April Fool's Day Storytime

Books:

Today I Will Fly! by Mo Willems
Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock retold by Eric A. Kimmel
Pickin' Peas retold by Margaret Read MacDonald

Additional Books:

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Today is April Fool's Day and we had a lot of fun with it at the library. We filled all of the book displays (children's, adult, new books, and staff picks) with Rainbow Magic books and signs that say "Check out Great Non-fiction", or "New Biographies!"

In storytime I decided to run the whole thing backwards, since we always start with the same 2 songs and end with the same 2 songs. Then when the kids where totally confused I pulled out A Tale of Two Cities for our first book (which I said was our last book) and read the opening line "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." I wasn't sure if the kids would pick up on the joke, but they got it pretty fast. They started calling out "that book is too long!" Then when I asked what day it is today many called out "April Fools!". Storytime then went crazy for about 5 minutes, but then everyone settled down and we read stories about tricksters. Despite things getting a little crazy for a few minutes, the kids were really into the storytime. They were laughing louder than usual at the stories and dancing crazier during the songs. Something about the joke released their inhibitions and everyone seemed to get into the spirit of it.

Storytime order:

• If You're Happy and You Know It!
• 10 Little Bubbles
• Last Book: A Tale of Two Cities
• Explanation of April Fools Day
• Book: Today I will Fly
• Scarves: Popcorn Song/ 2 Little Black Birds
• Book: Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock
• Song: Wheels on the Bus
• Song: Shake Your Sillies Out!
• The End.