Having Fun With Library Signs

This morning, I've had some serious fun playing around with new ideas for library signs.  Every year, I like to add a little new spice to the mix, to keep things fun and fresh for the kids.

So far, I've created the one above with Anna and Elsa from Frozen, a minion going bananas for books from Despicable Me, a photo of Katniss being hungry for books from Hunger Games, and a "kneel, puny human, some of the best books are on the lower shelves!" Loki sign from the Thor and Avengers movies.  (Thank you, Pinterest!)

There will be more to come, I'm certain, but that's enough for one day.

My plan is to do more with children's book characters, when I can think of something pithy to make a pun or elicit a giggle.  Anything to interest the kids in reading more, right?

In any case, if you click on the sign above, you can get a full sized sign to print out for your own school library. 

Any ideas for future signs?  Please do share in the comments!  I promise I'll try to share what I make as I get new ones done.

Far, Far Away

Last night, we had tickets for the touring company performance of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. What a show!

The Peanut and I saw it a couple of years ago when they were in Morgantown, but Mr. ReddHedd missed that performance due to a severe hacking cough and fever, and we decided that Typhoid Bill was not an appropriate way to spend a matinee performance with hundreds of small children and their parents.  (You are welcome, people who were there.)

The performances were magical, and we were blessed with a live orchestra and not just canned music for the background, which is always pure heaven.  The sets were beyond amazing -- works of art, intricately built and multi-dimensional as they were folded and re-purposed over and over through the show by stagehands and actors dressed as gargoyles.

Pure genius.

But the star of this show, for me anyway, is always the soaring lyrics written by Howard Ashman, in his last work before AIDS took his life all too early.  During most of the time he was writing the music for this movie and show, AIDS was ravaging his body and tearing his life apart, and he was, at times, confined to his home and writing from his bed.

Howard Ashman's lyrics on The Mob Song still, sadly, ring true in a lot of quarters.  Imagine being a person who felt like other people looked at you this way every day:

The Disney Game

Our family has been playing a sort of variation on twenty questions for years to make waiting in lines or dealing with delays a much more amusing time for The Peanut.  It occurred to me the other day, as we were playing it yet again waiting for a table at a restaurant, that this might be a fun idea to pass along for other families, too.

Here is how we play it:

One person thinks of a character from a Disney movie.  It can be classic Disney, newer Disney, or Pixar, or even one of the Pixar short films.  But we do try to stick to cartoons or movies where there is some level of animation (say Mary Poppins, Pete's Dragon, or Enchanted, for example).

Once the character has been selected, everyone else gets to guess who it is.

We generally begin with a clue that goes something like "this character is ____________."  This can be hairy, stinky, green, crazy, evil, covered in spots, slightly coated in mucus, whatever...but the fill in the blank part needs to be something descriptive and just obscure enough that it doesn't give it away from the get go.