a glossary, interactive features and information on community events. Rowling will contribute original commentary. She has a novel for grown-ups out in September, "The Casual Vacancy."

[Source]

I really love this! It would be my dream to have this at the library where I work!

If Reading was an Olympic Sporting Event