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SOMERS, N.Y. - This years winter school break week was devoted to pirates at the Somers Library. The revelry began on Tuesday, when children of all ages were invited to drop by at any time and learn to make a pirate sword.
Theme weeks really work well, said childrens librarian Vicki DiSanto. Last year our theme was penguins. Local response was really phenomenal this year. Pirates are very popular right now.
Wednesdays pirate event was a visit from childrens book illustrator, Julie Fortenberry. The guest started by reading aloud the story of Pirate Boy, written by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Fortenberry. Afterwards the artist explained how she goes about creating pictures for the text. Finally, she showed the children some of the tricks of the trade used to create emotional expressions on the faces of her simple drawings. Then everybody sat down and created a pirate book of his or her own.
It was a real treat to have her here, said DiSanto. The room was packed. In fact, we had a packed house for everything.
On Thursday, actor David Engel climbed aboard, fully decked out in his pirate togs, flashed his cutlass, performed some amusing antics and then taught his rapt audience how to talk, walk, laugh and swashbuckle like a true buccaneer.
Friday afternoon brought a movie entitled, The Pirates Who Dont Do Anything! Several members of the audience arrived in their corsair costumes.
The week wound up with a session of ship-building and treasure chests with the aid of Lego Blocks.
Before the hatches were battened down and the program room was once again ship-shape, the children were introduced to a sampling of the librarys more than 100 pirate-themed books. These included, The Jack Sparrow Series, Step Inside Pirates, Pirate Ship Adventure Crafts and Pirates Dont Change Diapers.
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