I have been giving my son, Evan, kissing hands for 2 years now. What is a kissing hand, you ask? It is a kiss to the palm of his hand that he presses against his cheek, his heart, and puts into his pocket to save for later. We first heard about kissing hands when he started preschool, and his teacher read
The Kissing Hand, by Audrey Penn. We got even more into kissing hands when his baby brother was born 2 years ago, and we read
A Pocket Full of Kisses. In fact, just this morning, he told me that sometimes he uses the kissing hands he keeps in his pocket when he is feeling scared or nervous about something.
Audrey Penn writes a series of books about Chester Raccoon that help children adjust to stressors in their lives: starting school, a new sibling, a bully, death of a friend, etc. They're sweet books, easy to relate to for the kids, and I recommend them when kids are facing adversity.
There once was an exclamation point who felt like he didn't belong. He tried a bunch of sentences, but he just didn't fit in. He found that other punctuation marks served themselves well in sentences, like commas, periods, and question marks. He wanted to be important like all the others. It wasn't until through a friend that he found just the right sentence, then he belonged and made his special mark! Touching on how each individual person is important and that anyone can make a difference, Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal does just that...by making your own mark!
Zomba! Marimba Ensemble from Alberta Rider Elementary School will be joining us for our Super Tuesday on May 14th at 7 p.m. in the Burgess Community Room. The marimba and drum ensemble is made up of after school 5th graders who perform a variety of music from American folk songs to traditional Zimbabwean songs, all of which is played on handmade marimbas! This is quite the unique and enrching musical experience for these young musicians, and I gotta tell you, they sound AMAZING! Come support local young musicians for one incrdible evening of percussion music that is pleasing to the ear...one you won't forget!
The 2013 Beverly Cleary Children's Choice Award winner has been announced! The winning book is Lulu and the Brontosaurus by Judith Viorst. This is the story about Lulu and how her parents refuse to give in when she demands a
brontosaurus for her birthday. So she sets out into the woods to find her own dinosaur. But when Lulu finds a
brontosaurus, she learns that her potential pet has other intentions. 
