BULLETIN BOARDS & DISPLAY : Halloween 2015


     I meant to post these pictures early in October, but things got away from me. So I'm just gonna post them now. I'm kinda bummed that I totally forgot to take pictures of all the OTHER Halloween decorations we put around the library, especially since my library volunteer (Mom) and I really went all-out and did a super great job with it. So you just have to trust me, we should have won an award for "Best Halloween Decorations On Campus." The Attendance Office and the Counseling Office think they're so great, with all their fancy things on windows and hanging from the ceiling...
     We'll see how things fall out when the Christmas decorating contest rolls around. We'll just see about all that...

SSR stands for "Sustained Silent Reading"
     At the beginning of this school year SSR was newly reinstated, after a hiatus of probably more than 10 years. At first, LOTS of teachers just were not doing it. Didn't understand it, couldn't figure out how to handle it. Kids were still wandering into the library for various reasons during that sacred 15 minutes of SSR, when the ENTIRE CAMPUS is supposed to be silently reading, especially the adults who need to model it for the kids.
     I kept having to put my own book down and send kids back, and when I'd ask them why they weren't doing SSR, many of them had never even HEARD of it, which means their teachers were not only ignoring it, but they weren't even MENTIONING it.
     Luckily, our Principal was really good (and patient) about doing reminder announcements and emails, until finally I think most of them are doing it now. (3 months down the road)


I stole that slogan from somewhere online. I think it's super clever. But I can't take credit for it. I can take credit for the artwork and lettering above, though. Isn't it nice? Why, thank you. :)

BULLETIN BOARDS & DISPLAY : October & Halloween

     I do love this season, and all things Halloween. Here are some pics of how I've decorated the library:

Main bulletin board, including quote by Edgar Allan Poe
Skelton and tarantula are original things I drew, the rest is vintage Halloween decor, clip art, and a library poster.
For the light green and brown "grass," I just cut up some construction paper all crazy-like.
 
"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality."
-Edgar Allan Poe

The cylindrical display cabinet, which I keep unlocked so I can encourage kids to grab books out of it.
The raven on top has a tag around its neck that says, "Nevermore."



The "Coming Soon" whiteboard, festooned with glowing skulls.
(And yes, we DO now have "Blood of Olympus.")

Vintage 3D Halloween decorations

The green skulls are just clip art printed on colored paper, with orange paper flames, mounted against black paper.

I like this poster. It always makes me think of Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes."

These are the windows of my horrible little cave of an office.

BULLETIN BOARDS & DISPLAY : Halloween 2013

Vintage Halloween tablecloth used as bulletin board covering.

     My Aunt Wanda gave me this rad bag full of vintage Halloween decorations. We figure they're from the 1950s, or maybe even the '40s. Some of the stuff was never even opened! Anthony and I put some of it up at home, and the rest I took to the library. My mom helped me put everything up, which was totally fun. Thanks, Mom! Thanks, Aunt Wanda!

Vintage scarecrow as centerpiece of the big bulletin board. (I made the reading tarantula years ago when I worked in the Children's Room of the Santa Ana Public Library.)

     I'm actually ashamed of that half-hearted "WEAVE ME ALONE, I'M READING" slogan. I was in a hurry to come up with something reading-related and also spooky or whatever, and kids were due to come flooding into the library any minute.

Luckily for me there were TWO of these vintage flying saucer witches, so one is at home hovering over our dining table, and the other is coasting across the library whiteboard. She's bitchin'.

     Then this crepe paper honeycomb spider happened!

"Kiss my fat black ass!"

     Rubberhead the Skeleton Man hangs out in the library every year. He's surrounded by potions, ravens, a vintage black cat crepe paper thingie, and horror stories.



Vintage crepe paper honeycomb bats, clip art collage stuff, and spoooooky books! Plus my extended bibliography of horror reading recommendations printed on orange paper.

There's that witch, some skull lights, and that sassy black spider...

Vintage Halloween tablecloth, vintage crepe paper spider, Maurice Sendak calendar, Chris Van Allsburg glowing pumpkin print from "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick," and Alice In Wonderland Halloween scrapbook paper.

I drew that lil' skeleton years ago, and he really needs some new material because he says "The horror… the horror…" every damn year.

    In the picture above, see those two vintage orange and black plastic Halloween decorations? My Librarian gave those to me before she retired. I love them. Thanks, Marilyn!

The End!

HALLOWEEN IN THE 'BRARY: 2011!

Halloween's ON, witches!
           Banned Books Week is over, so I spent yesterday re-decorating the library for Halloween. Yay! The first thing I pulled out of the back room was my mom's awesome feathery witch hat, which I stuff over an artificial fern in a black urn, and set on top of an upturned black plastic witch's cauldron. Then I set that in the center of an artificial black wreath. (Well, it really is a wreath, but you know what I mean) 
          The color scheme is chartreuse green and purple. I recently discovered that CM School Supply, which has a nearby location, has these handy-dandy giant rolls of colored paper. Plus they have the wavy border stuff I love, in a panoply of fashionable colors.  ;)

"Dare To Be Scared" poster, and "Halloween in Wonderland" scrapbooking papers, plus vintage ghostie and pumpkins, and a simple hand-crafted black construction paper bat with White-Out eyes

          When I first put that "Dare To Be Scared" poster up (it's new this year), one of our library regulars told me it really freaks him out, and he'll be glad when Halloween's over and that creepy guy won't be staring at him anymore.
          I said, "Yeah, he IS pretty creepy. Can you imagine if you were walking home alone one day, and you turned around and HE WAS FOLLOWING YOU?!"
          The kid said, "I get a ride to school, Mr. Kovac."
          I said, "Well, what if you're sitting in class one day, and you turn around and HE'S SITTING IN THE DESK RIGHT BEHIND YOU?!"

Jinkies! There's even a RAVEN perched atop the sill! And are those GLOWING SKELETON HEADS?!! So chilling!

"The horror... the horror..."
          The big bulletin board has all my old handmade Halloween stuff. I made the spider way back in the early NINETIES, when I was working at the Santa Ana Public Library, in the Children's Room! I was basically their art whore, so I was given plenty of time to make arty things in the back work room. It was only recently that I thought to make clip art books for the spider to be reading. Now he represents people who read a bunch of books at one time. (I admit sometimes I do that)
          It's too bad you can't really see the details on the building there, but it's a spooky library, which I drew in black over dark grey paper. I think it looks really cool and subtle in person, but doesn't show up in pictures.
           At the back of the room over history and biographies is a long bulletin board that still had a summery display asking "What did you read over summer break?" so it was way past due (pun intended) for a change. Now it's Frankenstein's monster, and bats.  

Frankenstein's monster "Library Good!" poster, plus clip art stuff
 
Google image search for "bat clip art"

Google image search for "bat skeleton" and "fancy frame," and a few layers of colored paper
          Near the front half of the library is a long bulletin board that used to have a cheery smiling pencil and "Welcome!" in big letters. Now it's all skulls and weird scenes.

Clip art skulls, and posters from Chris Van Allsburg's Mysteries of Harris Burdick

          I've been using the posters from the "portfolio version" of The Mysteries of Harris Burdick for years. It comes in handy for creative writing workshops AND decorating! In case you haven't seen it, here's a link to it on Amazon (be patient for the widget/link to load, it may take a few moments):


          Recently I saw there is a new "Harris Burdick" book, which is an anthology of new tales by prominent children's and YA authors, who have used the tantalizing illustrations as inspiration. But the book is getting mostly bad reviews, because people seem to like Van Allsburg's pictures specifically for their unexplained eerieness. Despite the quality of the stories in the new anthology, the stories just aren't going to live up to what fans of the original have been imagining in their OWN heads for the past 27 years. (And yes, it really has been that long since the original book came out!)

Our cylindrical display case done up like a "cabinet of curiosities" 
           Our "cabinet of curiosities" has a rubber skeleton and various stuff from Michael's, or wherever, plus fake grass at the bottom with little "tombstones" I made out of construction paper and metal bookends. Plus some spooky-looking books. We're lucky to work with students who don't (often) steal things. We leave the case unlocked so they can get to the books inside.

Oh my gosh, the Reference Section is suddenly TERRIFYING!!!
          That raven on the pedestal is from Michael's, fairly cheap. I put a little "Nevermore" tag around its neck. The little orange plastic witch is a total vintage thing the Librarian brought in, from when she was cleaning out old decorations from storage. I love it.

I did a variation of this same Poe shrine last year
          The Librarian brought back some cool things from her visit to the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia. We now have parchment reproductions of some of Poe's poems in his own handwriting.
          The raven is just more Google image search clip art, and so is the little pic of Edgar in the clip art frame. I made the "curtains" last year out of construction paper.
         
SNEAKY TIP: when I'm printing clip art images and I don't have copy paper in exactly the color I want, I frequently find construction paper that's the right color and cut it to 8 1/2" x 11" and put that in the printer.

If you wanna see 2010's Halloween bulletin boards in our library, click HERE.

DAY OF THE DEAD : "Ofrenda" for Poe

     My friend Christine, the Art teacher, did all sorts of Day of the Dead decorating all over campus, and was kind enough to give us all the makings for an ofrenda for Edgar Allan Poe, complete with (plastic) skeletal remains.  She and her students are responsible for making all the cool stuff.  I assembled it on top of our graphic novels section.
Mr. Poe

      "Ofrendas are an essential part of the Day of the Dead celebrations. The word "ofrenda" means offering in Spanish. They are also called altares or altars, but they are not for worshiping.                
      Ofrendas are set up to remember and honor the memory of ancestors."
"Nevermore"
"Lenore" painted on the mysteriously squished side of his skull

I love the colorful tissue-paper flower garland
     When she was putting up all the decorations late Friday evening, she was on a ladder outside one of the classrooms and the ladder collapsed.  She felt into the wall and then dropped to the ground.  Her ankle is pretty f***ed up, she's sore all over, but at least we don't have to make an altar dedicated to HER memory.
     (I don't know why it is that we school employees tend to flaunt safety so much.  I don't even HAVE a ladder in the library, so I end up balancing precariously on book carts, or even stacking a little rolling library stool on top of a chair on top of a table to reach the higher bulletin boards.  We received a flyer by email a few weeks ago with the slogan, "A chair is not a ladder!" showing how to use a stepladder correctly to reach things, and reminding us to be very careful.  I tacked it to the wall in the back room and ignore it every day.)

Skulls, pictures of the deceased, offerings of food, candy, and drinking water, even flowers and ravens!
      She also did an altar dedicated to Frida Kahlo in the main office, and drew a unibrow on it.  Awesome, right?  And did you notice Mr. Poe has a mustache?  It's amazing it survived even after his skin and organs rotted away.  That is a seriously tough mustache.
      Mr. Poe is dressed in my own clothes, and it felt weird shoving his stiff, awkward limbs into my shirt and pants.  It felt sort of like dressing a child or an old person.  He was so uncooperative I had to pop his hands off and re-attach them after I got the sleeves on.  (I don't think you're allowed to do that with kids or old people.)

I HAVE STRONG FEELINGS ABOUT THE INJUSTICE OF HORRIBLE COVER ART

          In the Santa Ana Public Library Children's Room way back in the sepia-toned 1990s, I discovered an old copy of Rosemary's Witch by Ann Turner, published in 1991.
          I was instantly entranced by the lyrical, melancholy poetry of this small yet powerful novel.  It's really beautifully written. Turner portrays the witch, Mathilda, with a keen sense of aching loneliness.  Almost every line is graceful. For example, the first few lines of the book:

In the smoky blue-green hills of summer, where the phoebe calls and hawks sail lazily overhead, is a town called Woodhaven.  That is where it began.
   It was a town like a hat someone had thrown away for being too plain, for not having bird wings on it or bobbing strawberries.

          Then in the following chapter, when we're introduced to the witch:

She found the cottage one day as she flew low over her woods.  Mathilda almost missed it, the black, rotting roof hidden by two pines.  She settled slowly to earth and walked in.
   "Home."  The word squeezed out.  The edges of her mouth flaked.  "Home," she creaked.  Not a cave.  Not a dark, wet hole in a rock.  She sighed.

          Later, Mathilda finds an old ragged doll by the stream, under a rock.  It's faceless, and the stuffing is mostly gone.  Mathilda cradles it, cleans it, and stuffs it full of moss and pine needles.

   "Doll."  Her mouth hurt.  "Who left you-- there?"  Abandoned.  Left alone.  Cold winds and cold rain on the doll's face.  Dogs nosing her.  A cold rock her roof.

          How could I not love this book?!  It sent chills through me, and I never forgot it.  Flipping through it now, I even think it influenced my own writing.  At least it made me want to TRY to write something that nuanced and evocative.
          The copy I read was hardback, and had a moody cover that I wish I could remember better.  I think it had a ragged, faceless doll, and maybe the hazy form of a withered old woman behind a dirty window. I KNOW it was better than the picture on the stupid paperback, which I recently picked up for $1 in a used book store.
          I had brought book donations in for credit, which is the sad way we get most of my library's "new" books now.  I was so excited to find this subtle diamond of a book that I bought it even though the paperback cover looks like this:
Totally looks like The Babysitter's Club Halloween Special #368
          This craptastic Scholastic cover in NO WAY reflects what this book is really like.  It pains me.  I even searched online for a picture of the old hardback cover illustration, just to make myself feel better, but couldn't find it anywhere.  Maybe it's not even as cool as I remember, but it's certainly better than the one above.
          I plan to really push this book now that it's ready for checkout.  I will keep displaying it, and talking it up to the kids I think will appreciate it. 
          Especially during October.