Cotsen Makes Jersey’s Best!

Dr. Dana and Katie hit the small screen in this absolutely wonderful feature by Jersey’s Best magazine!

When the talented Kendal Lambert reached out to us about a Jersey’s Best magazine article and a Just in Jersey video feature, we were thrilled! We really think she captured the fun and playful nature of our literacy work, and we can’t thank her enough. And she looks fabulous with The Very Hungry Caterpillar…

If you’d like to read the article, you will find that here. For the video, follow this link.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Happy Year of the Horse! Today, I absolutely had to share the outstanding artistry of Princeton University staff member Asumi Shibata, Senior Bibliographic Specialist in the East Asian Library. She casually posted these images in a group work channel and my jaw just dropped.

Her gorgeous collage was created for display on the bulletin board in the East Asian Library kitchen, and is made almost entirely of recycled book covers!

Look at the details on the paper flowers!

In addition to horses, Asumi crafted fish for the collage, explaining that “in the Chinese blessing 年年有余 (roughly means may your year be prosperous) prosperity sounds like fish.” Fish gets its auspicious meaning from one of its homophones(鱼fish and 余extra have the same pronunciation “yu”). Having fish thus symbolizes having “extra,” i.e. abundance.

Thank you for sharing your extraordinary talents with us Asumi! This is so beautiful!

Coloring Cotsen: Aquarium Comicum

The current special exhibition inside the Cotsen Children’s Library, “Sixpenny Stunners,” is a charming collection of illustrated children’s tales cleverly printed in pamphlet form.

One of the stories included in the exhibition, Aquarium Comicum, is a hilarious poem about the realm of King Sturgeon and his nemesis, the rebellious Octopus, and how peace between the two rivals was eventually restored with help from Lord Mayor John Dory. The illustrations are super quirky and fun, and Katie wanted to share a few of them for Coloring Cotsen!

The Toronto Public Library has a digital version of the Aquarium Comicum for anyone who would like to read more about the pamphlet’s cast of characters or sing the accompanying music score. There is also much more to learn about the “Sixpenny Stunners” exhibition on Cotsen’s curatorial blog.