WALLACE AND GROMIT ARE THE PERFECT LEAD IN TO THIS...
Okay Halloween is coming and so is my personal annual hell... the Book Fair. Every year at this time I host a big name company Book Fair. We are so small that our book fair comes in boxes. The real book fairs come in rolling book cases. I used to have that kind before I lost my high school.
I shudder to think about it. I only have a couple of weeks left before it falls on my head. My boss cranked up the pressure asking me to run the Book Carnival as well... which the PTO used to do. (It only has a few members right now and they all work.) Okay slow it down... explain.
A Book Fair is a way for the library to make money for books. Yes, I sell them to children, parents, grandparents... anyone. I make a profit that I get to spend on books for my library. It is especially important this year because my budget took such a terrible hit. But with fewer students, fewer dollars are expected.
We used to have a Halloween Carnival. But being politically correct, we gave that up and created a Book Carnival. That way the kids who are not allowed to celebrate Halloween can dress up and have fun too... good wholesome fun. They dress up... which works out for the trick or treat group who get to wear their costumes to school. Cool beans. They play games, win tickets which can be used to buy books! They don't rot your teeth. They last as long as you take care of them. They can be used over and over again and passed on to others. What a deal! You can also use your tickets to have people put "in jail". That get a lot of takers... and a lot of staff members. It is all good fun. The kids have a blast.
One year, the ex librarian and I had a brain fart... I mean a brain storm. We decided that we could incorporate the big name book company Book Fair with the Book Carnival. Only one week of torture per year, instead of say a week and a half of it. But back then, there were two of us and the PTO did the other half. Yikes. No more.
The catch here is that when you go to a Book Carnival, you go as a book character. What else?
So I am trying to decide what character I will be. I'm thinking maybe Daisy Head Mayzie. Seems simple enough to put a fake flower growing out of the top of my head. I can even wear my regular clothes.
What book character would you pick to be. Mine is a child oriented one, but go ahead... indulge and pick one for any type of book.
At our Halloween party, we have this family that usually comes as a group in costumes from either the same movie or TV show or book. Like, they would all be the Flintstones or something.
ReplyDeleteMe, I like Halloween, so if Halloween had been replaced by a book fair, I would find a book that had Halloween characters in it so I could still be a witch or a vampire or something.
But I would think that with the book idea you should look for other people to go as a group from the same book. So if you are going as a Doctor Seuss character, might you find someone else to hang with who would be Doctor Seuss?
This year I am going as a character from a cable TV show (which is based on a series of books, so she might be a book character as well), which did not require much in the way of an elaborate costume, so the plan is to go around the party acting in character and see if people can figure out who I am supposed to be.
They now sell Sleestak masks. One of those would be cool, but there are no "Land of the Lost" books.
ReplyDeleteI was hoping for a slim chance someone might write some, but after the franchise-damaging LOTL movie this past summer, a slim chance has turned to none. That movie killed a LOTL comic book series which was going to be done the right way.
Kilgore Trout. Visualize...
ReplyDeleteOh, I don't know, I guess I would dye my hair orange and come up with something based on that.
ReplyDeleteI go too the book fairs at times but seldom find the kind of books I want. The library here sells the discards the year around. 25 cents for soft covers and 50 cents for hard covers, mostly, some cost a little more.
Come to think of it, I haven't heard of a book fair here for a few years. The two book stores here also have a large selection of used books.
laughing-- That's a fun idea. Maybe I can get someone to be Thing 1 or Thing 2... or The Cat in the Hat.
ReplyDeleteWe try to stay in our characters all day long. The principal interviews the students, who answer as their character. I love that part.
We do have lot of kids who like to use their Halloween outfits... and luckily most have books. We get a lot of super heros too... comic books and graphic novels work.
dmarks-- Do you have the World of Sid & Marty Krofft's 'Stak Attack! DVD?
ReplyDeleteI'm betting that there is a book out there somwhere that has a sleestak in it. There only needs to be mention of one in a book. Maybe a book about the brothers? Or a coloring book perhaps?
Peggy-- I'm trying very hard to imagine you as Kilgore Trout! What a hoot!
ReplyDeleteBBC-- There must be a lot of organge haired beings out there in books.
ReplyDeleteOur library in P'land has a free section for used books, some are very new even, where you just take them and you can leave others in their place. Several of our coffee shops do that as well... take a book, leave a book. In fact, the Eagles does that.
My remarks about our library have no relationship to your library of course being as it is in a school.
ReplyDeleteI just like to mutter about irrelevant shit. :-)
BBC-- Oh I don't know. I think all libraries and librarians are somehow related. I certainly feel a kinship to them. I enter a library and immediately feel very much at home.
ReplyDeleteHmmmmmm. Tom Sawyer, maybe, or Huck Finn. I have some pretty sorry-ass old raggy clothes and could probably find a straw hat.
ReplyDeleteSuldog-- I think you would be a fantastic Huck Finn! Ornery as you are, what else would fit so well? Ha.
ReplyDeletei think you'd make an excellent jessica atreides.
ReplyDeleteyou could use the voice to make people buy everything at hugely inflated prices.
This year I'm kicking around the idea of being a superhero, so if comic books count, I'd be from one of them. I just have to figure out which one...
ReplyDeletebilly pilgrim-- I'd love to be Jessica Atreides. What a great idea. I wish I had the power of the voice... boy could I do some wicked stuff with that!
ReplyDeleteChurlita-- The super heros are among my favorites at our carnival. Especially the kids that build in muscles into their outfits. They crack me up. Plus they have such identifiable traits and speech patterns for the kids to have fun using. I haven't had an adult super hero yet, but you would have a ball with these guys and they would eat it up.
ReplyDeleteI have been Pippy Longstocking before, and one year my son dressed as Pippy Longstocking dressed up as a medieval knight. It was surreal.
ReplyDeleteE. Peevie-- That sounds like a fun one... Pippy as a knight. Ha! Kids come up with the best ideas. I can only imagine Pippy that way, crazy braids looping up out of the helmet and mis-matched armor. What a hoot.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Oodles of Funch! I hope you come back again.
I think I'm going to have to go with Winnie the Pooh. He is old school but still so cool. I wouldn't mind going as Babar either. He cracks me up.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the carnival!!!
I know a lot of schools that have gone to the book character dress up policy.
ReplyDeleteI am terrible at coming up with clever costumes. I am probably going to be a big black cat this year...there must be one somewhere in literature :-)
And the Book Fair...good golly, that IS a LOT of work. I commend you.
Sebastien-- I am terribly fond of Pooh and friends. I am a "piglet" personality. And Babar! I love Babar too. He was one of my favorites as a little person.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the good luck. My intention at this point is to forget about the stress and enjoy the show!
laura b.-- One of my great moms has volunteered to help. Yay for moms who get involved! That helps. Black cat sounds fun. You could be Six Dinner Sid! That's a fun story. I had a cat like that but his name was Hannibal. Funny now, but at the time no one had heard of the serial killer yet. Thanks for the kudos.
ReplyDeleteI taught a computer class at the library here for two years just after the new one opened.
ReplyDeleteI like to wander up and down the shelves of books and when one seems to speak to me I pick it up and open it to a random page and put my finger on it and read that part.
It's pretty interesting and I have learned much that way without reading whole books.
BBC-- My dad used to pick up and encyclopedia and begin randomly reading it out loud while we were all watching TV. Drove my mom nuts! However, I was fascinated by it.
ReplyDeleteI'm so turned off the idea of Halloween approaching....I might shut the blog down and go away rather than have to suffer through another onslaught of meaninglessness (see that word??!!) ;)))
ReplyDeleteMy dad used to pick up and encyclopedia and begin randomly reading it out loud while we were all watching TV. Drove my mom nuts!
ReplyDeleteAh hell, she was likely nuts anyway. I seldom had a TV in my home when I was raising kids. And when I did it was seldom watched.
There is a world out there, I expected them to get out and play in it.
I love that you classify yourself as a piglet personality. I told my gf about your email where you mentioned I was a Tigger and mentioned what other people were. I think I read the Pooh book later that week, and she kept asking me, Sebastien, Sebastien, which character do you think I am? It was so cute...
ReplyDeleteBraja-- Not into the goblins and beasties?
ReplyDeleteBBC-- We were not allowed to watch much either. My mother was a big believer in fresh air and exercise for children.
ReplyDeleteSebastien-- We began doing that in my library back when the ex-librarian was there. She was a pooh. There is a book about the Tao of Pooh or some such that talks about the personalities involved and we got into deciding who was who. it was fun.
ReplyDelete