Storytime
Every Wednesday 10 - 10:30 am is storytime at the Library. Bring your little ones ages 3 - 5.
NEW: Toddler Storytime especially for babies and toddlers under 3.
Every Tuesday at 10 - 10:30 am.
Halloween
Bring your trick or treaters to visit the library on Halloween.
Library Celebrates the Birthday of Ezra Jack Keats
In 2004, the Armstrong Library received a grant from the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation. The purpose of the project was to introduce primary school students in Natchez and their families to the works of children’s author Ezra Jack Keats through a birthday celebration.
Janet Minor, our Children’s Coordinator, went into the two primary schools, Frazier and Susie B West, and talked to the students about Ezra Jack Keats and read some of his books. She also presented each school with a copy of Keats Neighborhood for their libraries. This is a book about the author and also contains many of his best known stories.
Twenty five students from each school came to the Library on two Saturdays, March 20 and 27 for a birthday party. There was singing and refreshments, and their parents came along, too.
We hope these events teach the children and their parents how much fun books and libraries can be - and you can see by the pictures that they had fun!
After the events, Ms Minor returned to the two schools and read Jennie’s Hat and Peter’s Chair, copies of which were donated to the schools’ libraries. The children who participated in the birthday parties also reported to their class.
On March 20, the children from Frazier read Jennie’s Hat. Then the students were each given a straw hat and asked to decorate it, using supplies consisting of things they could find around them (like flowers, feathers, etc). The hats were theirs to take home. This event taught the children about creativity in everyday life and a new way to look at the objects around them.
On March 27, the children from Susie B West were read Peter’s Chair. Then the children were divided into four teams. Each team painted a chair however they wished. The chairs were signed by the student artists and will remain in the Library’s children’s area. The children received certificates acknowledging them as the artists. This event taught the children how to work together creatively.
Long before multicultural characters and themes were fashionable, Ezra Jack Keats crossed social boundaries by being the first American picture book maker to give the black child a central place in children’s literature. By the time of Keats’ death in 1983, he had illustrated over eighty five books for children, and written and illustrated twenty four children’s classics. For more information about Ezra Jack Keats, please visit their website.