The Little Paper

There’s a Dan Zanes song called Moonlit Town that I never tire of hearing. It captures what I love about October in general and Hallowe’en in particular and reminds me of how much I cherish my neighbours, my street and this big city of small towns. October is such a gentle month of falling leaves, cool nights and starry skies – a quiet hush and wistful gathering in before winter. There’s time for gratitude and reflection, for coming together with family at Thanksgiving and for the incomparable magic of Hallowe’en night itself.

My neighbours host a candle-lit pumpkin display that snakes its glow half-way around the local park on the 1st of November and, like Dan says, “Know that you’re welcome if you want to bring your family ‘round.” I’m hoping all the hard work and busy-ness of September lets us slow down a little bit to enjoy October. The Little Paper joined up with Pages Bookstore, Kids Can Press and Bunch Family last month to celebrate children’s books at their justlaunched Tinars for Tots event at the Gladstone and it was so much fun to watch host Claudia Dey and her partner Don Kerr lead the crowd of littles in a drum machine survey of late 20th century contemporary dance moves. (Pages’ Chris Reed almost stole the show with his Robot interpretation.) The kids were enraptured by Matt Hammill’s debut reading (complete with plunger, striped socks and pith helmet) of “Sir Reginald’s Logbook” and Irene Luxbacher introduced her innovative “Starting Art” book series with a massive monster sculpting session. The next event is on October 18th and involves Inukshuk building, endangered animal saviours and, as always, great food, good fun and a celebration of reading.

We also launched a facebook group and began to slowly restart the Little Paper Parents newsletter. If you would like to get on the list, just send me an email and we’ll do our best to keep you up to date with late-breaking events, new programs and shameless recommendations.

As always, we hope you’ll return the favour by letting folks know where you heard about the classes and events you choose. So, enjoy the issue, slow down a bit if you can, jump in the leaves and have a great month! – Vicki