Overdue!

Wow, it's been a crazy week!

First, another reminder about tomorrow. The Washington National Opera will be here to perform a very short rendition of Madama Butterfly! The program will begin at 1:30 pm and run for about a half hour. It's aimed at children six and up, and we've heard from other branches that it's a blast.

Then there's July 14th, the Monday after next at 10:30 am, when we'll have Mr. Derby's Jam Session! He's well known in the District for his crazy remixes of classic nursery rhymes and modern cartoon theme songs, and his program is meant for kids of all ages. Definitely a must for the musically inclined.

Finally, we will have Dr. David Adamski an entomologist from the Smithsonian Institution. Mr. Adamski will be here on Wednesday, August 13th at 2:00 pm with live insects and facts about entomology.

As usual, we will be continuing our Wednesday morning storytime with children ages two through five. We start at 10 am, and anyone with a child of that age is always welcome to bring them for this.

Last week we showed off several books, all about optical illusions, including "Gallop", by Rufus Butler Seder, and "Hello, Red Fox", by Eric Carle. Both contained great examples of the amazing things the human eye can do.

"Gallop" is a "scanimation picture book", which means the pictures on each page move as you turn them. Each page shows a different animal in motion, which is a great way to teach children the difference between "galloping" and "pouncing".

"Hello, Red Fox" is a book about comlimentary afterimaging. The idea is simple - each color has an opposite, and when you stare at a picture in one color long enough, then look at a plain white background, you will see an afterimage in the opposite color from the one you saw. In this book, we saw the green fox turn red, and a red turtle turn green. It was very strange indeed. And since we were on the subject of colors, we followed it all up by breaking out the crayons and coloring pages!

Tomorrow we'll still have our morning program, and that will be followed by the Opera. Be sure to check it out.

~Nick H.