Red Reading Boots

The Sandcastle that Lola Built

Winter Books 

I have picked out a month’s worth of snowy books for the long win­tery month of Jan­u­ary. But I’m sec­ond guess­ing it now. Must our sto­ry­time be so snowy?

Lily Leads the Way

Storytime Planning! 

It’s that time of year — new sched­ules and plan­ning, new note­books and books, new activ­i­ties, and pri­or­i­ties … and a new storytime!

A Shelter for Sadness by Anne Booth and David Litchfield

A Shelter for Sadness 

Some­times, I am so touched by a book that I can­not fig­ure out how best to share it with kids. Such is the case with A Shel­ter for Sad­ness by Anne Booth and David Litchfield.

Secret Garden

The Secret Garden 

Now that books are being banned and “revised” for lan­guage used before we “knew bet­ter,” I find myself think­ing about this a lot.

literary advent calendar

A Literary Advent Calendar 

This year, I decid­ed to do a spe­cial advent cal­en­dar for them. Each day of advent there was a Christ­masy quote from lit­er­a­ture, heavy on our Christ­mas pic­ture books. And chocolates.

If You Come to Earth

If You Come to Earth by Sophie Blackwell 

I love read­ing word­less pic­ture books and pic­ture books that are very busy (think Richard Scarry’s books) with small groups of kids. My lat­est favorite of this “genre” is Sophie Blackall’s If You Come to Earth.

A Literary Bathroom

A Literary Bathroom 

And then came the time to choose a theme for the bath­room. We got the fam­i­ly togeth­er so every­one could have their say. And people…I’m so proud! Our off­spring sug­gest­ed a lit­er­ary-themed bathroom! 

Melanie Heuiser Hill

Zoom Storytime 

Nev­er did I ever think I would do sto­ry­time on a screen. I want to see those sweet faces, get the high-fives and hugs, watch their delight in a story’s twists and turns. However…needs must!

Mrs. Spitzer's Garden

Mrs. Spitzer’s Garden 

I’ve been read­ing gar­den­ing books these last few weeks. They’ve kept me enter­tained and inspired while the tem­per­a­tures warm in my own gar­den so that I can begin plant­i­ng the flats of flow­ers I have under lights in my laun­dry room.

And the People Stayed Home

And the People Stayed Home 

Per­haps you saw it. On social media, or in a chain email. A poem that seemed like a hope­ful sigh went out into the world very ear­ly in the pan­dem­ic last spring and made its rounds as quick­ly as the virus. And the peo­ple stayed home. And they lis­tened, and read books, and rest­ed, and exer­cised, and made art, and played

Mary Oliver Devotions

Reading Mary Oliver with Kids 

Sun­day morn­ings find me on zoom with a gath­er­ing of kids ages 3 – 10. We call this time Songs & Sto­ries. It is a high­light in my week. They come in their paja­mas, often eat­ing break­fast, and usu­al­ly with some “stuffies” they want to intro­duce to the group. They are full of ener­gy and good cheer. They mute and

James Herriot's Treasury for Children

The Comfort of James Herriot’s Stories 

I don’t know if you are watch­ing All Crea­tures Great and Small on Mas­ter­piece The­ater on PBS these Sun­day nights, but if you’re not, you are miss­ing some­thing wonderful.

The Very First & Last Page 

Last week I zoom-vis­it­ed a kinder­garten class to read my own pic­ture book. The class was ter­rif­ic and at the end we had a time for Q & A. They are work­ing on the dif­fer­ence between ask­ing a ques­tion and “shar­ing.” It’s an impor­tant and dif­fi­cult skill. One lit­tle girl, who might’ve been a stringer for the New York Times, or perhaps

Shall I Knit You a Hat? 

I’ve received a won­der­ful ear­ly Christ­mas gift this year — two new reg­u­lar sto­ry­times to con­duct. Both inter­est­ed in the season’s books — and do I have Christ­mas books to share! The only down­side — and I can live with it — is that it’s via the tech­nolo­gies with which we see peo­ple these days. I’m so grate­ful for the Zooms, the Face­Times, the Face­book Lives…it’s the

Poetry Teatime 

On Hal­loween morn­ing, Pooh Bear came for a vis­it on our porch. There was cof­fee for her par­ents and hot choco­late with whipped cream and sprin­kles for her, as well as a round of pas­tries for all. A love­ly morn­ing, how­ev­er dis­tanced and masked we had to remain.

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