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By Peter Kougias
Hometown Weekly Intern
Last Wednesday morning, children gleefully entered the library for storytime with Ms. Loomis. Leslie Loomis has been a librarian for 30 years. She says that she absolutely loves her job.
As the children sprinted into the room, Loomis started the story hour with “If You're Happy and You Know It”. They were ecstatic and sang every single word. They soon sat down and listened to a story. The first book read was “Move Over Rover,” a children’s book about a group of animals who are crammed into a dog house during a rainy day. The children inserted themselves into the story and made quirky remarks about the different animals.
In between the stories, Loomis continued leading the children with classic elementary songs. Next up was “Where is Thumbkin?” The children held their hands up in the air and waved them back and forth to the melody.
The next book was “Pete’s a Pizza.” The story follows Pete, who is bored. He slouches on the couch and the parents decide to make him into a pizza. The intelligent children questioned this action, while Ms. Loomis assured them the story was only make-believe.
The next song was the iconic “The Wheels On The Bus.” The children jumped up enthusiastically. Even though the lyrics propose what is happening on the bus, each child had their own unique way of showing the actions.
Afterwards, Ms. Loomis pulled out a glove and began to sing “The Farmer in the Dell.” The glove had velcro on it, so whenever a character was mentioned, Loomis stuck a picture onto it.
The final story presented was “How Do Dinosaurs Say I’m Mad?” This story depicts a dinosaur who throws a tantrum at its parents. The dinosaur ruins the house and talks back to the parents. At the end of the story, the dinosaur hugs the parents and apologizes. This book choice was a clever message sent out to the children.
As story time came to a close, the children colored away. They soon ran out to their parents talking about how much fun they had.
