New librarian hosts Book Brunch for children

Angel Laate works on her art project while her cousin Jordyn Manning takes a bite of her cookie on Saturday during the Book Brunch at the Children's Library. Singing, storytelling and art projects are the usual activities at the weekly event. [Photo by Brian Leddy/Independent]

By Karen Francis
Staff writer

GALLUP — While Martin Luther King Jr. may be most famous for his “I have a dream” speech, it is his words on education that are being celebrated this month by the Octavia Fellin Public Children’s Library: “The function of education is to teach one to think critically. Intelligence plus character — that is the true goal of education.”

The children’s library is promoting reading for young children with several programs.

Reading is a tool to help children succeed, librarian Russell Yoder said. Yoder heads the weekly Book Brunch held at the children’s library every Saturday starting at 11 a.m. About a dozen children and their parents joined Yoder during the latest Book Brunch. The children observed Celebrate Popcorn Month by making crafts and reading books on popcorn, including “If You Take A Mouse to the Movies” by Laura Numeroff, author, and Felicia Bond, illustrator. Yoder read from the popular series to the group, also including “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” and “If You Give a Pig a Pancake” from the same series.
Yoder, known as Mr. Russ to local kids, said that the Book Brunch is the highlight of the week for him.
Michelle Lonjose, from Gallup, brought three children to the activity. She and her daughter are regular participants in the program.

“They need it,” Lonjose said about the programs.

The Book Brunch starts out with the kids singing a welcome song before reading books on the topic of the week. After the readings, the youth take part in games and activities related to the book.

On Saturday, children made sheep by tracing their hand on pink construction paper and using popcorn for the wool. They used their imaginations to decorate the faces.
Projects from past weeks were on display in the activity room, including mobiles of the earth and moon for readings that the group did on the moon.

On average, 12-15 kids participate every Saturday, along with their parents who are also included in the activities.

“I love doing it, and it’s a lot of fun,” Yoder said.
He said it is a goal to have complete literacy for all kids in society.

“We also encourage reading for fun — get to kids and get them to understand reading is actually a fun activity that they can do on their own,” Yoder said. “The idea is to get to them before they get to school, otherwise they’ll associate books only with homework.”

Next week the Book Brunch group will be focusing on frogs. An excited toddler came back to the activity room to show Yoder a book about frogs that she found to read next week.

Yoder also runs the Children’s Book Club on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. The club selects a book which is being made into a movie and reads it together. Regular participants receive movie passes when the movie comes out. The book club is currently reading “The Spiderwick Chronicles” written by Holly Black and illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi. The movie comes out on Feb. 15.

The children’s library has programs year round to encourage young people to read more.

The library offers other age-appropriate programs through out the week to raise interest in reading among young children. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, pre-school story time with songs, crafts and reading takes place at 11 a.m. A program exclusively for home school students is held on Wednesdays beginning at 11 a.m. The Crafty Kids program for kids 6-13 years old is held on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. Teen Scene is every Friday at 4 p.m.

Information: 726-6120.