SHARON — It was hard to tell whether the grown-up took the child to the library or if it was the other way round.
Enthusiasm was in high gear as the staff at the Hotchkiss Library welcomed all for “Take Your Child to the Library Day,” observed Saturday, Feb. 3.
Now in its 13th year and celebrated worldwide, the event is held annually on the first Saturday in February.
At The Hotchkiss Library, the day coincided with the regularly scheduled Saturday morning story hour, drawing a capacity audience of parents and children, first to sing some cheery, settling-down songs and then to hear stories read aloud.
“I love reading to kids,” said Eloise Kivitz, 10, who kicked off the story hour with “No Pirates Allowed” by Rhonda Greene, her strong reading performance done with expression and clarity.
Mid-morning story time was organized by Renee DeSimone, head of circulation and children’s services, who also read aloud and had arranged for special features to add to the celebration. There was a basket of bookmarks that could be crayon-colored on the spot or taken home, a game where children could identify silhouettes of possibly familiar book characters, and even a cardboard cutout opportunity for a photo with a fun book character.
“I’m excited when parents come in with their kids,” said DeSimone as the families filed in. She acknowledged that sometimes it is difficult for families to find the time.
At the end of it all, children who checked books out received a gift bag to take home.
In the foreground, Eloise Kivitz, 10, is reading aloud.Leila Hawken
Houston has shared the stage with stars ranging from Barbra Streisand to Motown great Mary Wells. “I have had the honor of portraying Elizabeth Freeman for three years in “Meet Elizabeth Freeman” by Teresa Miller. Our first reading of “1781” is in celebration of Juneteenth, which is wonderfully symbolic and poignant.” Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery. Two years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, word of their freedom finally reached slaves in Texas on June 19, 1865.
Tombstone of Elizabeth Freeman in the “Sedgewick Pie” family burial ground in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Lonnie carter
MumBet, born in 1742 to African enslaved parents, was purchased at age six months by Colonel John Ashley of Sheffield, Massachusetts, for whom she worked until her thirties. Ashley helped write the 1773 Sheffield Declaration which stated, “Mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other, and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty and property.” Rumor has it that MumBet overheard a reading of the document. After a traumatic household experience, MumBet left the Ashley home in Bartholomew’s Cobble, walked four miles to Sheffield, and asked attorney and abolitionist Theodore Sedgwick to help her gain her freedom.
Houston shared, “I live in Sheffield near where she was enslaved, in a house she would have passed on her walk from Ashley Falls to Sheffield. I am humbled by the fortitude and inner strength it must have taken for this woman to defy norms and take a stand for her own freedom.We Americans must still stand and fight for our rights to live free.”
Elizabeth Freeman spent her years as a free woman working for wages in the Sedgewick household, saving money to buy her own home in Stockbridge, where she was a midwife and healer. She died in 1829 and is buried in “Sedgewick Pie,” the family burial plot in Stockbridge. One of her great-grandchildren, W.E.B. DuBois, born in Great Barrington, was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. DuBois founded the NAACP.
Her tombstone reads: “She was born a slave and remained a slave for nearly thirty years. She could neither read nor write yet in her own sphere she had no superior or equal. She neither wasted time nor property. She never violated a trust nor failed to perform a duty. In every situation of domestic trial, she was the most efficient helper, and the tenderest friend. Good mother, farewell.”
The performance of “1781” will take place Thursday, June 19 at 7 p.m. at The Center on Main (103 Main St., Falls Village).Admission is free, donations gratefully accepted.
