Did you know that March 11-17th is Illinois Arts Education Week? It is a great time to appreciate all of the fine arts – dance, drama, music, and the visual arts! The library is a great place to discover the arts through books, movies, and cds.
There is a lot of information on the arts in the library for all ages and not just in the non-fiction collection. There are many Easy picture books that introduce young children to colors and textures and many books for children on how to do arts and crafts.
We also have some wonderful junior fiction books that incorporate the arts. One of my favorite is “Chasing Vermeer” by Blue Balliett. In this book, kids are able to explore a whole new world of adventure and art when a precious Vermeer painting disappears and eleven-year-olds Petra and Calder need to combine their talents to solve an international art scandal. You can even find the arts in the 39 Clues adventure series. In the book, “One False Note”, Amy and Dan Cahill are in the lead to find thirty-nine clues that safeguard a great power, and are in possession of a coded sheet of Mozart's music that will help them find the next clue while their relatives follow in close pursuit. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get every kid who reads this book to also check out one of our Mozart music cd’s?
We, of course, have a large collection of art and art history books in our non-fiction collection but we also have dozens of Great Courses lecture series in either non-fiction audiobooks or dvds. These include lectures on different musicians and musical genres, artists and art history, drama, and even courses on how to listen to and understand great music. We also have several award-winning musicals on dvd and a great collection of classical music on cd.
The arts don’t have to be intimidating – don’t forget that current movies are also part of the arts. This week we have both of our movie events. On Wednesday, March 13th we are showing The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel at 1pm and on Friday, March 15th we are showing Wreck It Ralph for our Free Family Movie. Come on out and enjoy some art at the library!
