Fans of the Magic School Bus stories from Scholastic Books got a rare opportunity of fun and learning when Ms. Frizzle, science teacher extraordinare, brought her intrepid teaching mobile to Matthew Paterson Elementary School and the Patterson Library earlier this month.

Known by children worldwide through books, videos and television, the Magic School Bus equipped with science activities visited the kindergarten to fourth-grade school in Putnam County. Hundreds of children had the chance to climb aboard and see many the displays and exhibits on topics from outer space to the human body.  Magic School Bus science teacher Ms. Frizzle (trademarked), also part of the popular series, greeted the children and took them on a special bus tour.

Following the school visit in the morning, the bus went to the Patterson Library in the afternoon where excited children  and parents had their chance to tour the bus and meet Ms. Frizzle, who signed autographs and took photos with her many fans. Some school students reportedly came to the library in the afternoon for a second bus visit and to show their parents and siblings.

This tour of the Scholastic’s Magic School Bus was courtesy of the Patterson Library.

“It was a big thing and an event that took a lot of planning. It was a nice day even though it rained in the afternoon,” reported Lillie Muscente, adult programs librarian.

(Ms. Frizzle is Emily FitzGerald of Pawling. Photo by Lillie Muscente.)

This week I’d like to highlight the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and its president Chris Finan, an author and award winner.

He will be receiving the prestigious Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award tomorrow, presented by the Intellectual Freedom Round Table of the American Library Association for his book, “From the Palmer Raids to the PATRIOT Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America” (Beacon Press, 2007).

The ABFFE was founded in 1990 to fight censorship and free speech by the American Booksellers Association, a booksellers trade group based in Tarrytown.

The award is named for the late Idaho University librarian Eli M. Oboler, known as a “champion of intellectual freedom.”

The ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Round Table presents the award every two years for the best published book about free speech.

The award presentation will take place at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, Calif.

The ABFFE suggests a book each month and for June its selection is “Claim of Privilege: A Mysterious Plane Crash, a Landmark Supreme Court Case, and the Rise of State Secrets” by Barry Siegel (HarperCollins).

Here’s how the ABFFE describes the book in its newsletter: “Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barry Siegel uncovers the mystery behind a 1948 plane crash and the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in U.S. v. Reynolds, which formally recognized the State Secrets Privilege. The case involved three civilian engineers who joined an Air Force crew who boarded a B-29 plane to test secret navigational equipment they were developing for the government. ”

The executive director of the Westchester Library System, Siobhan Reardon has resigned and has been appointed president and director of the Free Library of Philadelphia effective September 4.

Reardon took over the management of the 38-member library cooperative now based in Tarrytown on Sept. 12, 2005 succeeding Maurice J. Freedman, who retired after 23 years in that position. A Yonkers native, Reardon was a former deputy executive director of the Brooklyn Public Library. She had worked at the BPL for nine years.

“We have accomplished much over the nearly three years of Siobhan’s tenure, from the relocation of our offices (from Ardsley) to enhanced programmatic initiatives to technological advances, and have all enjoyed the wonderful leadership, dedication and commitment that she has brought to the Westchester Library System,” Patricia W. Fontanella, president of the WLS Board of Trustees, wrote in an e-mail sent this afternoon.

The WLS Board has begun searching for its next executive director, she added.

The Westchester Library System has an annual operating budget of roughly $5 million which comes from member public libraries and state and Westchester County funding. The cooperative was founded in 1958 and is one of the largest systems in the state of 750 libraries. By sharing services in areas of technology, cataloging and interlibrary loan, the system provides cost savings to individual local libraries and reduces the differences among large and small facilities.

The Free Library system consists of 49 branches, three regional libraries, the Central Library on the Parkway, and the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. It boasts of drawing more than 6 million visitors each year and is one of the most used educational/cultural institutions in Philadelphia. The library was chartered in 1891 as a general library and opened in March of 1894. It has 750 employees, a $55 million operating budget and is in the midst of a $175 million Central Library Capital Campaign, the largest capital campaign in the institution’s history, to build a 200,000 square-foot addition.

And, of course, its main library steps are known worldwide as the athletic training ground for the Sylvestor Stallone character, Rocky Balboa, in the 1980s movie “Rocky.”

(File photo from The Journal News, Aug. 2005)

Hold those basketballs still for a bit and find some time this summer for a good book. That’s the advice from New York Knicks, Cablevision and Kia Motors.

The New York Knicks and Cablevision Systems Corp. have teamed up for the second annual “Knicks Read to Achieve — a literacy partnership designed to promote reading and literacy in tri-state-area schools. Kia Motors America is the Official Automotive Partner of the NBA and the company is also participating in the program.

The program encourages reading with interactive videos and the Internet. The Knicks’ educational initiatives reach children through in-school programs, group readings and player and celebrity visits. Cablevision’s Power to Learn expands this reach to students, teachers and parents it serves through broadband technology and innovative curriculum programs.

Focused on children aged 6-12, the summer reading program has 14 participating libraries in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. In lower Hudson Valley the participating libraries are the Riverfront Library, Yonkers and the White Plains Public Library.

Program features include reading lists selected by librarians, parents and children, and will be highlighted by local book giveaways and “read-aloud” events with Knicks alumni at select locations. Additionally, each library will be giving away 25 tickets to pre-season Knicks games to program participants and their families. This summer’s program was officially launched at an event held at the Bridgeport (Conn.) Public Library featuring New York Knicks’ John Starks.

For more information, parents and children go to the Web Site for Powertolearn.

Summer reading programs are off an running — and I hope summer readers in lower Hudson Valley are sprinting ahead. Reading in the summer, educators say, makes for better students all year long. And reading a good book can make any day special.

“Catch the Reading Bug” is the state Education Department’s marketing program to encourage students to keep reading all summer long. There are games, activities and lots of ways to explore the world of books, suggested by the state.

Here is an especially cute video promoting this year’s summer program — and I love the summertime rock’n roll music:

Local libraries have kick-off events and programs geared for each community. To find your library go to the state’s pull-down menu.

Additionally, here are six suggestions from the state folks on how to encourage reading:

1. Get your child a library card at your local public library.It’s free.
2. Sign your child up for this year’s summer reading program. Kids will enjoy free programs with fun activities, storytelling, reading contests, crafts and more.
3. Read to your children every day. Take advantage of “waiting” time to share books: on trips, at the doctor’s office, in line at the grocery store.
4. Set a good example: read on your own and talk to your kids about what you’re reading.
5. Have books everywhere – in the car, in front of the TV, in the kitchen, on the porch.
6. Keep a list on the refrigerator of the books everyone has read during the summer.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum will host the Roosevelt Reading Festival from 10 a.m .to 5 p.m. Saturday at Historic Hyde Park’s Wallace Center.

The theme this year is New Deal books, and it coordinates with an exhibit “Action, and Action Now” about FDR’s first 100 days and celebrates the 75th anniversary of the start of the New Deal.
The festival consists of  six  concurrent sessions throughout the day. Twelve authors of recently published works that draw upon the Roosevelt Library archives will present author talks followed by book signings and question-and-answer sessions. Copies of all of the authors’ books will be available for sale in the New Deal Museum Store located in the Wallace Center.

Both the book festival and exhibit are free of charge.

Come this September, maybe late in August, there will be thousands of color prints of famous art masterpieces in local schools and libraries, courtesy of a federal program to bring artwork and their stories into local communities.

Imagine quality reproductions of Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington or Winslow Homer’s The Veteran in a New Field or Mary Cassatt’s The Boating Party hanging on the walls of the Mahopac Public Library, St. Columbus School in Cortlandt, Peekskill Middle School and Viola Elementary School in Suffern — just to name some of the nearly 2,878 recipients in New York state alone.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has announced the list of libraries and schools (public and private) in the Lower Hudson Valley slated to receive NEH’s Picturing America Awards. The recipients will get large, high-quality reproductions of great American art and a comprehensive resource book (cover shown above) to facilitate the use of the works of art in core subjects.

Check out the Web Site (linked above) to find all the community names, but they include: Ardsley, Bedford, Carmel, Cold Spring, New Rochelle, Nanuet, Mount Vernon, New City and Piermont.

Picturing America is presented by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in collaboration with the American Library Association.

Here’s a story about books, a teen project and how one boy is his sharing a love of reading with other kids.

For his Bar Mitzvah project, Harrison Palefsky of Cortlandt is collecting children’s books for the Westchester County Court Child Care Center. He’s hoping to gather many full cartons and deliver them to the court where he has heard the youngsters waiting for their parents don’t always have enough to do and could use something to  help them idle away the time with purpose.

“I am collecting new and gently used books for children from ages six weeks to thirteen years old. Spanish and board books are particularly needed,” he writes in an announcement to members of Congregation Sons of Israel in Briarcliff, where he studied for his torah reading (and for full disclosure, where I am also a congregant).

When I spoke with Harrison on the telephone this week, he said that “reading is one of the best hobbies someone can have.”

“I read a lot and really wanted to do something for a place near me,” he added. He’s just finishing seventh grade at Solomon Schechter and his mother Barbara Palefsky says she encouraged him to come up with project that would be meaningful to him and others.

Here are some of his favorite books and authors:

•Thomas Friedman’s “From Beirut to Jerusalem”

•Bill Bryson’s funny travel chronicles

•Harry Potter books

Anyone who wants to help Harrison, may drop books in a marked box in the lobby of Congregation Sons of Israel, 1666 Pleasantville Road, Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. during non-Shabbat hours.

Check back for a tally of how many he has collected!

(Photo above of the interior of the Westchester County Court for The Journal News by Matthew Brown)

After a lengthy discussion about free speech with Robert Freeman, executive director of the Department of State’s Committee on Open Government, this afternoon, I couldn’t help turning to a more relaxing topic and I asked him to offer some personal book suggestions.

Without pausing for more than a second, Freeman, an attorney who really seems to enjoy helping us reporters understand Freedom of Information and Open Government laws, tossed out titles of two neat-sounding novels:

A favorite book:

“The Bel Canto” (HarperCollins, 2001; Harper Perennial, 2005) by Ann Patchett, who also wrote a novel called “Run.” Freeman said he likes Bel Canto because it considers the means in which we communicate — love, art and politics. It takes place, I think, in Lima, Peru and I thought it was a great novel.” In 2002, she won the PEN/Faulkner award for this novel, her fourth, published in 2001.

Her biography says she graduated from Sarah Lawrence College.

What he is reading now:

• “Brookland” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by Emily Barton.

It is a very unusual novel, he said, describing it as a sort of historical fiction about a young woman who runs her father’s distillery in Brooklyn and has a dream to build a bridge to Manhattan at the turn of the century.

“I didn’t think I was going to be interesting, but it really is,” Freeman said.

The Desmond-Fish Library in Garrison has received a $35,000 grant from State Sen. Vincent Leibell, R-Patterson, to pay for upgrades to its security and technology systems, reports the Mid-Hudson Library System in Poughkeepsie, a cooperative that includes Putnam County libraries and those in adjacent counties.

The library, whose full name is the Alice Curtis Desmond – Hamilton Fish Library, has already purchased needed equipment to speed up the internal connections in the library and with this money plans to replace old computers and improve the security of the children’s room.

On related Desmond news, its 14th annual Associates Dinner this past Sunday honored these three book people:

• Frank McCourt with the Hamilton Fish Award. His book “Angela’s Ashes” won the Pulitzer Prize.

• Elizabeth Cody Kimmel with the Alice Desmond Award. She has written many children’s and young adult books and her nonfiction book “Ladies First: 40 Daring American Women Who Were Second To None” was highlighted by the Washington Post.
• Sandra Nice with the Patricia Adams Award. A library volunteer for more than a decade, Nice is also involved with the Garrison Children’s Education Fund and the school community.

(Library photo from Desmond-Fish Web site)