Need party ideas, information on home repair or how the story of Harry Potter ends? Get a clue! Solve it, explain it, explore it, discover it at your library. That’s the children’s theme of the public library system’s children and
Need party ideas, information on home repair or how the story of Harry Potter ends? Get a clue! Solve it, explain it, explore it, discover it at your library. That’s the children’s theme of the public library system’s children and young adult summer reading program.
Yona Chock, also known as the “Magic Storyteller,” wove her magic and storytelling for an audience of infants, children, adolescents and adults at the Waimea Public Library on Friday to celebrate its reading program.
“I was interested in all things man has created to set himself apart from animals,” Chock said of her start in anthropology at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Her interest led her to magic, clowning, puppetry, storytelling, folk music and folk dance.
Chock said she studied Hawaiian folklore before UH had a Hawaiian Studies program. Over the years, Chock continued to build her repertoire of folk stories and magic tricks. Now that she and her husband, Al Keali‘i Chock, have retired in Hawai‘i, they both present the magic and storytelling shows. Together, they serve as artists-in-residence in American Folk Dance.
They have a special connection with Kaua‘i, as Al Chock’s mother was born in Wailua, grew up in Hanalei and taught at Hanama‘ulu School.
Chock said she enjoys performing at the libraries on Kaua‘i, as the intimate settings allow the audience to sit up close and become engaged in the show.
“(When) they’re closer, they’re really involved and they ask questions,” she said.
The feedback she gets from the audience is important to her. Many of the stories she tells and illustrates with magic tricks are original stories she has developed, which she hopes to publish some day.
Librarian Susan Remoaldo said every week for the five or six weeks that the program runs, children pre-school through sixth grade and young adults grade seven through 2007 graduates bring in their book logs and receive incentives.
The incentives run the gamut from pencils to gel pens to bags of chips to coupons for free movie rentals. There’s even a chance to win a $1,000 shopping spree at Pearlridge Shopping Center on O‘ahu.
Remoaldo said she encourages the children to enter, because winners have come from Kaua‘i libraries in the past. The big winner gets flown over to O‘ahu to go on the shopping spree.
Janet Kawamura brought her grandson, Trent Kinoshita, to the show. She brings him to the library weekly to participate in the summer reading program, and he particularly enjoys the prizes.
The incentives are made possible through donations from sponsors such as Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Frito-Lay of Hawai‘i, First Insurance, Diamond Baker, UH Outreach College and local Friends of the Library chapters.
The summer program is sponsored by the National Football League Charities through a grant to the Friends of the Library of Hawai‘i and coordinated through the Library’s Development Services Section.
Waimea, Hanapepe and Lihu‘e libraries are among 25 throughout the state participating in a pilot summer reading program for infants and toddlers. Participating families receive packets that include activities for developing early literacy skills. Parents fill in an activity log and receive weekly incentives such as cut-out letters or numbers that can be used again and again.
“It has been very nice to be able to include from the youngest member of the family through the teenagers,” Remoaldo said. “It’s truly a family activity.”
Remoaldo has been with the Waimea library since 1988 and the Koloa library before that, starting in 1979. She said she has seen a number of changes.
“When I first started working for the library system, we were still using the card catalogue and writing the names of books on a little piece of paper,” Remoaldo said.
Since then, the system became automated and more resources became available. In addition to books, the library now offers CDs and DVDs. People can even access electronic resources from home, school or work using their library card numbers.
Over the years, as more athletic and educational activities are offered in the community, the number of young readers in the library has decreased. In addition, Waimea’s population has dropped.
Remoaldo said that many of her best customers who used to come with laundry baskets to fill up with books from the library now live in other communities.
Remoaldo submits a monthly activities report and a yearly “count week” report. During count week, she keeps tabs on every person who walks through the door, every item used in the library, every question that is asked.
The count is taken hourly every day of the week and statistics are reviewed and may impact the library’s budget. The administration can see how the libraries are being used and where additional staffing and funding may be needed to meet the needs of the libraries.
“We just have to encourage everybody to come to the library,” Remoaldo said. She plans to do that by letting people know how broad the resources are at the library.
“We’re not just books anymore,” she said. “We’re a resource for the entire family.”
Remoaldo, too, is a wonderful resource. If the library doesn’t have a manual for something, she can assist in finding the information on the Internet.
“It can be amusing sometimes,” Remoaldo said. “People have exhausted all their possibilities trying to find an answer to something, until someone reminds them, ‘Why don’t you try the library,’ and we’re able to help them here.”
