Dia de los Muertos at the Library

While very much associated with skulls and skeletons, Dia de los Muertos is not at all a scary holiday.  As storytime host Noelia Christensen said, “On this day, we remember the memories of our ancestors—isn’t that wonderful?”  Along with children’s librarian Dorajo Messerly and other helpers from the library, Christensen hosted a Dia de los Muertos party for Monday’s storytime to both honor the traditional celebration day, and introduce it to students who may not be familiar.

For the morning’s session, the two leaders took turns reading through a series of books on the holiday.  As a way of allowing kids to practice both their Spanish and their English, Dorajo and Noelia took turns reading in both languages.  For a number of months, the library has offered a storytime block that provides library storytime to young Spanish speakers who are becoming more acculturated to their English language peers, and vice versa.  Dia de los Muertos is a perfect chance to bring the two groups together and provide cross-cultural, as well as linguistic, opportunities for learning.

Throughout the reading, students had a good time practicing new words and sounds, especially the rolled R that can be difficult for those who have never had cause to use it in English.  “There’s some great rolling of the tongues going on!” Miss Dorajo noted, after explaining that she would leave most of the Spanish pronunciation to Noelia.  

It is well understood that the earlier a speaker can begin to practice the essential sounds of a language, the more natural and fluent their speech will become.  Some sounds, like the rolled R or the double L, actually depend on a certain amount of physical training to become comfortable with.  While children exercise the necessary muscles early on to a point where it becomes unconscious, approaching new sounds later in life can be very challenging for adults.  For this reason, second language practice represents an irreplaceable advantage to students who partake in it.  Along with the giggles and grimaces, the pride in accomplishment for students getting better at pronouncing what might be considered challenging words in Spanish was palpable.

The library is always a fun palce to be, and even moreso on a holiday!

In addition to the language learning that went on among the students, those who were unfamiliar with the traditions of the holiday were introduced to concepts like the “ofrenda,” which essentially means “offering.”  The Ofrenda is something like an altar or memorial shrine to a deceased loved one.  “This could be a grandparents, a friend, even a mother or father.  Anyone who has passed,” Christensen said.  “You place their favorite things, and food they liked for them to remember them.”  The library set up a ofrenda of its own, where employees and other placed pictures of their own venerated relatives, along with some of the items they enjoyed during life, as a way of respecting and honoring their memories.

The bilingual storytime is one of the many programs that the library hosts.  Programming at the library is supported by the Friends of Library, who are the 501c3 wing of its endeavors.  The Friends are hosting a Storytime with Santa event the morning of the Festival of Trees on November 22 as well.  All kids who would like to attend a special storytime event on that day are asked to make reservations with the library from 9:00 a.m to 12:00 p.m.  Contact sslibraryfriends.com for more details.