January

Theme: "New Year, New Reels"

Thematic Focus: Fresh starts, new beginnings, and starting over.

The Screen Connection: Every book on this month's shelf focuses on characters embarking on a brave new chapter—while remaining strictly anchored to a famous movie, animated TV series, or short film adaptation.

Main book

Angelina feels a sense of loneliness when she walks into a classroom because no one is quite like her. She feels left out because her skin, hair, and clothes look different from the other kids. Also, everyone else is talking about their vacations, which makes her feel alone.

                                          Review

"A heartening book about finding courage to connect, even when you feel scared and alone. There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you. There are many reasons to feel different. Maybe it’s how you look or talk, or where you’re from; maybe it’s what you eat, or something just as random. It’s not easy to take those first steps into a place where nobody really knows you yet, but somehow you do it" ( High Impact Literacy, 2019).

BOOK DISPLAY FOR THIS MONTH

SPECIAL PROGRAMS

Flipbook Frenzy Workshop (Ages 6–12)

                                        

                                                              

DESCRIPTION

Children begin the new year by learning how animation is created. This is a hands-on workshop where kids discover how a series of movements can give the illusion of movement.

Using thick index cards, lightboxes, and drawing markers, kids draw a sequence of slightly changing images. By the end of the session, they binder-clip their pages together to create a pocket-size movie they can flick through.

 

                                            DEVELOPMENTAL VALUE/RESOURCES

This activity builds reasoning and math skills and allows children to learn how drawings move from page to page. This also helps with fine motor skills. 

This program highlights the library's physical drawing instruction collection and biographies of early animators like Walt Disney.

                                                              EDI 

To support EDI, we provide pre-made, high-contrast tracing templates for thise children who struggle with designing things by hand and offer extra thick cards or mechanical card-flippers for children with fine motor disabilities.

                                                             STAFF

Staffing will involve two children's library employees to demonstrate how the activity works and 1 teen volunteer to hand out materials and assist with questions.

Vision Board Movie Posters (Family Event / All Ages)

                                                  DESCRIPTION

A creative goal-setting workshop disguised as a Hollywood movie promotion. Families gather to design a giant "Movie Poster" starring themselves and their dreams for the upcoming year. The library provides poster boards, markers, and stacks of old magazines. Participants cut out words, images, and characters that represent skills they want to learn or adventures they want to have, arranging them into a cinematic layout complete with a catchy movie title and tagline. 

                                             

                       DEVELOPMENTAL VALUE/RESOURCES

 Encourages self-reflection, intrinsic motivation, and goal-setting behavior. Cutting and pasting materials strengthen coordination (using both hands together), while arranging elements onto a poster board builds spatial awareness, visual literacy, and design skills.

Uses discarded library magazines, graphic novels, and digital clip-art printers. To ensure inclusion, we offer multilingual magazines (Spanish, Chinese, etc.) so all families can find text that speaks to them, provide adaptive loop-scissors for children with physical hand barriers, and ensure a completely free supply of materials so financial status is never a barrier to family goal-setting.

                               

                                                 STAFF

1 Children’s employee (to manage the check-in table and replenish materials) and 1 Library Volunteer (to assist families with the clip-art printers and clean up paper scraps).

Weekly Programs

 Motion-Maker Storytime (Ages Birth–5)

MOTION MAKER STORYTIME

This program will have the book Oh, the Places You'll Go (Movie in the works)

Kids will watch a 5-minute YouTube clip 

 "Get Back Up Again" from the Trolls movie soundtrack (streamed via Hoopla)

Unique Materials: Colorful movement scarves, paper plates, multi-color tissue paper squares, and glue sticks 

Lego Animation Studio

Unique Theme Focus: Ice Cave Landscapes & Arctic Expeditions

Unique Materials: White and transparent-blue Lego bricks, fake batting snow, and cardstock glacier backings

Script Writers Club

Unique Theme Focus: Building suspense in winter adventure scripts 

Unique Materials: Multi-colored mechanical pencils and blank comic book panel grids [

Let's Get Moving!

 Indoor Obstacle Course & Balance Beam Pacing (due to cold winter weather)

Berenstain Bears Try Out For the Team 

Unique Material: Reusable foam floor tiles, plastic cones, agility stepping rings, and floor mats 

                                             Monthly Programs

Paws & Playback: Read to Dogs. 

Book Selection: The Day You Begin Main book for the month.

Watch a 20-minute clip of an animated show

Materials: Hypoallergenic dog treats and canine reading paw-print stickers 

Fact-Finder Film Scouts

Scavenger Hunt Focus: Polar Animals & Arctic Geography (Dewey Decimal shelf 591.75)

Materials: Printed Winter Scout Manual trivia packets and custom penguin library keychains 

                                             BOOKS THAT TAKE THE BIG SCREEN

Book Selection: Because of Winnie Dixie

Media Element: Three-minute movie clip
Unique Materials: Individual snack boxes of movie-theater style popcorn kernels 

 

                                           CINEMATIC ESCAPE ROOM

Cinematic Escape Room Theme: "Trapped in the Frosty Animation Studio"

Description: The library's programming room is transformed into a retro animation workshop. Teams of children must work together to crack codes, solve visual logic puzzles, and decipher hidden messages within "film reels" and lightboxes to find the missing master storyboard before the timer runs out.

Unique Materials Needed: 3 combination padlocks, locked wooden cipher blocks, ultraviolet (UV) light pens, and invisible ink clue sheets hidden inside book pages.