The Weasels Are Poppin!

Folks, it was a total story time PARTY! Recently, we had the honor of collaborating with the Princeton Public Library and jaZams to bring the tremendous Betsy Bird and the terrific Andrea Tsurumi to Princeton with their new book Pop! Goes the Nursery Rhyme.

We all know Betsy Bird – author, librarian, Fuse #8 blogger for School Library Journal. Betsy has served on Newbery, reviewed for Kirkus, and written for Horn Book. She interviewed me way back in 2015, and again in 2022. And folks, I can personally attest that Betsy Bird serves up a mean round of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” for the young ones.

Joining Betsy was the extraordinarily talented Andrea Tsurumi. An author and illustrator, they hail from Philadelphia and have written and illustrated the picture books Accident!, Crab Cake, and I’m On It! as well as collaborated with a number of children’s book authors. I also learned that Andrea will personally draw any animal with a slice of pizza, which is how I scored this amazing serval illustration.

Pop! Goes the Nursery Rhyme (Union Square Kids, 2025) begins as a nursery rhyme book, but things goes quickly off the rails as a highly bombastic Weasel interrupts absolutely EVERY rhyme, much to the chagrin of the story’s narrator, a harried Secretary Bird. Kids get both the benefit of classic rhymes and the hilarious irreverence of the Weasel. It’s a wonderful and charming read-aloud, and Andrea’s jubilant and evocative illustrations build anticipation for every page turn. Our audience loved it!

Did I mention that Betsy Bird brought her own bird? Yes, she brought a custom Secretary Bird puppet who expertly mingled with kids after the story time.

Andrea also circulated the crowds with their sketch book, showing kids what original sketches look like, and answering questions.

My portion of the program was the craft project, which of course had to be an enthusiastic weasel popping out of a decorated box!

The craft was designed to serve large crowds with limited table space, so we offered a selection of stickers, a 3″ x 3″ x 2″ box, a pop word template and a weasel template printed on card stock. A poster board spring (exactly like the one Katie demonstrates here) attaches to the inside of the box with tape. Quick note: use 22″ strips of cardboard to create the appropriate length spring.

Kids were happy to grab markers and supplies and get to work on their boxes!

Families were also welcome to bring a little literacy love home, and acquire copies of the book for Betsy and Andrea to sign.That portion of the event was sponsored by jaZams, our independent, locally owned, and family run toy store. We love you jaZams!

I would like to thank everyone who made this event possible! To Betsy and Andrea for bringing such a wonderful book to our community. To Marissa Warren, Director of Youth Services at the Princeton Public Library for opening the doors of the Community Room for all to enjoy. And to Joanne Farrugia, owner of JaZams, for providing books for everyone to experience again and again!

From left to right: Joanne Farrugia, Marissa Warren, Andrea Tsurami, Betsy Bird, Dana Sheridan


Images courtesy of the Betsy Bird, Cotsen Children’s Library, and Princeton Public Library. Book cover image provided by Andrea Tsurumi.

UFO Repairs While-U-Wait

It’s a beautiful day in the galaxy, but if your spaceship’s hyperdrive starts to hyperdroop, bring it into our full service UFO repair station! We even clean windows!

We read We Are Definitely Human by X. Fang (Tundra Books, 2024). When a giant crash startles Mr. Li from his bed, and he discovers three strangers who assure him they are DEFINITELY human. A kind man at heart, Mr. Li invites the strangers back to his house and offers to help them repair their ship…errr…car. Soon, the whole community is pitching in, and the strangers depart for further adventures feeling good about the humans of planet Earth.

This book is totally hilarious, with perfect comedic timing in both its text and illustrations. It was an absolute pleasure to read aloud – make sure to leave time for laugh breaks!

You’ll need:

  • 2 sturdy paper plates
  • 1 strip of poster board (approximately 1.5″ x 22″)
  • 1 clear plastic drinking cup (I used a 2.75″ tall plastic cocktail glass)
  • Flying saucer decorating materials (more on this below!)
  • Scissors, stapler and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating
  • Hot glue

The UFOs we crafted for this story time are almost identical to the zip line ships from this 2015 post (you’ll find the full instructions here). Basically, the UFO is two paper plates with a circlet of poster board between them, a plastic cup cockpit, and a lot of fun supplies (tin foil, embossed foil paper, sparkle stems, dot stickers, and some glitter stars).

finished saucer

We did makes some modifications. We skipped the rocket boosters underneath this time, swapped the pom pom alien for a toilet paper tube alien, and replaced the paperclip on top of the cockpit with a loop of clear beading cord.

But the thing that really made this story time one of the best of the year so far? The UFO repair shop!

I’ve been working with kids for decades, and sometimes I forget how powerful a box, tin foil, strand of lights, mesh tubing, and drinking straws can be. That’s basically all I used to create this repair shop. But the reaction to the set up was so powerful – customers lined up for a solid 20 minutes, coming back repeatedly with new and unique problems their UFOs were experiencing. I would hand them them the repair “wands” and we would boop and bleep our way to fixing the engines.

We also managed to do a bit of upcycling…you might recognize the strand of red lights from Katie’s awesome 2019 holiday creation, or the white coveralls from our story time stint as sanitation superstars.

The Great Catsby

It’s the party to end all parties, old sport! To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of “The Great Gatsby” this April, Princeton University Library held a suite of on- and off-campus programming inspired by the library’s significant F. Scott Fitzgerald and “The Great Gatsby” related holdings. The Cotsen Children’s Library joined the festivities with our own event full of frivolity and splendor with a decidedly feline twist. We called it…“The Great Catsby!”

We don’t normally do decor at our events, but we we couldn’t resist decking the gallery out with dazzling gold tinsel and Art Deco photo backdrops. Luckily, “Gatsby” is a popular prom theme, so there was no shortage of inexpensive resources to choose from.

As some of you may have already guessed, the gold tinsel almost stole the entire show. Kids ran through it, swatted it, wore it as hair, and sat quietly with it tickling their faces. They also pulled it out in handfuls and threw it all over the gallery. It was a total mess after the event, and we’re still finding strands of tinsel in the library, but it was worth it!

At the back of the gallery, amidst strains of period jazz music, was cat mask decorating. We offered metallic markers, gold leaves, twisteez wire, stickers, glitter shapes, tiny bows, self-adhesive jewels, feathers, and metallic paper. There were three types of white paper masks to choose from. The most popular by far was the full cat face:

We also offered a smaller, more focused art activity elsewhere in the gallery – coloring sheets that featured the work of British artist Louis Wain, who was popular during the Gatsby era! Wain became famous for his drawings of cats depicted with human-like appearance and behavior, and we pulled images from our special collections to share with the community.

If you’d like to try the Louis Wain coloring sheets yourself (and others from our collections), visit Coloring Cotsen, our coloring sheet central!

For the adventurous, we ran a “Literary Cats Scavenger Hunt” in the gallery during the event. Kids were invited to find 10 page-famous cats: The Cat in the Hat, The Cheshire Cat, Crookshanks, Felix, Garfield, Hobbes, Pete, Puss in Boots, Skippyjon Jones, and Tigger. There was also a cameo appearance of Zelda Fitzgerald’s kitty, Chopin.

It was interesting to see which literary cats kids were familiar with, and which ones completely stumped them. The two most recognized were The Cat in Hat and Hobbes, and the two least recognized were Felix and Crookshanks.

Speaking of familiar cats, we thought it would be fun to ask library staff to submit portraits for a “Match the Librarian to Their Cat” game. Hint: staff wore their cat’s colors, and even hilariously replicated their poses and expressions.

Our Great Catsby event was also a cat food drive to benefit SAVE, our local animal shelter and all around wonderful organization! Founded in 1941, SAVE is a non-profit that strives to shelter, foster, heal, and re-home dogs and cats.

What can we say? It was a PARTY! The Great Catsby was light, lively, festive, and fun. Best of all, SAVE shelter was gifted lots of cat food for kitties waiting for their forever homes!

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Many thanks to staff members Maria Gorbunova, Morgan Kirkpatrick, Hilary Murusmith, Lisa Read, Emma Sarconi, Dana Sheridan, Eric White, and feline friends Beatrix, Benny, Cleo, George, Saoirse, Sneeze and Qalilaan for participating in the matching game!

Blog artwork by WildmenagerieArt