What holidays have you celebrated at your local public library?
Showing posts with label "52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label "52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge. Show all posts
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #21 Celebrate a Holiday
What holidays have you celebrated at your local public library?
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #20 Explore a Different Language
Want to take your passion for Mexican wrestling to a whole new level? Read all about Lucha Libre in Spanish and see how there can never be too mucha lucha.
Interested in the books above? They can be checked out from the Hollywood Regional Branch of the L.A. Public Library.
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #19 Play with Toys
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #18 Promote Literacy
In the above photo, he poses for Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar line, "In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf."
The 2010 "Read for the Record" event on October 7th will feature Ezra Jack Keats's The Snowy Day.
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #17 Play a Game

This year, National Gaming Day will be held on November 13th and promises to be" the largest, simultaneous national video game tournament ever held!" Wow, now that's some build-up. You gamers better get your thumbs ready.
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #16 Attend a Birthday Party
Although the beloved "Good Doctor" was born on March 2nd, libraries celebrate his birthday throughout early March.
Can't get enough of the amazing Dr. Seuss? Try celebrating his birthday Seuss-athon style. Click here to see what I mean.
Has anyone attended a library birthday party for a different kidlit author? Drop a comment.
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #15 Share a Bonding Moment
The dragon-adventure above began at the Hastings Ranch Branch of the Pasadena Public Library and continues to this day...
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #14 Sit Down with a Rare Book and James Joyce
I got cozy with this edition of James Joyce's The Cat and the Devil at the Los Angeles Central Library. I had to get cozy with it there because I couldn't take it home (and it had nothing to do with the $0.15 late fee on my account).
That's part of the definition of a rare book-- one you can peruse at the library but cannot check-out.
You can read more about my visit with Mr. Joyce and his contribution to kidlit by clicking here.
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #13 Internet Literacy
Note the "pirate flag" mouse pad. Rumor has it that it also doubles as a treasure map. Where can all the treasure be found? At your local public library, of course!
"52 Ways to Use a Library Card" Challenge: #12 Curl Up with a Book
Yes, this is the obvious one, #51 on the ALA's "52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" list. This photo was taken at the Pasadena Public Library's Hastings Ranch Branch.
The young lion tamer takes a reading break on a couch designed as an open book. The armrests are the spines of closed books. These cool couches can be found in libraries throughout the San Gabriel Valley of L.A. County. Give a shout-out if your library owns some, too!
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #11 Enjoy a Concert
Appearing in the photo above is the UCLA Gluck String Quartet (yes, there should be umlauts above the "u" in "Gluck," but I'll be darned if I can make it happen).
They played at the Echo Park Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library this past March. From Mozart to Irish folk tunes, the "Music and Munchies" concert was a special treat for the ears and tummy.
Heard any great music lately at your local public library?
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #10 Hire Mr. Plumbean to Do an Extreme Home-Makeover

Look no further than the picture book The Big Orange Splot. Inside is a wealth of home decorating ideas, all executed by design guru Mr. Plumbean (with a little assistance from a mysterious, paint-can-carrying seagull).
Incorporate some of these Plumbean design elements, and you can't go wrong:
*big orange splot
*little orange splots
*stripes
*elephants and lions
*pretty girls and steam shovels
*clock tower
*palm trees, baobabs, thorn bushes, onions, and frangipani
*hammock
*alligator
*nice, tall glass of cool lemonade
And this is just for your home's exterior! I hold out hope that Mr. Plumbean will invite us all inside his amazing home someday-- Inside the Big Orange Splot, if you will.
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #9 Tailless Monkeys and Online Databases

It happens to all of us. You wake up in the middle of the night with a keen urgency to research "tailless monkeys." You can't get back to sleep until you discover whether or not tailless monkeys ever inspired restaurateurs to open "South Sea" styled nite clubs in Los Angeles during the 1940's.
Well, Zamboanga!! You're in amazing luck if you follow through with #47, "Learn how to use a database or computerized catalog" on the ALA's "52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" list.
It just so happens that the library in my own backyard, L.A.P.L., carries a "Menu Collection" database online. Whew, no more insomnia! I can follow the trail of tailless monkeys 'til the cows come home, all with my handy-dandy library card.
Characters for my next picture book? Hmmmm........
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #8 Create a Passport to F(read)om
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #7 Miniature Golf Ball Marker
Even the koi in the nearby pond will stand up and take notice, especially if they see flashy colors. If there's a lot of red, a hummingbird might even dive down for a look.
On the outside chance there's a Genghis-spotting, just concede that he has the cooler library card. It's kind of a miniature-golf/Mongolian-grill-etiquette thing. Plus, he's known for being a bit ill-tempered at times. You can ask the 13th century Chinese about that one.
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #6 Become a Spoke 'n Word Advocate (Use As a Spoke Card)
Painstaking research by library card scientists has revealed that library cards secretly covet the lifestyle of another kind of card -- the spoke card.
Now it's not that library cards don't want to be library cards anymore, it's just that they wouldn't mind getting out on the open road now and then with the wind whipping against their barcodes and the smell of bike grease in, well, whatever it is they breathe through.
So, wedge your library card (or probably a color-photocopied and laminated version) between your spokes, and turn your velo-ride into a bikebrary (or biciloteca for the Spanish-speaking among you). Added bonus: your velocity will help create Velo City, and the Earth will thank you for it.
*No library cards were harmed in the staging of this photograph. The cards appearing are two Los Angeles Public Library cards and one Glendale Public Library card. And yes, they all get along famously together.
**Blog post author is not advocating that you should stick a library-card spoke card on your bike and enter an alleycat race a la fixed gear/bike messenger folk. Blog post author is advocating that you stick that special spoke card on your bike and head to the nearest library to research the history of library cards and bicycles.

Too bad I'll be getting ready to jump on-stage at the very same book fair when the ride is underway. Get this-- they're even gonna have limited edition spoke cards available! I've gotta try and get my hands on one of those.
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #5 Make a Book Do the Walking (Use Inter-Library Loan)
Both of these books came from beach-area branches to take a two-week vacation with me up in the mountains. They came in smelling like salt air, and they'll go back smelling like dusty trails. If they're good, they might even get to stay longer. Ah, the power of renewal.
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #4 Make a Fashion Statement
Still, I'm sure you all could style your very own biblio bling. There's just one thing you need to do it-- a library card. Get to it!
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #3 Eat Something Adorably Yummy
By the way, just for the record, I could never eat something that cute. But nothing's stopping you! Seek out Party Central, otherwise known as your local public library, and find something equally cute to devour. Bon Appetit!
"52 Ways to Use Your Library Card" Challenge: #2 Change the Color of Your Hands (Make Art)
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