On Sunday, May 20th, come join us in the bungalow for a fun architecture-themed storytime! There will be readings, hands-on activities and extra architecture books for curious kids.
For the month of May’s Women Galore festival at The Wild Detectives, we are featuring female authors, illustrators and/or subjects, including a trio of can-do books from children’s author Andrea Beaty in our Kids In The Cliff storytimes (see Kids In The Cliff events for May 6th, and 27th). In 2007, after penning numerous kids’ books, author Andrea Beaty made her breakout turn as a children’s book author with her second book illustrated by David Roberts. Inspired by a mutual love of hats, their first together was the lovely Happy Birthday Madame Chapeau, about a lonely milliner. For their next, which we’ll read on the 20th, they borrowed similar rhythms, graphics and underdog themes, but the story in Beaty’s Iggy Peck, Architect became decidedly more exhilarating and empowering for kids. A striking and stylish overnight classic was born, and families everywhere had a new go-to book for frustrated students, visionary children and budding architects. The book is so full of charm and invention and is such a total delight, readers of all ages can’t help but root for stymied young Iggy and even feel for his awful grown-up teacher, Miss Lila Greer, who after all, like all adults was once a kid herself.
We will follow up with a story of a REAL kid who grew up to be a REAL architect! Zaha Hadid (1950-2016) was a Muslim girl born in Bagdad, Iraq in the 1950s and travelled to study in London, England. There she became an award-winning international architect with a visionary career. Despite various obstacles to her dreams of being an architect, like Iggy Peck, she was persistent. With her groundbreaking designs, she became the first woman ever to win the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s most prestigious award and honor. Join us as we follow Hadid’s journey in her picture book portrait aimed for kids, The World Is Not a Rectangle: A Portrait of Zaha Hadid, by Jeannette Winter.
Next we’ll take a playful peek at life in an elsewhere popular historic building type we rarely see in Texas when we read The Brownstone, by Paula Scher. The zany animal residents in the apartments continually wake the super to solve their housing problems concerning their neighbors, making friends and enemies along the way until a peaceful solution is at last discovered. One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor, as the song goes. Scher is best known as a leading graphic artist, professor and artist, and this is her first work for kids… to date! The book is delightfully illustrated by Stan Mack, a longtime illustrator for The Village Voice, and is re-editioned by the Princeton Architectural Press in a faithful likeness of the 1973 original.
If time allows, we’ll also read Maya Lin: Artist-Architect of Light and Lines, Designer of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial by Jean Walker Harvey before looking at some of the tools real architects have historically used to design buildings. T-squares, graph paper, blueprints and mechanical pencils will be on hand for kids to see and try out. Kids, come join us for the building blocks of architectural appreciation!
Price
- FREE!
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