- A library is a home for books in our communities.

A librarian is in charge of taking care of all of those books.

On "Read, Write, Roar," we are going to learn about the exciting job of a librarian and will write a song together about their work.

Let's go Read, Write, Roar.

- [Announcer] This program is made possible in part by the W.K.

Kellogg Foundation, Elaine Stern Foundation, the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation, Donald and Mary Kosch, Lauren and Phillip Fisher, the state of Michigan and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(pleasant music) (lion roaring) (lion roaring) - Hi, children.

Welcome to "Read, Write, Roar."

Can you all do that with me?

- [Children] Read, write, roar.

- Great.

Now today, we are going to sing a song about the library.

Have you ever been to the library?

- Yeah.

- I've been there a long time ago.

- [Mrs. Colon] A long time ago.

- Yeah, me too.

- You too?

Well, it's one of my favorite places to go, so let's sing about what we're gonna do at the library, and when I point to the part right here that's highlighted, it says "the library."

You get to repeat it back to me.

So it says.

♪ We are going to the library ♪ ♪ The library, the library ♪ ♪ We are going to the library to get some books to read ♪ ♪ When we get to the library ♪ ♪ The library, the library ♪ ♪ When we get to the library, we will have to be real quiet ♪ ♪ If we need help at the library ♪ ♪ The library, the library ♪ ♪ If we need help at the library ♪ ♪ We can talk to the librarian ♪ ♪ She will teach us lots of things ♪ ♪ Lots of things, lots of things ♪ ♪ She will teach us lots of things ♪ ♪ And today she's here visiting ♪ (gentle music) - I am so excited.

We have a special guest with us today.

This is Ms. K. Everybody say hi, Ms. K. - [Student] Hi, Ms. K. - Good morning, good morning.

- Ms. K is here from the Ypsilanti District Library, and she is a Youth Paraprofessional.

She's gonna be here to tell us about her job and to give us some information about books, so she's gonna talk us to us all about the library.

- Yes.

Good morning.

Thank you so much, Erica.

It's nice to be here.

It's nice to hang out with you guys on this log.

Yeah, yeah.

I work at the library, and it's the Superior Branch.

What I get to do is I get to read stories a lot, and I love picture books.

I get to do baby story time on Tuesdays, and we do all kinds of summer programming.

With this book right here, you guys know what this is?

What is this?

- [Brent] I think it's, maybe it's a log.

- Maybe it's a log.

There's probably a log in here, but this right here is the cover of the book, right?

Each book has a cover.

This is called a cover, and what a book is called is called the title, and the title is "Over and Under the Pond."

This right here would be the author, and that's the person that wrote the words in the book.

So when you open a book and you see all these words, that was written and thought of by the author, Kate Messner.

And then the art, they call the person that does the pictures the illustrator, and the illustrator is Christopher Silas Neal.

Then you have the back of the book.

And then this part right here, when you have a book on your bookshelf, do you guys have bookshelves at home?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

When you have a bookshelf, usually you pull a book out like this, and this is called the spine of the book.

When you get ready and read your book, you go from top to bottom, and we read our words from left, where that O is, to right.

- Is this just how the book goes?

- This is how the book goes.

This is exactly, so each page, and then you turn the page, and again, you start where the T is at the top, you go from left to right, and then you go down and we start again from left to right.

- [Child] How can you go left to right?

- [Ms. K] You do like this.

You go, "The water's a mirror reflecting the sky."

See how it went from left to right?

And then I go down and I go, "Sunshine and clouds - then a shadow below."

And then you look at the pictures, which the pictures are illustration, right?

That's what Christopher, that's what he did.

He did all these beautiful, beautiful pictures that we get to enjoy as we read the words that the author came up with in her mind and wrote in this book for us to enjoy.

What do you guys think about that?

- That was cool.

- [Ms. K] I think it's cool too, right?

- It's just a different book that doesn't have singing.

- Yeah, there are singing books, right.

I guess you could make up your own song to it, though.

- This one is kind of a different book.

You don't have to talk like this.

It's just kind of a different book.

- Yeah, but you can make up your own voices as you read from left to right though, right?

If we were reading over the pond, we could go, "over the pond."

- Right, left.

- Left, okay, let's do it together.

- [All] Left, right.

- Want to do it again?

- [All] Left to right.

- Exactly, yeah.

And then from top to bottom.

- Let's do that.

- [All] Top to bottom, top to bottom, top to bottom.

- And you made it into a song.

- Yeah, see?

There's your song right there.

I knew you could do it.

I knew you could do it top to bottom, yeah.

When you get home, you can make a dance to it.

- Oh, we could do that on the next one.

(gentle music) Layla, did you know that sometimes you can read a story by just telling stories about the pictures you see?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Tell me, looking at the cover of this book, what do you think this story might be about?

- [Layla] A unicorn and a squirrel.

- [Mrs. Colon] A squirrel.

What's that squirrel doing?

- [Layla] He's coloring something.

- He's coloring something.

Let's open the book and we'll pick a page, and I'll have you tell me a story about it.

Tell me a story about what's happening here.

- [Layla] A girl found a unicorn and a pen with a butterfly, and some lady bugs were crawling up here and here and here.

She was going to water some plants.

- [Mrs. Colon] She was, and where do you think those lady bugs were gonna crawl to?

Where were they going?

- [Layla] Up and this way and this way, and this way and this way and this way.

- [Mrs. Colon] They found homes on all those plants, didn't they?

And that unicorn, what do you think that unicorn is doing?

- [Layla] I think it's just a pretend unicorn.

Someone left it.

- [Mrs. Colon] Oh, somebody left it, it's a pretend toy.

What about this page?

Tell me about what they're doing here.

- [Layla] She's sleeping with her cat.

- She's is, and she looks like she might be dreaming.

What is she dreaming about?

- Maybe she's dreaming in the cat, then sun thinks it was a garage who was sleeping.

- Yeah.

Do you dream sometimes?

- No.

This is just a color.

- That's just a color page.

Let's pick one more page, and then you can tell me what you think is happening.

Tell me about this one.

What do you think is happening here?

- [Layla] He ripped them and then he wanted, maybe he wanted to left it on the trip home.

- Oh, for like a trail so that if somebody could find them, they would find all the pages he ripped out of the book?

Yeah, that's clever.

Well, thanks for reading with me.

Great job.

Brent, we had such a good time with Ms. K when she came to visit from the library.

She taught us all about how books work.

I'm wondering now if you could read me this book by looking at the pictures.

- The branch lights were bright, and it was rainy.

A little girl saw them light up in the trees.

They were bright and they were so cute.

She just climbed up with a ladder.

She wore a jacket so she could be warm, never be cold, and she liked it because I don't know why or who, but it's a mystery.

But it's thank you for all.

- Great reading.

Let's do the last page, that page you bookmarked.

Remember this one?

All right.

- [Brent] When the flowers were blooming, the spring was bright.

The flowers were blooming, and the unicorn came out.

One rose with a unicorn in it.

The butterflies followed the girl, and the girl saw the unicorn come out of the flower.

She was excited, but she never met a unicorn.

I don't know why, but it's scary, but it's a little fun to have it today.

- Thank you so much.

Great reading, Brent.

(gentle music) The library is an important place for early readers and writers.

Letting children explore their own interests in books helps foster curious minds.

When visiting your local library, make sure to check out all it has to offer.

There is programming for community members from birth through adult.

Librarians are a personal resource that can guide you during your visit, and everything is free with your library card, so make sure you get one for your entire family.

Another amazing free resource connected to our public libraries is the Michigan Activity Pass.

Map passes are available for over 450 partner destinations across the state.

You can either get a mobile pass or a printed pass for free entry to a variety of museums and parks in Michigan.

The library is a great resource for exposing children to a variety of books and texts such as informational and digital, along with different genres of texts like poetry.

This variety provides multiple options for children to choose from, and having choice is important.

Giving children the opportunity to choose which text they will engage with and where they will engage with them leads to independence and supports reading as a lifelong activity.

Interacting with children about the books they're reading by asking open-ended questions encourages conversation and builds a community of readers.

Encourage storytelling that goes with the illustrations or pictures in books.

Children learn that words go with text by doing this.

It's completely reasonable and appropriate for children of preschool age to not be able to read words on a page.

Sharing a passion for text you engage with is part of one's identity as a reader.

Continue to build that identity with trips to the public library and conversations with your local librarian.

(gentle music) We had so much fun with Ms. K today.

She came and visited us from the library.

- She had letters in her name, like her earrings.

- You're right, there was letters in her name, just like in her earrings, and she taught us all about the part.

Yeah, just like in her name, and she taught us all about the parts of a book.

Tell me what you remember.

What did she teach us?

- She taught us about libraries.

- About the library.

- And Brian taught us how to roar.

- [Mrs. Colon] He taught us how to roar.

- Roar like lions.

- Yeah, and when she read the book, she said we read it from left to, do you remember?

Right, and it goes from top to bottom.

See you next time on.

- [All] "Read, Write, Roar."

- [Announcer] This program is made possible in part by the W.K.

Kellogg Foundation, Elaine Stern Foundation, the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation, Donald and Mary Kosch, Lauren and Phillip Fisher, the state of Michigan, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(energetic music)