About the Holiday

Today I’ve chosen to celebrate a month-long holiday. February is Library Lovers Month! Chances are if you’re reading this, you also love libraries! For readers there’s no better place than standing in the stacks, surrounded on all sides by shelves and shelves of books. In those pages you meet new friends, defeat the bad guys, discover poetry, laugh, sometimes cry, see astonishing art, find new hobbies, and learn fascinating facts about…wow! Anything and everything!

What’s your favorite library or thing about libraries? Mine is the East Lyme Public Library in Connecticut, where they have a fantastic selection of books and awesome librarians who feel like family! Tell me about your special library in the Comments section below.

Jumping Off Library Shelves: A Book of Poems

Poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins | Illustrated by Jane Manning

From morning, which “pours spoons of sun through tall windows” of a library in Rebecca Kai Dotlich’s poem “Breakfast between the Shelves,” to night, when shadowed mice huddle to read a mystery in Dotlich’s closing poem “Midnight in a Library,” kids can enjoy a full day of poems in this delightful collection. Many of today’s best-loved poets for children are represented here, celebrating the power of a library card, the kindness of librarians, and the enchantment of reading.

Jane Manning’s soft, dreamy illustrations swirl with imagination, shimmer with the warm glow of a reading nook, and enchant with the smiles of children thrilled with the pleasures of reading.

Library Lovers Day Activity

Bookworm Bookmark

For all you bookworms out there who love to read, here’s your very own Bookworm Bookmark to color and put between the pages of your favorite story!

Supplies

• Bookworm Bookmark template
• Colored pencils or markers
• Scissors

Directions

1. Print out the Bookworm Bookmark template
2. Color the bookworm
3. Cut out the Bookworm
4. Cut the Bookworm’s mouth at the dotted line. The top part of the bookworm’s mouth hangs over the page and marks your place!