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Sometimes you get a big idea. And sometimes you get to make that idea a reality. This year my department was given funds to create big family programming, and I got the chance to build my idea: a giant cardboard maze that would encourage caregiver-child interaction and create a memorable library experience for customers of all ages.
Photo credit: Kahla Gubanich
The Event
Photo credit: Amy Seto Forrester
A families-only Harry Potter-themed after-hours party kicked off the maze, which measured 75’ long, 15’ wide, and 6’ tall, and sat smack-dab in the middle of the main hall of Denver Public Library’s Central Library. Customers lined up out the door to wait for their turn to explore the maze. A staff member at the maze entrance spaced out families in two minute intervals to avoid traffic jams. We also hid the four Hogwarts house crests inside the maze. Kids were given maze passports, and when they found a crest there was a staff member dressed as a Harry Potter character waiting to stamp their passport. This allowed us to have staff in the maze in case of emergency.
Other party activities included pin the sock on Dobby, magic wand decorating, and, of course, tasty themed snacks. Having a theme for the maze wasn’t necessary, but it did make the event easier to promote. Plus, it meant lots of kids came dressed as their favorite Harry Potter character.
After the party we left the maze up in our main hall for a week so customers of all ages could explore the maze. In addition to walking through the maze, customers could look down from the 2nd and 3rd floors to plan their route or watch others go through the maze.
DPL staff putting the maze together. Photo credit: Kahla Gubanich
Construction
Children’s librarian, Warren Shanks, showing off a stack of newly purchased cardboard. Photo credit: Amy Seto Forrester
I’d seen pictures of cardboard mazes online (thanks, Pinterest!), but I couldn’t find anything tall enough for adults. My goal was to create something that children and their caregivers could explore together. I wasn’t able to find any instructions online, so I decided to figure it out on my own. This process included lots of brainstorming and several mini-maze mock-ups. Here’s a list of things to consider, based on my experience.
Safety and Space. Measure your space and learn about your library’s safety rules and regulations. I met with the security, custodial, and facilities departments to get their input. From this meeting it was decided that we would have a minimum of 5’ of space on all sides of the maze. We also decided to include a third side entrance/exit to the maze in case of emergency.
Design the Maze. I had never designed a maze before so I was grateful to find some wonderful online resources. Jo Edkins has great info about maze layout and design and the tips on avoiding bottlenecks on Amazeing Art were useful. I found it helpful to first determine the entrances/exits and then divide the space into three “mini mazes.”
Shelvers Sarah Cosoer and Sallie King take a break from cardboard prep. Photo credit: Amy Seto Forrester
Planning and Paperwork. Make sure your plans are written down so others can understand them. This is the kind of project that requires teamwork and delegation, so it’s important that your paperwork is detailed and clear. Here’s a copy of the maze layout.
Purchase Materials. I purchased my materials from the following companies:
Some companies require a minimum number of a particular item per order.
Freight shipping can add a significant amount to the cost of materials.
Height of your loading dock. Ours is very low, so this impacted delivery.
Talk to a representative. I was able to get more accurate quotes and ultimately a
Warren uses a template to measure and cut a cardboard sheet. Photo credit: Amy Seto Forrester
lower price by emailing and talking on the phone with a representative.
Prep as much of your maze ahead of time as possible. Call in your volunteers, friends, and family! Cutting and labeling our boxes required approximately 20 hours of prep time.
Putting It Together. It took us approximately 10 hours with 5 people working steadily to put the maze together with the prepped materials. This includes the 5 hours we used to construct 45 maze units the day before the event and stored them in our storytime room. The day of the event we had another 5 hours to assemble the other units and zip-tie them all together. Check out the step-by-step Maze Construction Instructions.
Templates used for cardboard prep. Photo credit: Amy Seto Forrester
Conclusion
Yes, this maze took a ton of planning and staff labor, but it was worth it. From a numbers point of view, it was gratifying to have 300+ people come to the after-hours party. But it was even more satisfying to see the smiles, hear the laughter, and watch our customers find joy in exploring the maze. The maze was also an entry point for staff-customer interaction and encouraged customers to visit our 2nd and 3rd floors to look down on the maze. In short, it was an unforgettable library experience!
Photo Credit: Sherry Spitsnagle, Denver Public Library
Our guest blogger today is Amy Seto Forrester. Amy is a children’s librarian at the Denver Public Library and has her MLS from Texas Woman’s University. She is always on the look out for creative ways to incorporate the arts into children’s services and programming to extend books beyond the page. Check out Amy’s blogs: http://picturebookaday.blogspot.com/& http://chapterbookexplorer.blogspot.com/
Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.
If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at [email protected].
The Maze Stone, which has the power to turn the whole of Opera City into a maze, has been stolen, and you – dear reader – are needed to help track down the culprit and restore this magical object.
Why should you take up this challenge?
Because en route…
you’ll journey by air balloon, through the most impressive treehouses you’ve ever seen, in and out of Escher-esque buildings, across giant octopus infected oceans and through a bizarre underground fleamarket where just about anything you can imagine is up for sale.
you’ll enter a strange hybrid land set in the 1920s-30s, half-video game half-astonishing book, collecting extra points and hidden items, watching out for traps and more. All you need to do is imagine the soundtrack.
you’ll be dazzled by incredibly intricate illustrations packed with many more stories than the primary one following the fate of the maze stone. Every “wrong” turning as you try to crack the maze on each page will give you reason to wonder what’s been happening, and what will happen next!
If you’ve a child poorly in bed, or it’s just a rainy day calling out for a duvet on the sofa, Pierre the Maze Detective is a rich and rewarding rabbit hole ready for anyone who loves losing themselves in an adventure of almost unimaginable detail and scale.
This stop-motion video showing how one of the double page spreads was planned out gives you a good impression of the labyrinthine, meticulous nature of the illustrations:
A picture book for older children (and their grown-ups) who love a challenge or who are inspired by the imaginative possibilities of vast landscapes and settings, Pierre the Maze Detective helpfully comes with a key to all the mazes, and also a page of extra delights to go back and look for – all printed in the style of a vintage newspaper.
Playful, precise, interactive and highly imaginative, this incredibly well produced book (with its lovely paper and large size) is original and eye-opening. As I said, it’s quite something!
Pierre the Maze Detective owes something, I believe, to the work of another Japanese picture book creator: Mitsumasa Anno. Anno created a whole series of detailed wordless picture books where a tiny character wends his way through different landscapes, and although his books weren’t mazes as such, they share with Pierre the sense of journeying, immense details, and rich stories being told away from the most direct path to the final destination.
Having enjoyed the mazes, the details and the adventures in Pierre the Maze Detective we decided it was time to make our own mazes. Using the basic design principles outlined here, we decided to build our maze out of lego and turn it into a marble run.
We all really enjoyed making each other different mazes to try out. The lego made it really easy to create new mazes and kept the kids happily occupied for a good couple of hours – longer than I had anticipated!
Whilst creating our mazes we listened (rather eclectically) to:
Missing in the Corn Maze by vogelJoy
It’s A Maze from the Original Broadway Cast Recording of “The Secret Garden”
Book: The Path of Names Author: Ari Goelman
Pages: 352
Age Range: 10-14
The Path of Names by Ari Goelman is about a girl named Dahlia Sherman who loves magic tricks, does NOT want to go to Jewish summer camp, and ends up unraveling a 78-year-old mystery involving a Yiddish rabbinical student and the ghosts of two young girls. There are camp skits, mazes, and (minor) sibling rivalries. There's a creepy camp handyman, a posse of mean girls, and a boy with the potential to be a friend (and the inclination to be more). In short, The Path of Names has a little something for everyone.
Dahlia is a strong character, a girl who doesn't care that much that the popular girls think she's weird, who likes math, and who just wants to understand things. She's at that age where she's resisting the boy-girl stuff, even as it swirls around her. She is delightfully furious when she finds out that her friend Rafe is letting people believe they are dating. I like that she uses her brain and tenacity to solve the mystery, despite making mistakes along the way.
Most of the book is told from Dahlia's limited third person viewpoint, but intermittent chapters are from the viewpoint of David Schank, a 17-year-old yeshiva student in 1940's New York City. A few sections are also told from the viewpoint of Dahlia's older brother, Tom, a counselor at the camp. Dahlia is the one that readers will relate to most of the three, through David's story is the more suspenseful one. Shifting the viewpoint between Dahlia and David will keep readers turning the pages, driven like Dahlia to understand what happened to the young student.
The camp setting and details seemed authentic to me, though I never went to sleepaway camp (Jewish or otherwise). It is certainly not an idealized portrayal - there are details that strongly indicate the author's personal experience in a camp setting. Like this:
"Dahlia went up the stairs to the cabin. It smelled familiar from visiting Tom all these years: the musty scent of old wood, mingled with the smells of clean laundry and dirty shoes and nylon sleeping bags. She had sort of liked the smell when they visited Tom, but the girls' bunk smelled different, more girly. Had someone really brought perfume to summer camp?" (Page 9)
There is also quite a lot of information in The Path of Names about Jewish history and culture, kabbala, Hebrew words, etc. All of these things are central to the book's storyline. I found the details fascinating, and I think kids will too. Goelman does a nice job of broadening the reader's perspective, while still keeping his focus on plot and character.
I do think that The Path of Names is more a book for middle schoolers than for elementary school kids. This is partly due to content (there is a small amount of drinking by the older kids, and there are deaths), but mostly due to the mystical themes, and the relatively grown-up perspective of David. Certainly, despite having a girl as the primary protagonist, The Path of Names is also boy-friendly (ghosts, mazes, magic tricks, pranks). Recommended for mystery and adventure fans, or anyone who likes the idea of seeing ghosts at summer camp.
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books (@Scholastic)
Publication Date: April 30, 2013
Source of Book: Review copy from the publisher
FTC Required Disclosure:
This site is an Amazon affiliate, and purchases made through Amazon links (including linked book covers) may result in my receiving a small commission (at no additional cost to you).
As a book blogger, it's always fun to mix things up a little bit and review something a little different. I was recently able to review three games from Klutz, a company I'm always buying birthday and Christmas gifts from and I had such a great time doing it! The husband might have enjoyed himself a bit too...
So, the first thing we played with was Thumb Wars: The Ultimate Guide. More of a kit than simply a game or a book, you get both with this set. A hysterically named "Sleeve of Doom" accompanies a small paperback book which includes strategies, different games to play, and my favorite: trash talk. So much fun!
The sleeve makes it pretty impossible to cheat, so even if you're just going to play the regular old thumb war, wear the sleeve! There's also instructions for playing with foil "hooks" and marshmallows. You can even MUD WRESTLE by using a cup of pudding in between your hands!! Seriously, this is such a simple setup, but it's absolutely hilarious to partake in. We very much enjoyed ourselves.
Next, we opened up The 15 Greatest Board Games in the World. Now, I am going to have to disagree with the title...I don't really think they're the greatest board games in the entire world, but we certainly had fun playing most of the games.
The pieces for every game come in a handy case, which makes it easy to store right inside the book. Each page spread includes one side for game instructions and one side for the actual game board. Boards are nicely illustrated, with each looking a bit different, which was nice.
We didn't play all 15 games (only so much free time I suppose), but the seven we did play were a lot of fun. Our favorite? China Moon.
I do definitely agree with the age minimum being 7, as some of the concepts might be a bit over the head of a younger child, but a 7/8 year old should be able to grasp the games just fine. There are a few games that actually list the age minimum as 9, so watch out for those.
This one would make an excellent family gift, as everyone can have a shot playing. And I loved that it was all contained in just the one book. No big box to store!
Finally, I was sent A Super-Sneaky Double-Crossing Up, Down Round and Round Maze Book by Larry Evans, which is as cool as it's title makes it sound! I didn't actually DO the mazes...I would rather let a niece or nephew play within the pages, but these mazes look like a ton of fun. Definitely different than
Roxie Munro's maze books are brilliant combinations of facts and fun.
EcoMazes serves a real need in curricula and for all those children who will be writing animal reports next spring.
Animal reports are perfect for "first" research projects. In any series book in the library a student will easily find a description of the animal, its lifecycle AND its habitat. All these facts are usually required points in their projects.
Habitat/ecosystem is a tricky thing for a second grader to wrap their mind around and differentiate. Oh certainly, it is easy to understand the difference from Arctic/Polar regions and say the Tropical Rainforest but where is the line between Grasslands and Tundra? It gets a little squishy there and not just for kids.
Munro's book allows the reader to travel through the area, locating the hidden mammals, birds, and reptiles that live there. The solutions to the mazes are found at the back of the book along with more information about each ecosystem. She also includes a list of websites and other books on the subject.
We are closing in on Memorial Day weekend, to be followed by a glorious two and a half months off from school for my boys. (Not that I'm counting or anything. Talk to me at the end of August. I'm sure I'll be just as eager for them to go back.) I don't know about you, but for us that means the season of car and/or plane trips is about to begin. We have a summer beach trip planned, a second possible Disneyland/Southern California trip (to celebrate a family member's birthday) and we always take a few trips down to visit family and friends a few hours away. All of these trips add up to a lot of time in the car (not to mention a lot of time away from our usual stable of toys and games). We of course bring lots of books along to keep the boys entertained. They always select a few picture books and our current read aloud to bring along, but I also make sure our bags our well stocked with "puzzle" books, search and finds and other books that offer interactive elements that keep kids engaged and entertained. In other words, books that are more than just a story.
(Some books from our personal collection.)
I have loosely grouped these interactive books into a few categories (some overlap): search and finds, maze books, puzzle books and counting books.
Search and Find Books
Oh, you know which books I'm talking about. Jean Marzollo and Walter Wick's "I Spy" series is a good, popular example of a search and find. If you are unfamiliar with these books, each double page spread contains a photo collage packed with tiny items. The accompanying poem, or riddle, lists objects in the picture that the reader must find. Even without the riddles, the pictures alone keep my kids occupied as they look at all of the tiny objects packed into the pictures.
The "Look and Find" series (populated by licensed characters such as Disney Princesses and Thomas and Friends) by Publications International is similar in concept but the visual clues make these a better choice for pre-readers if an adult isn't able to read clues aloud.
(Below is a comparison between an I Spy book and a Look and Find book. The I Spy book uses textual clues while the Look and Find series employs picture clues.)
We had endless fun with the I Spy Book. I think we still have it!
Many thanks for your comment in my blog on neat Zen rooms. You know, combining 'I Spy' & 'de-cluttered rooms', maybe an 'I Spy' game will serve well as a playful way of getting kids tidy up their rooms. :-)
"Cars and Trucks and Things that Go" was a favorite around here years ago. When my son left for college, I made him sit with me so I could read it to him again. "Where's Goldbug?"
Aw, what the hey. I like Ms. Munro's style. Observe the following:
Seminar Details At-A-Glance Seminar: Mastering the Maze Date: April 20, 2007 Time: 11 a.m. Eastern Time [10 a.m. CT, 9 a.m. MT, 8 a.m. PT] Format: This is a Web-based seminar. Registered participants will receive participation instructions, log-on information and a toll-free number to dial in for the audio portion of the seminar upon payment of the registration fee. Seminars run for one hour. Cost: $50 per person Discounts are available for group registration. To Register: send name and contact information to: [email protected]
Man has been creating mazes for at least 4,000 years. Early mazes were used for rituals and processions - and were not puzzles meant to be solved as they often are today. Educators and librarians use mazes in activities that encourage creative problem-solving, build math skills and improve concentration - and simply because they are fun.
In this online seminar, award-winning author/illustrator Roxie Munro will discuss the techniques she developed for her well-known books which include Mazescapes; Amazement Park; Wild West Trail Ride Maze; The Inside-Outside Book of New York City, a New York Times Best Illustrated award-winner; and Mazeways: A to Z to be published in August 2007. She will explore the history of mazes and show how mazes occur in real life. She will also talk about how to create mazes and games that can be adapted for children's and YA library programming.
Ms. Munro is the acclaimed author/illustrator of 27 books for children. She also creates oils, watercolors, prints, and drawings, primarily cityscapes, which are exhibited widely in the US in galleries and museums. Fourteen of her paintings have appeared as covers of The New Yorker magazine.
0 Comments on Seminar Schtoof as of 3/14/2007 1:20:00 AM
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The Path of Names by Ari Goelman is about a girl named Dahlia Sherman who loves magic tricks, does NOT want to go to Jewish summer camp, and ends up unraveling a 78-year-old mystery involving a Yiddish rabbinical student and the ghosts of two young girls. There are camp skits, mazes, and (minor) sibling rivalries. There's a creepy camp handyman, a posse of mean girls, and a boy with the potential to be a friend (and the inclination to be more). In short, The Path of Names has a little something for everyone. 
Wow – these illustrations are awesome. Lego mazes are a lot of fun, they’re one of my standby activities for when little people say they’re bored!
Wondrous and awe-inspiring!
It took us a while to sort out all the bricks to make our maze, but that was part of the fun.
Thanks Simone. This book has already been translated and published quite widely so I hope you can find a copy to dive into where you are.