The Irvin L. Young Memorial Library has brought a unique twist to their weekly storytimes. Every second Wednesday from January to May, a different career is featured for a storytime and will offer children opportunities to play and learn with hands-on activities. Due to the library’s construction, storytimes were held at the Cravath Lakefront Community Center.
January’s storytime featured a teacher, and the storytime for the month of February was cancelled due to inclement weather.
Katie Katzman, a dairy farmer and owner of Katzman Family Farms, was the guest storyteller for March. She read a book about the different colors of the rainbow on farms and “The Confused Cow” by Jessica Peters.
“My family farms in the Whitewater area,” Katzman said. “We milk over 3,000 cows and we raise beef cattle for meat production. By growing everything that the animals eat, we take care of our animals and the environment.”
Katzman had been a farmer for her whole life. She attended UW-Madison and pursued degrees in dairy science and agricultural journalism alongside her sisters. All of them married farmers who own farms within an hour of each other.
“The Wisconsin dairy industry is a huge deal,” Katzman said. “It’s a $52.8 billion dairy industry, which generates a lot of jobs due to agriculture. But for young kids, I want them to know where their food comes from and for them to know that it is nutritious and safe. Knowing the face of the farmer helps, too.”
Katzman brought gift bags for the attendees to take home. Inside was a cow visor, activity book, sticker sheet and a set of strawberry and chocolate flavored “magic milk” straws.
Storytime was not only about sitting and listening to stories being read – Makerspace and program librarian Sarah French sang songs with puppets and gave the attendees activities to do and a snack of chocolate milk, string cheese, high-protein yogurt and fruit cheerios after both books were read.
“My favorite part of the storytime is singing with the children,” French said. “Sometimes when you start singing familiar songs, you see their faces light up when they recognize the songs that they know. Singing with the puppets helps them pay attention because they also want to play with them, so it extends their learning and playtime.”
Despite the library being under construction, French made sure that the Wednesday storytimes were still being held. Since the new location was in a public community space, she believed that community helpers that held different careers in the Whitewater area would be something that the attendees were interested in. The January storytime was about teachers, so French reached out to a few friends that taught in the area. Other guest storytellers reached out through advertising.
“It’s a good way for them to be aware of the different types of people in the community,” French said. “A lot of children are in their own little bubble – they’re at home or at school and they see the same people every day. So, going to a community event and meeting someone else that’s doing a different job than what the adults do in their life can give them exposure to different ideas, different jobs and different kinds of people. It plants a little seed in their brain that grows as they grow up, so they can think about what they want to do in their life and explore different possibilities.”
For March, the library partnered with the Rock County and Walworth County Head Start program. The program is aimed to help with children’s growth and development through a variety of services such as early learning for school readiness, family well-being and health support for perceptual, motor and physical development.
Head Start hosted one of their monthly playgroups at storytime, which included other family members such as siblings and parents joining the children in head start and fresh fruit and chili being served for their lunch time meal.
For the upcoming storytimes, April will feature a bank teller and May will feature a local police officer. Storytimes are on the second Wednesday of each month from 9:30-10:30 a.m. The event is open to all ages, but it is best for ages 2 to 6. Registration is not required.
