A Visit with Author and Illustrator Randall and Peter de Sève! 

April 21, 2012 11:00 am

From Beverly Cleary’s Official Website:

Beverly Cleary was born in McMinnville, Oregon, and, until she was old enough to attend school, lived on a farm in Yamhill, a town so small it had no library. Her mother arranged with the State Library to have books sent to Yamhill and acted as librarian in a lodge room upstairs over a bank. There young Beverly learned to love books. However, when the family moved to Portland, Beverly soon found herself in the grammar school’s low reading circle, an experience that has given her sympathy for the problems of struggling readers.

By the third grade she had conquered reading and spent much of her childhood either with books or on her way to and from the public library. Before long her school librarian was suggesting that she should write for boys and girls when she grew up. The idea appealed to her, and she decided that someday she would write the books she longed to read but was unable to find on the library shelves, funny stories about her neighborhood and the sort of children she knew. And so Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins, Ellen Tebbits, and her other beloved characters were born.

Click here to play “Spelling Beezus,” and here to play “Retrieving Ribsy.”

Do you have any favorites?  Twist your tongue with some of ours!

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear,

Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair,

Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy, was he?

A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk,

But the stump thunk the skunk stunk

She sells sea shells by the sea shore.

The shells she sells are surely sea shells.

So if she sells shells on the sea shore,

I’m sure she sells seashore shells.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck

if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

He would chuck, he would, as much as he could,

and chuck as much wood as a woodchuck would

if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

A big black bug bit the big black bear.

But the big black bear bit the big black bug back!

If Freaky Fred found fifty feet of fruit and fed forty feet to his friend Frank, how many feet of fruit did Freaky Fred find?

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

Each Easter Eddie eats eighty Easter eggs.

Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said “this butter’s bitter!  But a bit of better butter will make my butter better.”  So she bought some better butter, better than the bitter butter, and it made her butter better so ‘twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter!

These thousand tricky tongue twisters trip thrillingly off the tongue.

I just got a call from the author, Mac Barnett, who told me we’d won the contest!  He said that they were “blown away” by what we’d done, and how much the community participation echoed the message in the book.

Our prize, besides bragging rights and all the fun we had, will be an original illustration of the front of our store by Jon Klassen (who is a big deal!)

Thanks to everyone who helped!  Clearly it takes a village to raise a bookstore!

Here’s what they said on the Extra Yarn Contest Tumbl’r:

“When Little Joe’s Books, a brand-new bookstore in Katonah, NY (pop. 5,000), decided to enter the contest, they asked residents to donate balls of yarn and loan them sweaters, blankets, and scarves. The people of Katonah delivered: Little Joe’s received over 200 knitted items, and over 1,000 balls of yarn. The store looks beautiful. But we really loved what’s happening next: When the display is taken down, Little Joe’s is donating all those balls of yarn to the Bedford Women’s Correctional Facility for Women. In Katonah, a town came together to cover a bookstore in yarn, and their generosity means many more sweaters are coming.”

And here’s the video by Amy Drucker of Soulshine Imagery that helped us win!

Little Joe’s Books Extra Yarn Submission from Soulshine Imagery on Vimeo.

Click here to read a review!

What is your favorite book?

The Elephant and Piggie Books

Do you know who wrote them?

Mo Willems

Why do you like them?

Because they have somethings that you don’t expect to happen.

Which is your favorite?

Pigs Make Me Sneeze

Why?

Elephant does a lot of “Ahs,” and then a teeny, weeny “Choo!”

Do you think other kids would like Elephant and Piggie?

Everyone in my class does.

Why?

Cause they’re really funny.  And I think my dog Dudley would like them too.

Does your dog Dudley read?

No, but he has ears, and I read the books to him.

How many Elephant and Piggie books have you read?

All of them.  I hope Mo Willems writes more and more!

Well, there you go, folks.  If you know a child in the 3-8 year old range, India heartily recommends The Elephant and Piggie Series.  They are great to read aloud to little kids, and great for kids who are starting to read on their own.  And I happen to know that India’s parents and big sisters enjoy them too!

Click here to play the Elephant and Piggie Dance Game!

A Love Letter to Dr. Seuss

from

our customer Maeve

Little Joe’s Books & Katonah Yarn are
Calling All Knitters!
(and people who love hand-knit things)

Little Joe’s Books is entering a National Contest to decorate its store with knit items and yarn. Katonah Yarn says they’ll help – will you? This contest is in celebration of a new children’s book called The Extra Yarn, by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen. It is a story about a girl who finds an extraordinary box of yarn and begins to knit sweaters for things that do not typically wear sweaters.

The National Contest challenges bookstores to decorate themselves in yarn, send in a picture and see if they win. (“Ambition and originality will be handsomely rewarded” says the flyer—which is located —> for your review).

We think this sounds like an extremely fun (and slightly goofy) event guaranteed to warm up these chilly days of February. Here’s what we ask you to do:

1) LEND us, for a few days, anything you’ve knit or that you know was hand-knit by others. You can drop them off at Little Joe’s Books or Katonah Yarn before February 25th. They will be returned in the first week of March. (We are hoping for hundreds of items—no item is too small!)

2) GIVE us your extra (left over) balls of yarn. We will donate them to the women’s prison afterwards.

3) COME TO A PARTY!

We will use these items to decorate Little Joe’s Books (imagine books dressed in children’s sweaters and balls of yarn hanging from the rafters.) Once we’re decorated, we’ll take some awesome pictures and send them in to the contest!

As our THANK YOU, Katonah Yarn and Little Joe’s Books invites all participants to a Knitting & Wine Party upstairs in Little Joe’s Books on Wednesday, February 29th from 6 – 8pm.

If you plan to participate, please shoot us an email! And please call with any questions. You can drop off your knitted items at either Little Joe’s Books or Katonah Yarn. THANKS!

Little Joe’s Books
25 Katonah Avenue (Across from the Train Station)
Katonah
info@littlejoesbooks.com OR 914-232-7278

Katonah Yarn
120 Bedford Road (In the A&P Shopping Center)
info@katonahyarn.com OR 914-977-3145

**Click here for a video knitting tutorial by Katonah Yarn’s own Jennifer Ceisler!