New Year, New Programs

It’s a brand new year, we have a brand new space, and the Children’s Department has a bunch of brand new programs to share with you in 2014! Here are some of the highlights for the January Calendar:

Jurassic January: Little kids love dinosaurs so roar with us every Tuesday at 4 pm during “Jurassic January” where we’ll read about dinosaurs, play cool dino learning games, and make crafts! Perfect for kids from pre-K through 2nd grade. Tuesdays at 4 pm in January.

Block Party: Our popular Block Party is back. Build with Legos, waffle blocks, and connector straws to create a cool design. Thursday 1/16 at 4 pm.

Wrestling Club’s Internet Scavenger Hunt: Win tickets to see WWE Live by hunting down the clues on the library’s first ever Internet Scavenger Hunt. Download a form here. Need help? Ask a librarian or visit us on Saturday 1/11 at 11 am for Wrestling Club where we’ll also be reading about WWE superstar Daniel Bryan.

Barbie Girls: Barbie Girls is back! Bring your favorite doll and join us for books and activities starring Barbie. Saturday 1/18 at 12:30 pm.

Spongebob Shindig: Everyone’s favorite cartoon sponge is the star of this party, where we’ll be reading books, playing party games, and making crafts inspired by Spongebob and his friends in Bikini Bottom. 1/24 at 4 pm.

Welcome Back!

The Main Library reopened this morning! It feels great to be back, but what a very long journey it has been! Over the past three weeks, we've been unpacking hundred of boxes. Check out some of the photos of our progress, and stop in to see the final result itself!

Boxes! This was actually taken after we put all of our novels away. We had to get rid of those boxes to make room for more boxes!

Our learning tower of book boxes.

 

 most of the non-fiction books are done and we could start to see the floor again.

 

 Finally ready for opening day. What do you think?

Our first ever Internet Scavenger Hunt!

December’s Wrestling Club is cancelled while we put the Main Library back in order. In the meantime, you can enter our INTERNET SCAVENGER HUNT. Visit these websites, hunt down these clues, and you could win 4 tickets to WWE Live at the Santander Arena in January!

Get a copy of the scavenger hunt HERE!
(Hint: One of the clues is right here on this blog!!!)

Need help with your scavenger hunt form? Want to talk with other kids about wrestling? Then come to the library's Wrestling Club on January 11th where we'll be reading about Daniel Bryan! 

Packing Up the popUP!

It’s official: Saturday, November 30 is the last day at the popUP Library. We’re going to spend much of December packing up, moving back down to the Main Library, and unpacking to set up for our reopening on December 26, 2013. 

 

Stay tuned to this blog for info about December program cancellation (sorry Wrestling Club), sneak peeks at our space, and other information! 

Clue #3

Miss Marissa secretly meets with library luchador Juan de las plantas magicas to break some bad news to him. Which book does Juan leave behind?

Do you recognize the secret location?

Who was that masked man? Miss Marissa and Miss Kim spent a whole episode of Storyweb trying to figure it out. If you want to know more about the library luchador, watch the episode HERE.

Do you need an INTERNET SCAVENGER HUNT contest form? Click HERE.

Sandy's Spooky Stories

Sandy, age 14, loves a good scare. She has been visiting the library since she was 6 years old and has tore though many of our scary novels. Which story does she think will scare your socks off?

“I always loved reading In a Dark, Dark Room,” Sandy says. “It’s basically a child’s first horror story.” 

In a Dark, Dark Room is a classic chapter book written by Alvin Schwartz, of Scary Stories to Tell in a Dark fame. 

One of the spookier stories in this collection, “The Green Ribbon,” is about a woman who always wears a decorative ribbon knotted tightly around her neck. “It always made me think ‘Why didn’t she take it off?’ or ‘Why didn’t she tell her husband her secret?,’” Sandy said. What is the woman’s secret? You’ll have to read to find out! 

Sandy says she is interested in the stories behind ghosts. For older kids and parents she recommends Berks the Bizarre by Charles J. Adams, a local author specializing in ghost stories from Reading and Berks County. 

“I read the stories that mention Reading in them,” Sandy says. “I wanted to find this house [mentioned in one of the stories]. It’s near a graveyard and haunted by a lady in white. It was near St. Peter’s Church.” 

Sandy recently began writing, but isn’t specializing in the spooky genre. Instead, she’s writing fan fiction and sharing it online with her friends. 

Use our Catalog to find more books by Alvin Schwartz by clicking HERE.

Find more books written by Charles J. Adams by clicking HERE.

Measuring Up at Wrestling Club

At our last Wrestling Club, we read about high-flying luchador, Rey Mysterio. Despite being only 5’6”, Rey Mysterio has defeated opponents much, much bigger than him. Just how much bigger than him? Wrestling Club decided to find out.

Check out the height chart the club worked on together to see how we stack up to Rey Mysterio and other wrestling superstars.

After reading about Mysterio and other luchadors, we used books and wrestling encyclopedias to look up his height and the heights of other wrestlers.We also measured ourselves to see how we stacked up!

Most of us were taller than Hornswoggle, but still shorter than Rey Mysterio. However, no one was as tall as wrestlers like The Big Show or the Great Khali. The tallest wrestler we found was Giant Gonzalez who was billed as 8 feet tall! The biggest surprise for us was that the Undertaker was "only" 6' 10" compared to his brother Kane who is 7 feet tall.We were expecting Undertaker to be taller.

After our experiment, we made lucha libre masks and watched Rey in action against another luchador we read about in our books, Eddie Guerrero!

Super Readers

Luis, age 15, has been visiting the library regularly since he was 8 years old. He’s read a ton of books from our library, especially comics. In fact, he’s such a huge fan of Marvel Comics that his nickname growing up was “Spider-man Luis.” 

So what does he recommend? 

Amazing Spider-man, of course! He suggests kids get in touch with the original Spider-man, the stories by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, before seeing the blockbuster films. 

 “Kids should see how the original writer intended Spider-man to be,” Luis said. “They can compare and contrast [to the films] and see which version they like best.”

Of all the superheroes out there, why Spider-man? 

“Spider-man is more relatable to kids growing up or teens having financial problems,” Luis explained. “Spider-man isn’t like Iron Man who is rich and has armor or the X-men who have powers and don’t have to worry about money. Spider-man doesn’t have a mentor. He just walks around in his tights with no money. He’s having a hard time trying to take care of his Aunt. The press and police hate him. He has no one to help him but himself."

Are you interested in finding some great superhero stories? Click the link to find some of the books Luis talked about: Spider-Man books in Berks County libraries

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Reading with the Reading Royals

The Kelly Cup champion READING ROYALS stopped by the popUP library for a special visit. The Royals read "Dino-Hockey," answered questions posed by kids, signed autographs, and even lent a hand while we made a hockey craft. Slapshot got in on the fun, high-fiving kids and posing for photos.

Reading is Reading: Mr. John

One of the first faces you see as you enter the library is Mr. John, the security guard. It’s his job to make sure everyone is safe and to help families when they need him. He’s also a big fan of non-fiction! What does he recommend from our library?

The DK Eyewitness Reader series is his favorite. “There’s so many of them,” Mr. John said. “I could get lost in them.”

  

Each book is about a different topic with lots of great photographs, tons of information, and even a CD of photographs for your computer. From gemstones and  Russian history to mummies and astronomy, the Eyewitness Reader series seems to have a book for everything.  

 “Even if you have background knowledge in a subject, you can always learn something new when you page through an Eyewitness Reader,” Mr. John said. 

More Lego Fun!

Here are more photos of some cool designs from our most recent Lego Club meeting. We were visited by an after school group who enjoyed learning how to make superheroes and build their own skyscrapers!

Superman watches over the Children's Dept. at the popUP.

 

Kids work together to find the pieces they need. 

Batman joins the party!

This is a dog with super long legs.

Wonder Woman joins this superhero team!

A new Super Mario joins the others at Lego Club!

Halloween Spirit

Halloween is slowly creeping up on us... Get into the spooky spirit with some scary stories. Visit our Pinterest board below for some of our library-tested and approved favorites:

CLICK HERE!

Spooky Story Contest

Are you a fan of spooky stories? Try writing your own and enter our Bunnicula-inspired Spooky Story Contest. The winning writer will receive 4 FRONT ROW tickets to see the Miller Center presentation of Bunnicula, a play based on a spooky novel about the scariest, spookiest animal you’ll ever read about: a vampire bunny!