By Madeline

Halloween crept closer, and each day Ella and Wills impatiently anticipated adding more feature to their pumpkins. Wills was so excited, he managed to get a hold of the pumpkin features, and peeled off all of the backing. However, Ella promptly reported the incident, and I put all the adhesive black foam features on a sheet of wax paper so that Ella and Wills could continue adding parts of the pumpkin face each day.

Here are pictures of Ella and Wills putting together their pumpkins.

27th

Wills sitting by our pirate jack-o-lantern.

Ella and Wills’ pumpkins in our kitchen.

Today, the stem was supposed to be put on the pumpkin. However, since Ella and Wills had their pumpkins hanging in our kitchen as art, we added the stems earlier.

28th

On this day, Ella and Wills put mouths on their pumpkins.

29th

Next, it was time to add the nose.

30th

Then, they added their ears.

Wills making a scary face next to his pumpkin

31st

Finally, Ella and Wills adorned eyes on their pumpkins.

Ella and Wills finished their pumpkins just in time for Halloween!

Ella and Wills at a Halloween party

Everyone trick-or-treating

By Madeline

As the fall leaves change, Junior Wonderland BookSavers Ella and Wills have become increasingly enthralled with Halloween. Almost daily, they steal away to our basement to rummage through the boxes and baskets of our collection of costumes. At night, they plead for us to read Halloween stories. Every morning when they wake up, they drape themselves in blankets and run around the house being ghosts. Thus it seemed natural for their next project to be Halloween themed.

We chose one of our favorite Halloween books from when we were younger: Mrs. McMurphy’s Pumpkin by Rick Walton, illustrated by Delana Bettoli.

In the story, a mysterious pumpkin shows up by Mrs. McMurphy’s front door on October 27, and it has “a wicked, wicked grin.” The pumpkin boasts that it will soon grow teeth to eat Mrs. McMurphy, but Mrs. McMurphy is not impressed, and carries the pumpkin out of her house and places it on the porch. The next day, as Mrs. McMurphy gets up to milk her cows, she discovers that the pumpkin is on her sofa. But now the pumpkin has its “wicked, wicked grin” and a “crooked nose”! The pumpkin tells her “My nose is here. I smell you. When my teeth are here, I’ll eat you!” However, without hesitation, Mrs. McMurphy promptly puts the pumpkin into her shed.

On October 29, just as Mrs. McMurphy prepares to feed her pigs, she finds the pumpkin in her kitchen doorway, and today, it has two ears. The pumpkin now has a mouth to talk, a nose to smell with, and two ears to hear Mrs. McMurphy. But the pumpkin’s cheekiness will not bother Mrs. McMurphy, and she goes outside, and sends the pumpkin floating down the river. The next day, the day before Halloween, the pumpkin now has eyes. He once again reminds Mrs. McMurphy that tomorrow, he will eat her, but Mrs. McMurphy packages the pumpkin and sends it to the North Pole. On Halloween morning, Mrs. McMurphy goes into her kitchen to do baking. On her stove is the “large pumpkin with a wicked, wicked grin and a crooked nose and two pointy ears, and two mean eyes and large, sharp teeth sitting on her stove.” The pumpkin tells Mrs. McMurphy that he will now eat her. But Mrs. McMurphy doesn’t regard the pumpkin’s threat. And at night, to each of the trick-or-treaters, she gives a slice of pumpkin pie.

With the story complete, Ella and Wills both expressed their favorite parts. Wills liked when the pumpkin was sent down the river, and Ella’s favorite part was when the pumpkin was shivering in the North Pole.

I then began to explain what the craft was.

Mrs. McMurphy’s Pumpkin Craft

Materials: A paintbrush or sponge, orange paint, green construction paper, paper plates, black construction paper or a black sheet of adhesive foam, tape, plastic baggy

Directions: Take a paper plate, and paint the plate orange using a paintbrush or sponge. As your plate dries, have an adult or mature supervisor cut features (ears, eyes, nose, mouth) out of the black construction paper or black adhesive foam for the pumpkin face. Be creative when you’re cutting the features! Wills chose circle eyes and a square nose instead of the usual triangles, and Ella wanted her pumpkin’s mouth to be a grin and not have any teeth.

Wills’ pumpkin face on the left, Ella’s pumpkin face on the right.

Once you have cut out all the features for the pumpkin, put them in the plastic baggy. If you used construction paper for the features, then you will have to tape the new features on each day. If you used the adhesive foam, then when the time comes to place each feature on the pumpkin, you will just need to peel off the backing. Also, cut out a rectangle to be the stem of the pumpkin, but do not put the stem on the pumpkin yet. Starting on October 27, you can use the pumpkin as a visible countdown calendar to Halloween. On the 27, add the stem, on the 28, add the mouth, on the 29, add the nose, on the 30, add the ears, and Halloween add the eyes.

Ella and Wills both had a great time making their pumpkin countdown calendar, and can’t wait to put it into use!

By Madeline

One of the Wonderland BookSavers’ latest endeavors is to have 2,000 educators sign up on the First Book form so we can receive 40,000 new, free, books. However, while the term educator can be used to describe people eligible to sign up, it is rather restricting. In fact, anyone doing community service work is eligible to sign up. Anyone affiliated with the following programs is also eligible to sign up:

First Book will send us the 40,000 books when we get our 2,000 educators to fill out First Book’s five-minute form. Receiving the 40,000 books would allow us to double our current donations. When we first encountered First Book, it was at the Global Finals of Destination Imagination in Knoxville Tennessee. They were located in the Expo, and we met with them, and after talking with coordinators discovered that if we could get 2,000 educators signed up, then we would receive a tractor-trailer brimming with 40,000 books identical to the one there. We looked at the enormous tractor-trailer, and then at all of the 40,000 books which had come from inside. Other educators had applied for 40,000 books to be brought to their area, but there was enough surplus of books that we could take roughly four thousand books. We had a trailer which had transported the props for our Destination Imagination project, and we promptly threw out our props in order to bring home the books.

Claire collecting books from the First Book tractor-trailer in Knoxville TN

A new aspect of working with First Book is that the books we receive won’t have been “saved.” The reason our team is called the Wonderland BookSavers instead of the Wonderland BookGivers is because our charity began by donating books we rescued from being shredded or destroyed. While we still continue to salvage books and hold book drives, receiving new books will be a new component in our charity.

First Book tractor-trailer at Destination Imagination

When we receive the books, we plan to first disperse them amongst the many schools we work with in Bridgeport and local areas. After all the local organizations have taken all the books they need, we will use the remaining books to donate to Appalachia WV, Native American Reservations, and our recipients in Central America, Haiti, and Africa.

Recipients of our books

By taking the time to sign up on the First Book form, you can impact many lives. That’s right, the five minutes you take to fill out the survey can help thousands of children and help us undertake our newest, biggest endeavor yet! The survey consists of questions regarding what type of community service you are involved in. All of the BookSavers have filled out their information and hope that you will help them reach their goal of having 2,000 people sign up by May 2016. Links to the survey can be found at the bottom of our homepage, or by using the following link: https://register.firstbook.org/?rgst=WonderlandBooksavers

We hope you will help us to change the world one educator, one form, one tractor-trailer at a time!

By Madeline

On August 31, Team WBS journeyed from their homes in Southern Connecticut and into the heart of Manhattan. Yet upon arriving at their destination, they were astonished to find that they were no longer in New York City. Or New York. Or even the United States. The BookSavers had arrived at the United Nations.

The United Nations may physically appear to be in Manhattan, but in actuality, it is considered to be a combined territory of all the 193 countries in the UN, so it is 1/193 American, and 1/9650 New York. Most of the BookSavers had never been out of the US until our visit to the UN. Instead, we had used Emily Dickinson’s mode of transportation to learn about and understand different countries and cultures: books!

THERE is no frigate like a book

To take us lands away,

Nor any coursers like a page

Of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of toll;

How frugal is the chariot

That bears a human soul!

-Emily Dickinson

As we were guided on a tour through the UN, we were able to see artwork from many different countries, and many different mediums of art and expression. Every picture, painting and statue had a significance and story, and represented a clear idea.

We were led through beautiful, ornate chambers where we could see the areas countries use to convene and confer. Our tour guide was from Brazil, and there were many different nationalities of people in our tour group.

Something that definitely stimulated our interest would be the programs and aid that was sent to the same countries we donate books to. We receive firsthand accounts of the deprivation of our book recipients via our partners who deliver our books and supplies. Seeing the political standpoint of the poverty also helps us to understand more about those we donate to. We learned about the ways that the UN tries to combat poverty and hunger, and we also were introduced to the UN’s answer to education: school in a box. One box costs about $200 dollars, and is comprised of: one very large metal box with a built in blackboard on the inside, chalk and an eraser, notebooks, pencils, and toys/sports equipment. In the video about school in a box, school in a box seemed rather impressive. However, when we saw what one looks like in real life, we were somewhat confused- there were notebooks, but no regular books. Hmmmm.

At the end of our tour, we stopped by the gift shop, where we saw something incredible etched into the wall- it was a quote spoken by Malala, which reads: “One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.”

Upon seeing this quote, we knew that this would be our quote of the year, and now we have copies of this wisdom hanging in our houses.

Additionally, we purchased I am Malala by Malala from the gift shop, and that became the next book we read.

Overall, our trip to the UN was exciting, enlightening, and empowering. We have acquired a wealth of knowledge about global affairs and other countries, we found our quote and another book to read, and we have been inspired to see if there is any way we can assist Malala in her efforts to educate every girl and have all children be eligible for education.

By Madeline

Last Tuesday, the BookSavers met to discuss and outline our goals for the year. After careful consideration and thorough thinking, we were able to decide on the ambitions we hope to reach in the 2015-2016 school year.

We hope to:

• Donate 15,000 books by next September

BookSavers with their team manager at the annual Pequot Library book sale (left to right: Alison, Andre (in the baseball cap), Brooks L, Brooks Morgan, Maddie, book sale volunteer, and Claire)

• Get 2,000 educators to sign up onto First Book so we can receive a tractor-trailer brimming with 40,000 books. If we receive the tractor-trailer, the books will be dispersed amongst the educators who helped us apply, and the remainder of the books will allow us to make more book donations worldwide.

Here, Claire is collecting some books provided by First Book. If we get the 2,000 educators, we can receive 40,000 new books. Currently, Team WBS has donated just over 40,000 books, so receiving these books would allow us to double our current donations!

• Publish blog posts once a week
• Expand our social media base
• Build two “Sneetch Machines.” One for our local library, the other for the Barnum School so we can help get Dr. Seuss books for the children there

Here are some of the empty shelves at the Barnum School, and Team WBS bringing books they collected in a book drive to start filling these shelves. The Sneetch Machine is WBS’ latest innovation: it is a rendering of the Sneetch Machine in Dr. Seuss’ book The Sneetches and Other Stories. The blueprint is nearly complete, and soon construction on the machines will begin!

• Read 50 pages or two chapters of whatever book our book club is reading each week
• Write to Malala (we are currently reading her book I am Malala and want to see if we can assist her in her efforts to educate girls, boys and impoverished children) and ask her if there is any demand for English books

BookSavers as they write their quote banners for the year. The quote spoken by Malala reads: “One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.” We found this year’s quote etched into the walls of the United Nations. This is also what prompted us to start reading I am Malala. 

• Contact the United Nations to see if they are able to support us in our efforts to get the 2,000 educators, and also see if they are able to assist us in any other ways

Claire, Brooks Morgan, Maddie, Brooks L, and Emma on a tour of the United Nations

We definitely are going to be busy this year, but hopefully we will be able to reach these goals one hill, one valley, and one day at a time!

Past quote banners hanging in our schoolroom