About Hilary

Loves “I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!” by Karen Beaumont because it celebrates a messy but colorful life.

Get Trucking

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Hilary

Turn an egg carton into a dump truck, add some traffic signs and get trucking! We’ve tested the following activities on the bookmobile and received enthusiastic thumbs up.

To make the trucks:

We used DLTK’s pattern for the dump truck. We suggest you skip the paint and use markers instead. Markers allow your kiddos to custom detail their trucks. You can geek out adding specialty headlights and chrome wheels, but honestly, we got excited about drawing passengers and drivers. (One’s a hedgehog.) If you aren’t ready to hand your child markers, try stickers.

We also attached the truck bed with masking tape so that it can be raised and lowered. We think you will be impressed with this upgrade. Continue reading →

Bookmobile, Jr. at Tons of Trucks

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Hilary

Mark your calendars, bookmobile fans; one of our favorite community events is coming up! Columbia Parks and Recreation is putting on their annual Tons of Trucks event on April 3. Trucks and other vehicles of all shapes and sizes will be on display for you to admire, wander around, climb on and sit in. We hope to see you aboard Bookmobile, Jr.

Free event, rain or shine!

Wednesday, April 3, 2013
4-7 p.m.
Cosmo Park, Columbia
Access the Rainbow Softball Center parking lot through main entrance of park.

Check It Out: Little Treasures

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Hilary

I do NOT like overly sappy books! I don’t! Usually. Until now. “Little Treasures: Endearments From Around the World” by Jacqueline Ogburn has surprisingly taken over the place of honor on my desk. This mix of sweet and silly names for little ones celebrates the unique terms of endearment from different world cultures.

Some of my favorites are:

docinho de coco – Portuguese for “little coconut candy”
xiao pie dou – Chinese- for “little mischievous pea”
knuddelbaerchen – German for “little huggy bear”
dhanaya – Arabic for “a part of my existence.” Continue reading →

Looking for Love: See a Heart, Share a Heart

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Hilary

It all started with spilled ice cream. Artist Eric Telchin looked at the splatter of this mishap and saw a heart shape. Soon he was discovering hearts everywhere and photographing the evidence. His images have been collected in the uplifting book “See a Heart, Share a Heart.”

I stumbled upon this bright and cheerful book while straightening the children’s area, and now I am obsessed. Racing out over my lunch break, I found hearts in my foundation’s peeling paint, a gum stain on the sidewalk and the foliage. What remained of my dog’s bone was also a perfect heart, but he saw me eyeballing it and raced out to bury the treasure. Over a week later, I have an entire collection of hearts and a new way of looking at the world. Some people see a piece of trash; I see the symbol of love (a symbol I document and then deposit where it belongs). Continue reading →