Story hour started again yesterday. The kids came into the library while I was assisting a patron in finding some books. Since that is one of my most favorite things to do, we got started a little late. Since I also hadn't done much planning ahead, we got started a little later than late. I guess I'm a fly by the seat of my pants worker. And yet, things turned out fabulous.
I don't know where the idea came from exactly, but I decided we should read The Red Book by Barbara Lehman and Muffel and Plums by Lilo Fromm.
Find the similarity between these two very different books. Ah ha, the similarity is that there aren't any words. Stories told using just pictures are an interesting thing, especially with kids who've been in school for a couple of weeks where much of their work involves words.
We're a very small community. At the beginning of story hour I only had two kids in the room with me. After the two books one of them left because his mom came to get him. The child remaining poked her head out the door to yell "Hi" to her cousin playing in the park. After a few minutes he wandered in and not long after that a friend of his walked past the door and was enticed to join us.
After making the late-comers read the books, they joined us in making our own books of stories without words. They seemed to have a lot of fun. The three kids and I made a total of about six and a half books (the half was mine). They were kind enough to draw bar code labels on them so that they could be checked out by some of our other patrons.
Now, a person does not create a book without words without talking. At least they don't when they're in a group. It was fun to join in their conversations about books, library cards, and the colors best used in making a girl's hair; among other things. It was interesting to note how difficult we all found it to tell a story without using words. Mostly, we told our stories using a bare minimum of words.
A picture is worth a thousand words. I looked to find where that saying came from, but it's not completely clear who said it first. I was surprise to find the quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte on one quote site. I think a picture is sometimes worth more, sometimes less than the thousand words.
After story hour was over, the kids set up their books along the shelf where our new books can be found. A few hours later, one of the kids brought in a friend to show him the books he made.
How great is that?
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