TAKE A PEEK...THANKFUL FOR MY NEW HOME LIBRARY!

Happy Thanksgiving from our home to yours! 

At the moment, I am sitting and typing this blog post from my cozy new library/office, definitely thankful to be done with our home renovations and getting ready to be off-line for the holiday while I do my Thanksgiving baking and turkey trimming!

This time last year we were cooking in the laundry room (which is now a butler's pantry) while our kitchen was being remodeled, sleeping in our guest room while our small master bathroom was being enlarged and renovated, and basically living out of our burgundy dining room...

...which we turned into the gray-blue library/office pictured in remodel stages below!

My boxes of books (read my Bookworm post) filled up the shelves quickly!  Here's a peek...

With the help of my niece, who is an incredibly talented interior designer, we're almost done with all the finishing touches.  We still need to get a rug on the floor and some art on the walls, but we're almost there.  It's my new happy place!

If you can't find me, I'm probably there!

Which brings me to today's book, The Library by Sarah Stewart and David Small.  If you love books, you'll love this story!

Elizabeth Brown doesn't like to play with dolls and she doesn't like to skate. What she does like to do is read books. Lots of books. The only problem is that her library has gotten so big she can't even use her front door anymore. What should Elizabeth Brown do? Start her own public library, of course! With charming verse and watercolors Sarah Stewart and David Small celebrate one of America's oldest and finest institutions.

 

(The Library is a 1995 New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book of the Year and Outstanding Book of the Year.)

Library Baby

I just learned from my mother that the first street I ever lived on was "Library Place" in Evanston, Illinois. 

That explains a lot!  

I feel so at home in libraries - especially old, historic ones - with shelves full of books all waiting to be read.

Nashville Has More Than Country Music - Check Out The Library!

Nashville may be known as Music City, but did you also know the downtown has one of the coolest libraries for kids, ever??

Pictures From the Road...
Road trips are really a great way to see this great country of ours!  My husband and I both came from families who drove across the U.S.  We enjoyed it so much, we did several road trips with our own children.

And now, my daughter and her husband are continuing the tradition!  One of their stops was Nashville, TN, where they decided to make a stop at the Nashville Public Library (Main Branch).

They began their library visit at the Story Time Theatre, where the library's resident performing arts company - Wishing Chair Productions - presents a variety of shows each month featuring puppets, songs, juggling and more.

The children's department is over 25,000 sq. feet of space, with a reading area nestled within a replica of Nashville's skyline!

There is also a child-size replica of the famed Ryman Auditorium, where kids can put on their own puppet shows (puppets provided).

I hope you enjoyed this little tour.

If you've been to this gorgeous library, feel free to sing its praises in the comment section!  And if you don't live near Nashville, tell me about an amazing library you've been to (maybe it's right in your own town)!

Library Book Advent Calendar

Hello there, Mary here again--I'm WendyLady@Good Books for Young Soul's daughter, and mother of her grandchild! Over the weekend, I shared my reflections and memories of observing Advent in my childhood Orthodox Christian home.  Today, I'll be sharing about a new tradition that I'm hoping to make an annual undertaking as my own family observes Advent: making an Advent Book Calendar! For this my first attempt, I used mostly library books from two local libraries, and also a few books from my own stash. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll leave a comment on today's post, my previous post, or Good Books for Young Souls' Advent book giveaway post for the chance to win the beautiful book Can It Be True? by Susan Hill and illustrated by Valerie Greeley! Entries via comment must be made by 12pm noon Pacific Standard Time today, Monday November 17. 11/17 update: Giveaway over. Congrats to my winner was TawniM!

Now, onto the tutorial:

Step one: get some good tea--this project does take time! But is well worth the effort!

 

My son absolutely loves to read (though I understand that this is not so typical of a barely-two-year-old). He can sit with me reading to him for an hour if he's focused enough, but he also enjoys "reading" to himself. SO, making him an Advent Book Calendar seemed like the perfect way to really introduce him to the Advent season of anticipation, and especially to the story of what we are waiting for: the Nativity of Jesus Christ! We are Antiochian Orthodox Christians, and so observe a 40 day Advent from November 15-December 24. But whether you observe a 40 day Advent season or a 25 day Advent season in the month of December, this is a wonderful project and a great tradition to share with your family!

As I said about my son, he's barely-two-years-old, so for our first Advent Book Calendar this year, I tried to get a mixture of books. Finding nearly 40 GOOD Nativity and Christmas books at my local libraries--I felt like I was on a treasure hunt! Of course, I chose many books about St. Nicholas and different tellings of the Nativity story. Grandma gifted us with two wonderful Nativity books, Room for a Little One and Christmas in the Manger last year. But my local libraries provided other great versions in The First Night,  The Donkey's Christmas Song, Little Bunny Finds Christmas, The Friendly Beasts, The Story of Christmas, We Three Kings and a lovely 1952 vintage copy of Christmas in the Barn! I did also get some "seasonal" books that are by some of our favorite authors and illustrators...Jan Brett, Olivier Dunrea, Nancy Tillman, Jean de Brunhoff, Richard Scarry, Karen Katz, and Alexandra Day, to name a few. 

Gennady Spirin's ethereal illustrations depict the lyrics of the well-loved song in We Three Kings.
This might be the book I purchase this year! It looks like a medieval masterpiece!

I was so pleased to find this lovely book, Jane Ray's The Story of Christmas, at my local library!
The illustrations are absolutely beautiful and captivating, and the text is adapted directly
from the Gospel texts about the Nativity. A real treasure!



The Spirit of Christmas by Nancy Tillman.
Am I the only one who wishes my dreams were Nancy Tillman illustrations?!?!
So beautiful, I just want to jump into the book!

Here's how I did it:

Step 1 - Compile the books!

I am on a Budget (with a capital "B").  Advent is 40 days long, and buying 40 books is just not something I can afford to do right now. So I headed to my local library, and while my son played and looked at books, I went to the "Christmas" shelf in the Children's section. I found some books that were favorites from my childhood, but also some "new" treasures. Lucky for me, my library does NOT have a limit as to the amount of books I can check out (woohoo!), and I can also renew online twice (woohoo x 2!) so long as no one has requested one of my books. So off I went to the checkout with 22 Christmas books...in the second week of November. I had a couple books of my own at home, and the rest I got from another local library (I didn't want to "hog" all the good ones at the nearest library. SHARE the bookwealth, by all means!!) *NOTE: My mommy has listed some FANTASTIC Advent and Christmas books on her blog in past years, which you can see here and here and here!

Step 2 - Get organized!

Since I checked out SO many books, I needed to make a system to be sure I returned the right books to the right places. I didn't want 40 wrapped packages and then to get a notice that I had to return some due to requests and have to unwrap them all to figure out which one. I organized the books into categories: Nativity books (a big stack!), saints books (St. Nicholas, St. Lucia, the Magi), Toddler/Concept books (counting, alphabet books), and "other" (where I threw in The Nutcracker by Susan Jeffers and How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss). I kept my receipt printouts from the checkout so I could reference the titles and due dates to easily renew the books online.

Step 3 - Wrapping the books!

Plan ahead--this step takes time! I bought a giant roll of Kraft Paper at Michaels that cost $5.99 but I had a 40% off coupon for the WIN! Once I wrapped each book, I lightly wrote in pencil on the back the title and author/illustrator for each one, so that in CASE I need to return one, I know exactly how to find it. 

It saved time and paper to wrap books of the same size at the same time!
I just sliced the paper between the books and voila!

Step 4 - Number the books!

I went through and compared the books to my calendar...the first books I numbered were those surrounding feast days (St. Nicholas books were the week around his feast day on Dec. 6, St. Lucia book on her feastday Dec. 13, etc). Next, I knew we'd be out of town for a few days at Thanksgiving and did not want to risk losing library books during the weekend, so I made sure to number those books from my own stash. Finally, I chose my favorite Nativity books for the week leading up to Christmas. The rest of the books, I spread out across the remaining days using my "categories". Phew-that was hard to explain, but really quite easy to execute! I'm SO glad I wrote the names in pencil on the back!!

Step 5 - Display the books!

Pinterest search for "Advent Book Calendar" and you'll be amazed at some of the cute and creative ideas that comes up! As for me, I'm all for cuteness, but let's be practical--my kid is two. I decided to try to make part of this project reusable: I made 40 felt ornaments for a felt Christmas tree for him (so cheap and very easy!) Each package has an ornament attached, and so each day he gets to fill up his tree a bit more. And I stuck with some sticker numbers leftover from another project to number the packages. I displayed them with my son's manger scene, which is great because then it's right there to reference and re-tell the story whenever we read a Nativity book!

Step 6 - Enjoy the books!

I think that my son will really love this tradition, and I can't wait to recreate it every year as my family grows.  I hope that it will help to teach him the anticipation and even fasting that we practice during Advent. We limit ourselves to one a day, but as we open each book, we get one day closer to the Nativity! My plan is to buy my children one or two books each year for our Advent Book Calendar, so that by the time they've "outgrown" this tradition, they'll have a wonderful arsenal of Advent and Christmas books to pass along to their children! I think that using library books is GREAT for this idea because it's a FREE way to discover what books your family will love most, and to THEN make the investment into those books.

Here is Peter, opening his first book, Christmas in the Barn by Margaret Wise Brown.
He so enjoyed reading it and putting his little felt ornament on his tree!!

Other Ideas:

So thank you for letting me share my thoughts! Here are some additional thoughts I have that I wanted to share that might tailor better to your needs. If you've done an Advent Book Calendar with success in the past, please feel free to share your ideas in the comments section below!
- If you don't like the idea of wrapping, try a large box or chest with a lock (or without and trust your kids not to open it!) and let them choose one book each day!

- If you want to be even more "economical" with this project, in addition to using library books, why not wrap them in newspaper, last years' wrapping paper, Trader Joes bags (seriously, I could write a book about things I've made with these!), or even cloth! 
- If you are looking to buy books, consider buying used books online, at thrift stores, garage sales, or (my personal favorite!) find a fantastic Library Used Book Store!

- For older children, why not print out the lives of the saint(s) of the day for them to read? There's a great resource on the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese Website for this!

A WILD RUMPUS AT THE LIBRARY - HAPPY HALLOWEEN, COURTESY OF M. SENDAK!

Can you blame me?  I mean, could you have resisted buying a costume of Max's "wolf suit" (from Where the Wild Things Are) - half price - even if it meant saving it for your grandson for almost two years?

To the great delight of her local librarians, my daughter took her little two-year-old "King of the Wild Things" to their library story hour Halloween Party all dressed up and ready to make "mischief of one kind and another".  Here's a little photo blog of the day...enjoy!

The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another...

...they called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things.

"And now", cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!"

And Max, king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.

But the wild things cried, "Oh please don't go - we'll eat you up - we love you so!"  And Max said, "No!"

Like all wild things, my grandson finally had to say good-bye and head for home to a good supper. Hope you have a Happy Halloween - be safe!

Road Trip Sightseeing: Storybooks Around Every Corner (Well, Almost)!

Of course our road trip itinerary had to include stops at some libraries. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that storybooks and storybook characters are alive and well in the Mid-west - but not just in libraries...

Kansas City, Missouri - Storybook Parking? 
Check out the K.C. Public Library's awesome parking garage!  It is the highlight of the city's library district, situated across from the Central Library.  Each book spine is a 9-by-25-foot rectangle!

Historic St. Louis - Libraries and Pinnochio in a Park!
Loved this old branch library that we drove past.

We found some good St. Louis BBQ for dinner (thanks to my daughter and Yelp) and took it with us to Citygarden Park in downtown St. Louis. It's a fun place to have a picnic - lots of fountains and statues, including Pinocchio! 

I took this photo of the beautiful St. Louis Central Public Library after hours.  So sad we couldn't pop in for a visit!  (Go here for a virtual history tour.)

Fun in a Chicago library - A Storybook Dollhouse!
Downtown Chicago's grand old neoclassical style Public Library, located across from Millennium Park, no longer houses books - it is now the City Cultural Center.

The new Central Library is the impressive post-modernist style Harold Washington Library...

There is a beautiful winter garden on the 9th floor, but we only had time to check out the children's library with my grandson.

We discovered a fun Storybook Dollhouse, full of tiny characters, animals, and objects - clues to over 75 children's books, poems, and nursery rhymes!  If you're ever traveling through Chicago with children, make a quick rest stop at the library and play a fun game of "I Spy".  Here were some of our favorites...

See the shadow in the bureau drawer?

Who's this Crocodile in the tub?

See the Giant Peach? Collie? Wanted Poster of a "Dirty Dog"?

Recognize this bear in the yellow hat?  How about that Little Lamb?

Dorothy and Toto in Lincoln Park, IL?
Yes, along with the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion. Where?  At Oz Park, of course!

Children's Library in Highland Park, IL - Storybooks and...Hampsters!

My daughter took some fun pictures of the inside the wonderful Highland Park Public Library (near her new home) for me when she visited the children's area with my grandson.

The library even has little hamster friends for the kids named "Yankee Doodle" and "Dandy".

Hope you enjoyed this little tour - get out there and explore libraries (you might be surprised at what you find along the way!)

Heavenly Protection for Libraries?

The day after All Hallows' Eve is known in the West as "All Saints Day",  a feast day celebrated on November 1st by Anglicans and Roman Catholics.  (Eastern Orthodox Churches observe "The Feast of All Saints" on the first Sunday after Pentecost.)

By the hand of Maria Ciucur, of Romania - source

Did you know there is a saint who has come to be celebrated in the West as the patron of libraries and librarians?  His name is Jerome, and you can read his full story here. He was born in 346, was a great lover of books, and a translator of the Bible into Latin. (View more beautiful icons of the saint, here)

There is an interesting legend about him that involves a lion.  Rumer Godden and Margaret Hodges have both written children's books about the legend, which takes place in Bethlehem - where Jerome lived as a monk...

Today I'd like to tell you about Margaret Hodges' re-telling, because her book was given years ago to my kids by my mom and dad.  It is beautifully illustrated by Barry Moser, as you can see in my photos below.

As in the story of Androcles, Jerome makes friends with a lion by removing a thorn from his paw.

The lion stays on, his job being to guard the monastery donkey. Then the donkey disappears. The other monks think the lion has eaten it, but Jerome refuses to condemn him; instead, he requests that the lion stay to do the donkey's work. 

Eventually, the lion finds the donkey and brings it home - together with the camels belonging to the merchants who stole it. 

Moser's elegant illustrations include some exquisite calligraphy detail in brilliant red, that compliments the strong yet tender portraits of the contemplative saint and the noble lion. 
(Copyright 1991, ages 5 and up).

Have you seen my other posts and book recommendations about saints? (click on the links below)

Stories of the Saints by Ruth Sanderson

Saints of the British Isles 

A Brave Saint Named George