Elephants and Piggies and Pigeons, oh my!

Mr. Richards and I went up to San Francisco for the third weekend in a row last weekend to see more comedy shows.  It was the last weekend of SF Sketchfest.  Sunday morning we went to see Don't Let the Comedians Do Story Time.  This was a fantastic hour with Mo Willems and some of his comedian friends reading his books.  Here is a picture of them all from the @SFSketchfest twitter feed:

In the picture: Mo Willems, Maya Rudolph, Ken Marino, Rachel Dratch, Janeane Garofalo, Jo LoTruglio, Andy Richter, David Wain, Lorraine Newman, Patten Oswalt, and Michael Ian Black.

As I said, it was a terrific and very funny show.  The comedians read Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs, Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, and We Are In a Book.  Mo Willems taught us all how to draw the pigeon by putting shapes together in the right order. We got a sneak preview of Mr. Willems' new book that will be coming out in the spring That Is Not a Good Idea.  You can see the cover here.  I've already pre-ordered this for the library, I know you all will love it!  Mr. Willems closed the show by reading Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus with Patton Oswalt reading the part of the Bus Driver.

Mr. Willems was kind enough to spend some time after the show signing books for his fans so I bought some books for the library and he signed them for me.  (They're all checked out already!)  Here's a picture (I'm telling him how is books are always checked out and he thanked me for being a librarian):

Happily, this all coincides with our CYRM reading of We Are In a Book this week.  I read it to a second grade class today and told them about meeting Mo Willems and how he taught us how to draw the Pigeon and they wanted to draw the Pigeon too, so we put some shapes together in the right order and drew pigeons.  Then I asked them to write titles for their own Pigeon books and they came up with some great ones such as:

Don't Let the Pigeon Swim in the Magma
Don't Let the Pigeon Babysit Because He Might Be a Vampire
Don't Let the Pigeon Eat at MacDonald's

Their teacher is going to have them write complete stories to go with their titles and then we'll mail them off to Mr. Willems because I know for a fact he doesn't get enough of these, plus ours will be the best he's ever seen.

You can see more about Mo Willems' books at his fun website www.gomo.net or follow his blog or follow @the_pigeon on Twitter

The Watsons Go To Birmingham -1963

I enjoyed Elijah of Buxton so much, I thought I'd listen to something else by Christopher Paul Curtis. So I downloaded The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 and I was not disappointed. This book has won the California Young Readers Medal, The Coretta Scott King Award, and a Newbery Honor. The Watsons, nicknamed the 'Weird Watsons' by their neighbors, are an average African-American family living in Flint, Michigan. The story is told by the middle child Kenny who has a lazy eye. Byron, the oldest of the Watson siblings whom they've nicknamed 'Daddy Cool', has been getting in to lots of trouble, or in Byron's words, having 'wild adventures.' Byron's parents decide it would be good for Byron to spend the summer with his grandmother in Alabama, where he might learn some manners. The whole family treks from Flint to Birmingham in the family car, the 'brown bomber' but they all get a bigger dose of reality than they were prepared for. Every family has their funny stories, the big family moments that each family member remembers just a little bit differently. This is how Kenny relays this story to the readers, through a hilarious series of family moments, similar to the way Ralphie narrates "A Christmas Story." I think everyone will be able to see a bit of their own family in the Watsons. And kids, be sure you ask your parents (or grandparents) about the cartoon references - Felix the Cat, Beanie and Cecil, and Soupy Sales!

In other news, Knuffle Bunny, Free by our pal Mo Willems is out today! I will get a copy of this for the library as soon as I can. In the mean time, check out the Pigeon's webpage. Good times!