I’ve been working with kids and creating programs for people of various ages in some capacity for almost ten years now. But only recently did I learn this about myself. When in doubt for a program name, I will take something obvious and add the word “mania” after it. “Madness” is a close second. Movie Mania, Spring Mania, Midnight Madness…you get the idea. So now I have Animal Mania. Once a month I focus on an animal, do a craft with the kids, and read stories if I can get them to sit still long enough.

Tonight it was Animal Mania: Cats! Since it’s National Library Week, I read Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen, illustrations by Kevin Hawkes. I cut out construction paper lions for all the kids, had them draw their own scenes of what they do in the library, and then we added the lions to their drawings to see what it would be like to have a library lion. This is mine above. The kids also decorated their lions.

I’ll admit, I feel a little off my programming game this week and wasn’t convinced of my own idea for this craft (although I highly recommend the book for story time). But, we gave it a whirl and I actually really like their drawings.

Luis, age 5

Maria, age 10