Families gather at Village for story readings
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The Village of Rochester Hills shopping center’s Festival Park is blanketed, literally.
Here, dozens of families sit patiently atop their cloths for “Books, Buddies & Blankets” summer story readings held each Wednesday at The Village in conjunction with the Rochester Hills Public Library.
This is the third year that the RHPL has worked with The Village, according to Jaclyn Miller, a youth librarian who has been with the Rochester Hills Public Library for five years. She describes the event as, “story time at the mall, open to all.”
A reader selects stories, she says, often based on a theme, and reads them to children and their families.
Children can earn points on punch-cards, with a prize to be won for the most punches earned at the end of summer.
So far the program has been a success, Miller said. “I’d call it a win.”
It is 10 a.m. and traffic at The Village has not quite picked up yet. Dragon flies buzz as the sun crests opposite. The Village’s gazebo, casting a natural atomic spotlight upon Sarah Smith-Conlan, Rochester Hills Public Library’s early childhood specialist, seemingly magnifying her effervescent
confidence.
She presses play on a portable stereo, loosing a minstrel tune before greeting children and their parents with gentle self-assurance, beginning a thirty minute story session in the theme of “fractured fairy tales,” or as she explains to the sometimes riveted children, “stories you’ve heard, but with a twist.”
These are stories like Jack and the Beanstalk, as told by a misunderstood giant, or the tale of what possessed that ambulatory egg, Humpty Dumpty, to climb to such perilous heights, or maybe just a classic story told a different way, like Smith-Conlan’s telling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears played on her stereo as she uses English sign language to tell the story.
Smith-Conlan says she picks stories that appeal to a variety of ages, like rhymes and interactive tales with songs.
“You need to be able to appeal to both babies and kids,” she said, smiling.
This is her third year with the Rochester Hills Public Library, and she says the summer reading events, like Books, Buddies & Blankets, have always had a, “really good turnout.”
“Most of the readings have about 50 people. Families and children show up,” Smith-Conlan said.
Events like the readings at The Village, Smith-Conlan said, are frequent and with similar turnouts.
“Here at the mall, they’ll have readings every Wednesday, but the library’s next reading will be at the Rochester Hills Public Library on the 26th of July,” she said.
The summer readings at The Village’s gazebo represent only a portion of the library’s summer reading program, which follows the theme of “One World: many stories.”
Other events put on by the Rochester Hills Public Library as part of the summer reading program include: under the awning story times and raise a reader.
“At the library we hold 15 story readings during the school year,” Smith-Conlan said. “Not all story readings at the village have a RHPL storyteller. Sometimes The Village has guest speakers from throughout the community,” she said.
Nevertheless, the events are promoted at and by the library, nurturing the relationship the Rochester Hills Public Library has founded with The Village.
“Our partnership with The Village is great,” Smith-Conlan said, “I like it.”
The Books, Buddies & Blankets event was day 16 as a part of the 94 Days of Summer itinerary put out by patch.com.
The event is free and open to all, and meets at the gazebo area at The Village of Rochester Hills from 10-10:30a.m. every Wednesday through August 24.
Information regarding the Rochester Hills Public Library summer reading program and scheduled Books, Buddies and Blankets story tellings can be found at its websites at, www.rhpl.org/events/summer-reading or http://rochester.patch.com/events/books-buddies-and-blankets.
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