Clarke rocks Grandparents U

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Yesterday was Grandparents U at CMU. Grandparents and children stay at CMU and engage in multiple fun activities. This year's theme was elephants based on the book and Netflix movie the Magician's Elephant. I highly recommend it. The CMU Libraries had a lot of fun activities to offer. In the Clarke we shared circus posters featuring elephants, a stereograph of the Forepaugh circus parade (with multiple elephants) in Kalamazoo (above), and other stereographs depicting the lives of children in the late 19th century. Everyone's favorite was the relatable hair brushing (Pulling and hurting) stereograph. The bare butt bath also made everyone smile. It was interesting to hear that most of the grandparents had parents or grandparents with stereograph collections that they had enjoyed as children. We also had handouts and treats. One of the handouts was how to download stereographic images from the Library of Congress and make your own working and easy to make 3-d viewer (see https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/stereo/) One boy was sick and sad he couldn't come, and several were homeschooled and needed activities, so their grandparents were thrilled about the handouts. Our guests also had to find an elephant image (Dumbo) hidden in the exhibit cases, which made them explore our exhibit. Here are some pics before guest arrived. Other parts of the libraries had a fortune telling tent (part of the Magician's Elephant storyline), a make a librarian laugh joke book area, using your phone you could watch an elephant walking through the 3rd floor stacks, and they concluded by making a cute 3-d elephant card with a crinkled trunk. What a great excuse to wear my elephant jewelry and share some Michigan circus history!









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