Mind Games

Our local children’s museum had a library day today: free admission to anyone with a library card, crafts at tables set up in every room, and a reading and book signing by children’s author Matthew McElligott.

Most of the crafts and activities had a general reading theme, including lots of tables to make bookmarks and one featuring Curious George. Since Matt McElligott’s two most popular books are about Backbeard the Pirate, several of the tables had a pirate theme. At the first table, just inside the doors, the kids could make pirate flags by putting fun foam stickers onto pieces of felt. JediBoy chose to make his a pirate ghost flag.

In another room was a fantastic activity. The library staff had photocopied black and white pictures of Backbeard, and brought along a whole bin full of fabric scraps (from a librarian’s personal quilting stash) so the kids could cut the fabric and glue it on to make a new outfit for Backbeard. This was such a great idea, and I’m sure to steal borrow it in the future. JediBoy went with a Halloween fabric for Backbeard’s newest outfit.

They also had some crafts that were more BabyGirl’s speed, including an appliance box painted like a tree with leaves for the kids to glue on, and a giant piece of paper with crayons nearby.

With all of these activities, plus the normal run of the museum, the kids had a blast. But the best part was the reading by Matt McElligott. If you haven’t read Backbeard and the Birthday Suit, go check it out. I’ll wait! The book tells the wonderfully funny story of a pirate who heads into town on his birthday to buy new clothes - and replace his parrot - and the wondrous suit he winds up wearing (but he doesn’t pay for it, since pirates don’t pay for anything!).

Matt read the book aloud in a darkened room, with the book’s illustrations projected on-screen. Backbeard has been a favorite in our house for quite some time, so we were thrilled to hear the story read by the author and to see the illustrations larger-than-life. To me, the most interesting part came next, when he told and demonstrated how he created the illustrations.

First, he did pencil sketches for each scene. Then he took about 500 photographs of all kinds of textures - the back of a barn, a close-up of burlap, his own hairy leg, and more. Finally, he used his computer to color the pencil sketches by dropping in these textures, and finessing the shades a bit. The walls of Backbeard’s cabin came from the back of a barn, his old ratty suit came from a burlap sack, and his hairy feet came from Matt’s own hairy legs! I was amazed and inspired by his description and demonstration, and at lunch I sat down to re-read the book and peer closely at the illustrations, seeing for the first time the photographs within.

The kids asked some questions and then Matt read his latest book, Bean Thirteen. He warned the kids that “this book is about math and vegetables” but we all loved it. The story is about a pair of bugs trying to divide 13 beans. They continue to invite more friends to dinner, but dividing the beans between two, three or four bugs still leaves one leftover, the wily bean thirteen. At each page, Matt would walk up to the screen and have the kids add up the beans, to see that it was bean thirteen leftover.

To JediBoy, though, the absolute best part was talking to Matt himself and getting his book signed, complete with a hand drawn pig-and-crossbones. What a wonderful experience! There’s nothing like meeting people who do work we admire. I’ve come away inspired and JediBoy is blissful.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 at 3:37 pm and is filed under arts, crafts & activities, books, outings, pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.