February is Library Month! February 04 2016
This month we’re writing about the Library Lady and Libraries everywhere. The Library Lady is especially glad that the month for her work is featured in February. What better time than the coldest month of the year to curl up with a book and read the time away to spring?!
She has many ideas of wonderful books to read. Waldorf Publications fills her shelves with new books all the time. Two new books, EUREKA! and Roman Lives, just went to all Waldorf schools that are full members of AWSNA. Through them Waldorf Publications builds up a bank of support to enable the publishing of new books, most of which are resources for Waldorf teachers and the Waldorf parent community.
EUREKA! is a one act musical play about the life and times of Archimedes, famous Greek philosopher and mathematician. John Trevillion has written many wonderful plays for his classes at the Chicago Waldorf School. His experience as teacher and writer combine in this play in a brilliant way. The music for the play, written by Jeff Spade, is especially delightful and enhances the action well, making the play memorable. Jeff Spade is a gifted music teacher at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City (formerly Chicago Waldorf School). This collaboration is delightful to read and imagine acted on stage. When Archimedes gets into the tub and realizes how to determine volume of solid objects, shouting “Eureka!” he leaps up and runs naked through the city of Syracuse to tell the king. Now there’s an unusually thrilling moment on any stage. No fifth grader, middle or high schooler could ever forget Archimedes after that!
Roman Lives by Dorothy Harrer is one of the better readers we have published. It is rich with stories from ancient Rome and holds all the highlights of that most enduring of all empires. Some may remember this in manuscript form. Many weary and faded mimeographed copies of it traveled around the Waldorf school movement for decades. Dorothy Harrer was a great teacher in the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City for many years. Her skills as a storyteller and a colorful historian shine in every chapter.
Ann Pratt and Ann Finucane, who visited the Waldorf Publications office today, recall Roman Lives well. Ann Pratt, who attended the Rudolf Steiner Waldorf School as a child still remembers the drawing she did of Romulus and Remus nursing on the she-wolf, copied from the sculpture depicting the founders of Rome as baby boys. When Ann taught at her school, Dorothy Harrer gave her a mimeographed copy of these notes from her own teaching. Of course, as a Waldorf student, Ann, like every other Waldorf student in the world, has created her own books over many years as a student in Waldorf school. Every Waldorf student is a book publisher after all!
Your own library at home holds many treasures, we are sure! Take a look and dust off some old favorites to read aloud to the family or to read and remember for yourself during Library Month. Celebrate the many librarians who keep so many books ready and organized for us to find and read. Our own Library Lady is to be celebrated. It is she who gives us the imagination of all of you who search our store of books to find the perfect one for comfort, good stories, or ideas for teaching. Maybe as a parent you have found a book from her that helps with parenting or crafts to do with your children. We hope in any case that she is as helpful to you as she is to us here at Waldorf Publications!
Happy Library Month! Hooray for books!