Tag Archives: story time

Barbarians? We Got ‘Em!

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It’s time to get loud, proud, raucous, and rowdy…the barbarians have arrived at story time!

We read Great, Now We’ve Got Barbarians! Written by Jason Carter Eaton, and illustrated by Mark Fearing (Candlewick Press, 2016). When a young man refuses to follow his mom’s orders to clean his room, he doesn’t just get pests…he gets barbarians! Soon they’re chomping cheese curls, infesting the garage, stealing pillows to make forts, and having crumb wars. Exasperated and desperate, the boy finally cleans his room. Thankfully, the barbarians skulk away. Things are peaceful again…until the boy lets the bathtub overflow one night and…oh no! PIRATES!

This story time project is a fantastic example of how we upcycle materials and reuse items from other programs. With the exception of the helmet, this entire project was sourced from previously used materials! Let’s take a look…

The barbarian costume basically consist of a helmet, tunic, belt, and sword. The helmet instructions can be found in this post. The tunics were cut from the white fabric photo backdrop we used at our thrift store costumes challenge. You can see it here, right behind Veruca Salt…

veruca-salt-costume

The brown and gold belts for the barbarian costumes were cut from yet another photo backdrop, this time from our Great Catsby event!

Two children standing in front of a decorative art deco curtain while an adult takes their photo.

The tunics were topped of with “fur” (i.e. brown felt that found its way to our library from a campus theater production). We used some metallic markers, metallic dot stickers, plastic jewels, and masking tape to fancy everything up. As you can see, we had some seriously awesome barbarian duds!

But the runaway favorite of the entire ensemble were the swords. The foam shafts are retired archival foam spine support strips from the Special Collections reading room. We pushed the foam into toilet paper tube hilts and decorated them lavishly.

Then we screamed and had sword fights for over 20 minutes. It was right before the holidays, so it was an absolutely perfect high energy, low mess story time!

A Very Spirited Performance

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Turn down the lights and astound your audience with tales of adventures, hauntings, and astounding plot twists! Best of all, no special screen needed…it’s parchment paper from your home pantry.

We read Gilbert the Ghost by Guido Van Genechten (Clavis, 2014). Gilbert is not like the other ghosts at Ghost School. For starters, he was born blush, not ghostly white. And while other ghosts are shouting “Booooo!” Gilbert can only say “Ba…ba…bahoo!” For this, he is banished to the Abandoned Tower. But it’s not quite abandoned, and thus begins Gilbert’s wonderful friendship with Meow the cat. The roommates claim the tower for their own, and make it into the coziest little haunt you’ve ever seen. Soon, there are many visitors, but only one ghost who can say “Bahoo!”

You’ll need:

  • A rectangle of corrugated cardboard (we used a 10″ x 14″ cake pad)
  • A theater banner from the template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ paper
  • Small boxes to prop the theater up
  • Parchment paper
  • Black poster board
  • 3 drinking straws
  • 2 LED votive candles
  • Scissors and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating
  • Box cutter
  • Hot glue

To create the front of your theater, cut a window into a piece of corrugated cardboard. Then use markers to decorate the cardboard stage (or use patterned tape and star stickers like we did). Add a banner from the template, and you’re done!

Flip the cardboard over, then tape or hot glue a piece of parchment paper on top of the window. This is your theater screen. Attach a strip of poster board to the bottom of the screen to create a pocket for your scenery to sit in during performances. Finish by hot gluing small boxes to the base to prop your theater up, making sure they are tall enough for two LED lights to stand on either side of the screen.

Now for the entertainment! Cut 3 pieces of scenery and 3 puppets from black poster board, then tape drinking straws to the top of the puppets.

It’s showtime! Fire up those LED votive lights and enjoy!

And while we had some wonderful ghostly tales being told at Ethan’s Pika Theater…

And some intrepid cats on adventures elsewhere in the library…

At Seraphina’s theater, there were some distinct holiday vibes happening!

Pretty Poisonous Posies

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It’s perhaps one of our most spectacular story times yet! Not only did kids get to craft the poison garden of their dreams, they got to visit a very mysterious garden in the library, and meet two very special guests!

We read Millie Fleur’s Poison Garden by Christy Mandlin (Orchard Books, 2024). When Millie Fleur La Fae and her mother move to Garden Glen, they quickly discover that the community appreciates sameness, right down to the prim matching hedges. It does not appreciate the unusual, odd, creepy, and (sometimes) poisonous plants in Millie’s garden. Ignoring the negativity, Millie invites her classmates to explore the wonderful weirdness of her garden. As more and more people show up for a tour, quirky new plants pop up around the neighborhood, making it a special place for all. Fun fact: the author was inspired to write the book after she learned of the famous Poison Garden in Alnwick Castle in England. Make sure to read all about it at the end of the book!

You’ll need:

  • 1 box (we used a 4″ x 4″ x 4″ craft box, but a small tissue box works too!)
  • 1 poison garden plant template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ card stock
  • Drinking straws, pipe cleaners, and/or twisteez wire
  • Brown tissue paper (or paper towels)
  • Scissors and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating

This is a very simple project with lots of room for creativity. Cut the top off of a small box, then color and cut the various plants from the template. Tape them to pipe cleaners, drinking straws, or Twisteez wire, then tuck everything inside the box. Add some brown tissue paper (or brown paper towels) as “soil” to anchor everything down. Done!

Kids were also free to improvise plants of their own! We offered toilet paper tubes, construction paper, muffin cups, fabric leaves, pom-poms, and packing peanuts as well. And lots and lots of eye stickers to ramp up the spooky factor and replicate the illustrations in the book.

We also had a special side projects for caregivers…we gave them envelope “seed packets” and a blank card, and they were free to write all the things that make their little one unique. Awwww!

Everyone was delighted with their little gardens, but we had a BIG surprise ready. An entire garden tour with Millie herself. Yes, that’s our summer intern Melanie Zhang in all her awesomeness!

We spent the week building a garden in an empty back office using leftover supplies from this Hobbit event, any and all foliage on our desks, twinkle lights, LED candles, and some weird cardboard monster blocks I picked up at a yard sale for $5.

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I did say there were two special guests at the beginning of the post. Melanie was one guest, and her frog Harold was the second! In the book, Millie has a pet frog, so Melanie brought in her special buddy for kids to find in the garden. She knitted him that handsome scarf as well. Look closely and you can see him in various photos in the post!

We would like to thank Melanie (and Harold) for brainstorming, creating, crafting and guest starring at this story time. It was completely magical – and so are you Melanie!