Partner in Education Signing & Storytime

During Family Night @ the Library on December 20th, we had a very special event take place. Half Price Books signed to be a Partner in Education for Kinkeade Early Childhood School.  Becky Dennis, the manager of the Irving store, located on Beltline Road brought the Half Price Books mascot, BW (Book Worm) along for this exciting event.

Six boxes of books (approximately 300 books) were delivered to the school prior to the event. The books were sorted and placed out on display from which the children could choose.  While going through the books and placing them on the tables for the teachers and children, I found one of my very favorite books from my childhood. I discovered Favorite Poems and Old and New selected by Helen Ferris, when I was ten years old while visiting my church library. I was shocked when I found the property stamp from First Baptist Church on the end pages of the book. I was even more surprised when I looked through the book and found the library card in the back of the book with my ten-year-old signature on the card in the library pocket. This was the actual book I had fallen in love with over thirty years ago. [Since these books were donated by Half Price Books for the children and teachers, I decided to keep this book for myself since it has such a very special meaning to me.]

It is ironic to find this book in the boxes brought to Kinkeade on this day for another interesting reason. Dr. Henry H. Kinkeade, the person for whom our school is named, was the pastor of First Baptist Church for over thirty years. He was my pastor and was a very dear person in my life. I loved that this very special book was found right before signing with our very first Partner in Education. UPDATE 2/1/2013: Half Price Books created a blog entry about this exciting find. You can read it here.

Following the signing event, children and their parents were invited to visit the library for a very special story time. I shared the ebook Kundersanterbleebin with the families. It is a wonderful book I discovered this year about believing in Santa Claus. It is one of my new favorite Christmas books. Everyone enjoyed the story and the new Elfanese words they learned.

The families checked out a number of books to keep them busy during the two week holiday break. Some of our friends carried out two bags full of books.

We also had a great time taking pictures using the Grinch and Rudolph camera apps.