We had another terrific creative writing class for ages 5-8 with author-illustrator Ashlyn Anstee, who created the books Are We There, Yeti? and No, No, Gnome! Kids had a great time making up a funny character with crazy attributes, and coming up with a problem for him and a solution, […]
Lucha Libros: Haunted Castle on Hallow’s Eve
Published on :Things went much smoother at our most recent Lucha Libros battle on November 2nd. I noticed we had slightly lower attendance than last month… World Series Game 7, perhaps? 😉 (It’s okay, I forgive you–after all it was a historic game.) We had a few new systems to manage the […]
Project Designation 10/29/16
Published on :On Saturday, October 29, we had our Project Designation graphic design class for ages 11-14 in the Studio on 4th. Kids learned some concepts and tricks of graphic design, learned how to work with Pixlr editor, and got to design and print their own framed dry-erase weekly schedule. They also […]
Lucha Libros: Junie B Jones and a Little Monkey Business
Published on :Last night there was a long line here in the Central Library great hall–around 120 people came to support their 2nd and 3rd grade students in answering questions about the book Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business (in Spanish Junie B. Jones y el negocio del mono) by […]
Kids’ Writing Workshop: The Erasmus Game
Published on :On Friday, Sept. 23 in our Kids’ Writing Workshop for children ages 8-12, we played something called “The Erasmus Game,” which I got to learn from PCC professor and YA author E. Katherine Kottaras. This exercise is based on Chapter 33 of the book Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style […]
A Pig Parade is a Terrible Idea: Creative Writing for Beginning Readers
Published on :This month’s Creative Writing for Beginning Reader’s workshop (for ages 5-8) was inspired by the book A Pig Parade is a Terrible Idea by Michael Ian Black and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes. It’s a hilarious picture book that is all about contrasting the bright, shiny parade in the narrator’s imagination: […]
Roald Dahl 100
Published on :We had 45 people come to our Roald Dahl 100 Celebration on Tuesday, September 13th, the centennial of Roald Dahl’s birth! Mr. Nick told us all about Dahl’s life and how his life sometimes inspired his fiction and his writing style. We did a quiz, a word search, and a […]
Kids’ Writing Workshop with Tracy Holczer
Published on :On Friday, August 26, we had Tracy Holczer here at the Pasadena Public Library children’s story room to teach creative writing to kids aged 8-12. Tracy Holczer wrote the gorgeous middle grade novel The Secret Hum of a Daisy. We discussed lots of things: reading, how to write a good […]
Curiosity Machine: Build a Balanced Dinosaur
Published on :On Thursday, August 25th, while the rest of the library was closed early, kids and their parents were hanging out here in the children’s Story Room learning about paleontology and center of gravity, and building their own dinosaurs! I showed a slide show about how scientists’ concepts of dinosaurs has […]
Creative Writing for Beginning Readers: The Wonderful World of Poems with Cassidy Kao
Published on :On August 9, 2016, a young self-published poet named Cassidy Kao, age 10, taught our Creative Writing for Beginning Readers class for kids between 5 and 8 years old. She explained four different kinds of poems to us and then the kids worked individually with their parents to write their […]