Author-Illustrator Helps Booth Library Establish Visiting Speakers’ Fund

By Shannon Hicks

Bruce Degen, a longtime resident of Newtown and the author and/or illustrator of dozens of children’s books, has given a gift of $5,000 to C.H. Booth Library for the purpose of establishing a special fund to pay visiting authors and illustrators to present programs at the Newtown library.

Mr Degen will be at the library, at 45 Main Street in Newtown, for a special kick-off event on Tuesday, June 27, from 10:30 to 11:30 am. Mr Degen will be reading from his newest book, called Daddy Is A Doodlebug, along with pieces from some of the Magic School Bus books, a long-running series for which Mr Degen does the illustrations work. Fellow Newtowner Joanna Cole handles the writing duties for the popular  series.

The character Ms Frizzle, a science teacher featured in the Magic School Bus series, will be visiting the library Tuesday morning for the event. Music will be performed by Erik Bagger. In the event of rain, the program will move into the library’s community room, on the lower level opposite the children’s library area.

After the readings, Mr Degen will draw a number of freehand illustrations, and will also be signing copies of his books.

“We usually have an interchange of ideas,” Mr Degen said this week, “where the children suggest things and I sketch them, usually following the Magic School Bus theme. It’s always fun.”

The kick-off program is being planned in conjunction with the library’s summer reading programs. An independent reading program, this summer called “Blast Off with a Good Read,” encourages young readers from age 4 through fifth grade to read and report on a number of books. The younger students, explained Booth Library children’s librarian Alana Meloni, visit the library each time they finish reading a book.

At that point one of the library’s young adult volunteers sits down with the younger reader and they talk about the book. As they read during the summer months, younger readers can earn prizes while they go.

Students in grades 6 through 9 also have a summer reading program, “Middle School Madness.” For every 50 pages a participant reads, he or she receives an entry form. The entry forms are then used as a lottery ticket at the end of the summer, with drawings for everything from gift certificates to a number of local businesses including My Place, Pizza Palace, and Bagel Man, to free movie tickets for Edmond Town Hall, haircuts at area salons and barbershops, and other creative incentives. Both summer reading programs will conclude on August 12.

An average of 500 to 600 children participate in the library’s reading programs each summer, said Ms Meloni. “We have a very busy library all summer long.”

In addition to everything else that will be going on at the library on Tuesday, a children’s paperback book sale will also be held from 10 am to 1 pm. The book sale will be set up in the community room.

Bruce Degen’s Gift

Ms Meloni said this week that the gift from Mr Degen is meant to be a starter for an ongoing fund that “anyone who wants to can donate to.” She noted, “We’ve never really had a budget for something like this.”

While Newtown’s authors and illustrators, including Mr Degen, Ms Cole, and Steven Kellogg, generally donate their time for the local programs, most authors and illustrators do not volunteer their appearances away from their hometowns.

“These people are not volunteers of Newtown, so in order to be professional with them, I am establishing an authors-illustrators speaker fund,” Mr Degen said this week. He decided to create the fund, he said, after realizing how lucky Newtown is to have so many authors who could come into town if a budget were available to pay them for their appearances.

“The New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut area has so many good authors who could come and speak with the kids. I’d like to get theme here and expose our kids to this wealth of children’s book folk that are around,” the author-illustrator said, adding, “I’m hoping we’ll be able to have people who do everything from the earliest picture books through young adult novelists visit us.”

The first author the library will use some of the speaker fund toward will be Stephanie Calmenson, who will be visiting Newtown in the fall. Ms Calmenson, who was a school teacher before becoming a writer, is the author of over 60 books, among them The Gator Girls (co-written with Joanna Cole), Dinner at the Panda Palace and Hotter Than a Hot Dog!

The speakers’ fund can also be used to pay guests to take part in a panel discussion.

“It might also be interesting to have a panel of a writer, an illustrator, and an editor, where kids and their parents can all attend and hear how the different parts of the project come together,” Mr Degen added. He is hoping the library will begin offering such panel discussions on a regular basis, one every three months or so. The first one is being planned already, with the date set for October 15.