Lennoxville Library and LES celebrate Canadian Children’s Book Week
On Friday, May 5, the Lennoxville Library, in conjunction with two Grade 4 classes and their teachers at Lennoxville Elementary School, celebrated Canadian Children’s Book Week with a visit from Sophie Casson, a children’s book illustrator touring Quebec schools with the Canadian Children’s Book Center Visiting Author Program.
This is the library’s 12th year in offering the program to the students. (It continued with virtual sessions during Covid.)
This year, Sophie was able to make the trip in person, and the children were delighted to have the opportunity to meet a real, live illustrator. While sharing Heather Camlot’s children’s book The Prisoner and the Writer, a book about the famous Dreyfus affair and Émile Zola’s courageous intervention, and looking at Sophie’s detailed illustrations, they learned about the process of illustrating. This was followed by a simple hands-on printmaking activity linked to the book that captured the children’s imaginations and yielded some pretty amazing results. “Wow, I never knew I could do this!” said one enthusiastic participant.
The library encouraged children to become members if they aren’t already and to get to know the many activities and wonderful books on offer there. Membership is free for Sherbrooke residents. Children who attend school in Sherbrooke but live in other municipalities can also get a free membership.
Of course, the teachers – and this year’s teachers in particular, Nancy Richard and Jodi Coleman - made the whole thing possible, in opening up their classrooms and being so enthusiastic about the program year after year. That they recognise and encourage reading in all its forms was evident from the current and topical books everywhere in their classrooms and from the children’s response to Sophie and this new experience.
Who knows? There may be a budding illustrator (or two!) among these children who will remember this day as being hugely influential in their choice of profession in the future. And the library may just have encouraged some newly forming readers!