April 30, 2007: Highlights from 2007's
El día de los niños/El día de los libros, Children's Day/Book Day

The U.S. Senate celebrated Día - see pictures here.

Target was the official 2007 national sponsor of Día! Read the ALSC press release.

What librarians had to say about this year's celebration:

We had a wonderful evening with dancing, songs, crafts and a skit performed by the school children. {more} - Elaine T. Perez, Patchogue-Medford Library

We had a magician and library staff working the crowds to talk about Dia and the importance of families reading together! {more} - Penny Markey, County of Los Angeles Public Library

For our April 30 event, we had a Spanish speaking storyteller, crafts, and refreshments. We also gave away Spanish/English dictionaries to each family who attended. {more} - Nancy Lepionka, Somerville Public Library

There were numerous other bilingual programs that took place on that day. This included a gardening workshop, a story time, picture book time, and a nutrition workshop. We had a children's dance group from Mexico and a performer from Theatreworks USA. {more} - Ethel Petryczka, Riverfront Library Children's Department

We celebrated our Día program with a special story program called "Take a trip to Spain." The kids had a lot of fun listening to bilingual stories and doing a Spanish fan (abanico) craft. {more} - Stephanie Galipeau, Fort Walton Beach Library

Librarians share their 2007 El día de los niños/El día de los libros, Children's Day/Book Day Celebrations

We had our celebration last night at a local elementary school. We had a wonderful evening with dancing, songs, crafts and a skit performed by the school children. It was joint celebration with Patchogue-Medford Library. (This is our fourth year celebrating the event.) The brochures were placed in a bag along with a book, and copies of Reading Rockets fun sheets.

Before the introduction to the skit, I pointed out to the audience to look in their bags and take the time to read the brochure which provided information of the national celebration. I reminded them to visit their library to take out any of the books mentioned in the list.

Thank you for the brochures. They were colorful and informative for the event. I especially liked the paragraph where you stated that "reading daily to your child for at least twenty minutes can become a family tradition."

We look forward to your support next year.

Thanks again.
Elaine T. Perez
Patchogue-Medford Library

We had a most wonderful Dia celebration at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 29. I have attached pictures of our booth and the smiling faces of our crowds.

We had science experiments at our booth generally, but for our Dia celebration we hauled out our Wheel of Reading and gave away books (with Dia de Los Ninos Bookplates) to the lucky spinners who landed on READ (in any of 6 languages). And we gave lollypops to those who were not so lucky! We had a magician and library staff working the crowds to talk about Dia and the importance of families reading together!

We had volunteers from Reforma and California Center for the Book helping out. The time from 1:00 - 5:00 flew by - but boy were we tired at 5:05!

We estimated that at least 400 kids spun the wheel and we talked to at least that many parents, probably more! What a day!

Penny Markey
Coordinator of Youth Services
County of Los Angeles Public Library

For our April 30 event, we had a Spanish speaking storyteller, crafts, and refreshments. We also gave away Spanish/English dictionaries to each family who attended. The brochures and bookmarks were displayed and distributed to attendees. I used the brochure to purchase books for our Spanish Language collection in the Children's department. An ESL teacher from the elementary school was invited and attended.

This was the first time we have held this event at our Library. We had approximately 30 people of all ages attend.

Nancy Lepionka
Children's Librarian
Somerville Public Library

Thank you for the promotional material. It was distributed to the children and their parents on April 30th.

Our actual program took place on March 31st. We had approximately 200 children in attendance. I was able to make bookmarks to give away made up from your web site. We gave away approximately 50 bilingual Spanish- English books and 100 books written in English. There were numerous other bilingual programs that took place on that day. This included a gardening workshop, a story time, picture book time, and a nutrition workshop. We had a children's dance group from Mexico and a performer from Theatreworks USA. There were approximately 10 community agencies participating: such as: Born to Read in Yonkers, Even Start and the Child Care council of Yonkers. There were also volunteer readers from America Reads and our Reading Buddies programs.

Thanks again for helping to make the day special!
Ethel Petryczka
Riverfront Library Children's Department

Thank you for the Día brochures! We celebrated our Día program with a special story program called "Take a trip to Spain." The kids had a lot of fun listening to bilingual stories and doing a Spanish fan (abanico) craft. Each child received a goodie bag with the ALSC's Día brochure. The remaining brochures will be available to other story times and the public.

Muchas gracias!
Stephanie Galipeau
Children's Librarian
Fort Walton Beach Library

Niagara Branch Library celebrated is first annual El dia de los ninos/El dia de los libros on April 25, 2007. We had a wonderful turnout. We passed out the brochures to each family who attended. Brochures were also left out, so people could pick them up.

Thank you,
Kathy Goodrich
Manager
Niagara Branch Library