Barks and Books - one of many posts - San Marino

My regular Barks and Books visits are monthly at the Sierra Madre Library, but we love filling in for someone else on occasion. I enjoy reporting my adventures to Elana Blum, our Humane Society coordinator. Here is one from a visit to the San Marino Library on a Saturday morning in 2009 -

We arrived in the midst of their first Chinese/English story telling. Tera, the children's librarian, and a Chinese speaking woman were reading Goldilocks - taking turns in English and Chinese, using a felt board to illustrate the bears, bowls of porridge, chairs, beds, etc. The story hour ended with a craft - cutting a Chinese lantern from construction paper. The group consisted of about ten very young children with mother/father/grandmother. All were Asian, except one African American family.
Our first reader was an amazing two year old who told a story with delightful flourishes, big smiles, and the brilliance we have come to expect from Chinese toddlers. The next reader was an extremely shy fidgety blonde, whose parents remarked that she sat still with us longer than usual (all of three minutes) -I'm guessing she was two or three -

And our next, and final two, were sisters - Madison and Kaitlin - whose Golden Retriever had died recently. Their father says they are considering a Newfoundland. The girls were in their white Tai Kwan Do uniforms. Madison read, and Kaitlin told us the story of Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug. Their interpretations were, as expected, filled with smiles.