The public library system Director Mary Jean Jakubowski said the more books a person reads, and the more reviews they write, the higher their chances are of getting a prize. The grand prize will be a Kindle Fire HDX eReader.
Marcus Folingo, left guard for the Buffalo Sabres, told kids he loved reading when he wasn’t on his skates as a kid. He said he loved reading and learning about the world around him.
Well now you can thanks to artist Noel Cruz, who has been busy transforming boring off-the-shelf dolls into a range of celebrities. Among those you can get your hands on are Angelina Jolie, Princess Diana, Johnny Depp and
And the results are quite astounding.
Noel’s handiwork, which sells for up to £3,300 a time, can take up to three days to create as he painstakingly paints the intricate faces of each model by hand – sometimes working for eight hours straight.
He removes all the paint to make a blank canvas, before repainting the face with tiny brushes, applying acrylic like makeup to each of the dolls.
The Californian artist even cuts, styles and puts mini rollers in their hair to create the exact copies of the music and movie stars.
He then sells his work on eBay.
Detailed: A doll of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow
Noel, who lives in Tustin in California, USA, said: “I became interested in this by accident as my wife has been a collector of dolls for years.
“It’s painstaking work on such a small canvas so delicately done – it can be longer than an eight-hour shift.”
While looking around the internet for dolls for his wife Emma, he noticed some of the dolls available had extremely lifelike faces.
In 2001 he decided to paint his first doll – before becoming confident enough to take on some of the planet’s biggest celebs.
Hypnotising: Plastic Maleficient doll looks so real she might breathe fire
The artist, 53, usually paints big Hollywood names such as characters from Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and, more recently, The Hunger Games.
In the future, Noel, who started out as a portrait artist, hopes to work on characters from hits like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones.
But his favourite characters to create are classic Hollywood stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Bette Davis.
He added: “I gravitate towards celebrities because there are so many pictures of them available it’s more of a challenge.”
Like many musicians, Josh Rifkind spent much of last year on tour.
He logged 32,000 miles in a used minivan crisscrossing the country doing concerts. “I was on the road the whole year,” he says. “It was pretty epic.”
But the 41-year-old-guitar player’s gigs are a little different from those of most rockers.
Rifkind, who lives in Atlanta, has performed his music – which ranges from covers of Taylor Swift songs to “Old MacDonald” – for free for thousands of sick kids at more than 250 children’s hospitals across the country since 2007. Often, he and his fellow musicians set up shop in the lobby or at the bedside of a child.
It didn’t start out that way. Right out of college as a struggling musician, Rifkind formed a band but switched to managing other bands when he realized he had a lisp and wasn’t the best singer. “I figured out that my best stuff was the talking parts in between the singing,” he jokes.
Still, he loved music and he wanted to make a difference. His father was his inspiration.
Early Inspiration
After he was born, doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with Rifkind when he wasn’t breathing properly. His dad, Ken, then a recent medical school graduate, diagnosed his newborn son with a collapsed lung, saving his son’s life.
“I wanted to do something that combined those two worlds, my appreciation for [my father] and my love for music. And so, in 2007, Rifkind launched Songs for Kids.
Rifkind and a rotating cast of fellow musicians develop sets, rehearse, then play for children in the hospitals. They sometimes even help kids record their own songs.
“To be able to make a connection with kids in need, and kids you don’t know, it’s just very exciting, very rewarding,” says Rifkind, a free spirit with a self-deprecating wit who draws a small salary from his nonprofit. To fund his concerts, he holds a big annual fundraiser that has featured artists including Pete Yorn and Arrested Development.
An Hour of Normalcy
Hospitals appreciate Rifkind’s music. “The talented musicians with Songs for Kids provide a shining moment in the day of our children and families,” says Michael Vaccaro, chief nursing officer at Novant Health Hemby Children’s Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“Songs for Kids serves as a very therapeutic activity for children facing really scary diagnoses,” Vaccaro says.
Families say Rifkind’s music and friendly manner lifts their children’s spirits in the toughest times.
Rifkind first met Brody Cole when the 5-year-old, battling mitochondrial disease, was in and out of the hospital.
Brody never missed a Songs For Kids performance. “He would rock out to ‘Old McDonald’ and ‘Wheels on the Bus,’ grabbing a microphone and sharing the stage with Josh and his band mates,” recalls his mother, Kristi Cole Griggs of Columbus, Georgia.
“It was amazing. It was an hour of normalcy for us,” Griggs adds.
Tragically, Brody passed away five years ago, but his mom still attends fundraisers for Songs For Kids. “Josh was amazing with Brody. He’s found his purpose and I want to continue to support him,” Griggs says.
Eighteen-year-old Micah Arnholt is battling celiac disease and Gardner syndrome and has been in and out of the hospital for the past year and a half. Rifkind and Songs for Kids have been there every time.
“To see my kid smile and have such a good time was amazing,” says Micah’s mom, Lisa Arnholt. “Micah has a really good attitude but its draining to never know what’s going on with his illness and then Josh comes in and everything gets better. Josh just comes in and makes his day brighter.”
Rifkind, who held his first kids’ concert at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta says that’s what it’s all about. He remembers a young boy who had been badly burned on his face. During six painful months in the hospital he’d hardly spoken to anyone.
But, Rifkind recalls, he made it to the Songs For Kids group performance and then trailed Rifkind for hours as he sang bedside for other kids.
“He looked at me and he said, ‘I will remember you’,” Rifkind recalls. “It was so profound. We don’t do this to make money or be famous. You hope you can have an impact. You think about your life and how you want to live it and in that one moment there was complete clarity.”
The highlight of Carnegie Science Center’s annual MessFest for 8-year-old Perry Riggle was his reigning title as “Chief Geometrist” after winning the pudding “pi”-eating contest in his age division for the second year in a row Thursday.
The MessFest, held on the first day of the year at the North Shore science center, had all-day activities ranging from finger-painting to kids making their own sidewalk chalk. The two most popular attractions are usually tubs filled with ooblek, a gooey substance made of corn starch and water, and the egg drop, where kids can build a case for raw eggs that will protect their “egg-stronauts” from the pavement, spokeswoman Susan Zimecki said.
For the pudding “pi”-eating contest, contestants are broken up into three age groups — children 7 and under, kids 8-12, and teenagers and adults. Mounds of pudding are piled onto a small saucer, and contestants race to see who can finish it first using only their mouths to eat.
The New Year’s Day crowd was its largest to date in the eight years the center has sponsored the activities — more than 3,500 people showed up to the sloppy fun day for kids, Ms. Zimecki said. A long line of visitors had already formed when the center doors opened at 10 a.m.
“Usually we don’t see that many people that early in the morning, because it’s the morning after New Year’s Eve and many are off work,” she said. “We were surprised by how many people already were waiting to come inside.”
Monroeville resident Lynn Greenway arrived at the center as the doors opened at 10 a.m., and said there was a line of more than 50 people in front of her waiting to buy tickets. Her two daughters Anna, 2, and Kathryn, 4, went straight to the oobleck pools when they got inside, she said.
“My 4-year-old is into anything messy,” she said. “She’ll just dive right in. We usually try to avoid it when it’s crowded, but this is just so much fun and totally worth it.”
Participating in the MessFest has become a tradition for some families. Kelly Riggle, Perry’s mother, has attended MessFest with her family for the past five years, and participated in the race with her son for the second year in a row. Last year, her family recorded a video of her winning in the adult pudding “pi”-eating contest and uploaded it to YouTube.
“This is just one of our traditions we like to do every year,” she said. “It’s a fun thing for the entire family to do together. I made sure to tell him not to eat in advance so he’ll be nice and hungry.”
The number of games and activities and the amount of people participating have significantly grown over the years, she said.
“It just seems like there’s more of everything,” she said. “I think they must really have people spreading it through word of mouth about how much fun it is for the kids … and the adults, too.”
GALESBURG — Area children are invited to join the January reading program, “Read with Pete the Cat!” today through Jan. 31 at the Galesburg Public Library, 40 E. Simmons St., Galesburg.
Reading logs will be given when participants, ages 0-12, sign up in the Children’s Room of the library. Each of the four levels of the program will require one hour of reading. Readers will receive a “shoe,” sticker and after completing the fourth level, a free book! A raffle ticket given at each level completed will be used in a drawing for a stuffed Pete the Cat.
After each level of reading, participants may also bring an item to be donated to the Prairieland Animal Welfare Center, if they choose, such as copy paper, paper towels, gently used blankets, towels and rugs.
The month will culminate with a Pete the Cat Fun Day at the library from 11 a.m. to noon Jan. 31 in the Sanderson Room. All area children are invited, whether or not they participated in the January reading program. Those planning to attend the Pete the Cat Fun Day must register in the Children’s Room by Jan. 29.
Other events in the Children’s Room of the Galesburg Public Library this month:
• Anyone interested in knitting or crocheting, regardless of proficiency level, is invited to attend knitting and crocheting classes every Tuesday in January from 6-8 p.m. in the Hiler Room, next to the Children’s Room. Beginners should bring size 10 knitting needles or a size G crochet hook and a skein of 4-ply yarn. All ages are welcome and no registration is required.
• A recent large donation of character cake pans expanded the library’s collection to 90 cake pans which are now available for check-out for three weeks. Instructions are included with each cake pan. A Cake Pan Kick-off for ages 10 years and up on Jan. 10 from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Sanderson Room of the library will provide extra advice on how to make a cake look just like the pictures. Check out a cake pan, bake the cake, make icing and bring it to the kick-off where icing bags with decorative tips and colors for the icing will be provided. Registration is required in the Children’s Room of the library when the cake pan is checked out.
For more information about these free programs, contact the Children’s Room at 343-6118, ext. 113.
Netflix, with a nod and wink to weary parents everywhere, has introduced a clever way to trick the kids into thinking New Year’s Eve came early. The service is offering a three-minute long countdown to the New Year featuring DreamWorks’ animated characters – King Julien and friends – which parents can call up any time they choose. The idea is to offer families a way to celebrate the New Year’s Eve together, so parents can then shuffle the little ones to bed and the grown-up drinking (or whatever!) can begin.
It’s quite the funny little feature, and Netflix is playing up the “fool your kids” angle in its press release announcing the “Dance Party” and countdown. The company even went to the trouble of commissioning a survey which found that more than a third of U.S. parents already actively try to trick their kids into thinking midnight came early, doing things like finding countdowns from other timezones (36%), or even staging a countdown of their own (22 percent). Netflix thought it could do better.
Silly? Sure. Practical? *Shrugs.* I mean we already had YouTube, right?
Plus, I don’t know about your kids, but there doesn’t seem to be that big of a gap in between the ages where kids can’t tell time at all and the age where they understand that New Year’s Eve happens at midnight and – hey, why do all the other clocks in the house, including the one on my iPad, still say 8 PM…MOM?!”
My daughter just hit five and already has a rudimentary understanding of time, thanks to learning about the long hand and the short hand in school, and can read a digital dial. (Of course, she’s still confused enough to ask questions like, “is today tomorrow?” so let’s not give her too much credit just yet.)
I’m just saying, you can only really trick the kids for so long. What’s more effective is putting on your best “grown-up being serious here” expression, sternly telling whining children that it’s now bedtime, they will not being staying up late, and there will be consequences for any further tantrums. You know, actual parenting.
You can then pour yourself a glass of leftover boxed wine, crash on the sofa, and wonder what the hell band that is on the NYE show on TV, then pass out by 9:30 p.m. as usual.
