By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Lindsay Ward remembers a picture book giving her a peek at an amazing world where kids got days off from school because it snowed.
Ward grew up in San Jose, California, where it never snow. Well, maybe once for seven seconds.
But she got to experience the magic of a snow day through her favorite book “Snowy Day” by Ezra Jack Keats.
Ward was the featured at Literacy in the Park Saturday at Bowling Green State University’s Field House.
“Snowy Day” still inspired Ward when she grew up and became a children’s book author. She created her illustrations out of cut paper, just as Keats did in “Snowy Day.”
That’s what she used for her books about Dexter, the neurotic toy dinosaur. Those books are among the dozen she’s written.
She read the first book in the series “Don’t Forget Dexter” to the assembled audience, and then followed with Dexter’s latest published adventure “It’s Show and Tell Dexter.”
The Dexter character was inspired by an abandoned toy dinosaur her husband spied one day in a doctor’s office.
Ward said maybe some of those listening to her talk would become writers or illustrators themselves.
Young Elijah Snyder told her he drew Manga comics, trying to copy the originals as closely as possible. He offered to come and help Ward do her work.
In response to another question, Ward said, in writing “Don’t Forget Dexter” she drew on her own experience of being lost in a grocery store.
The audience was packed with parents with kids in tow. Also on hand two people who have help cultivate Literacy in the Park through their financial donations.
Literacy is close to the Conda family’s hearts, said Judith Conda. She worked for 34 years as a special educator including 14 for the Wood County Educational Services Center, where she was a behavioral consultant.
Judith and Joe Conda, who is a retired Owens-Illinois executive, have supported Literacy in the Park for 11 years. “We decided that it was something we’d like to help them advance,” Judith Conda said. “We’ve seen great strides — more activities and more and more people. … I’m seeing not just kids with moms but with fathers and grandfathers, whole families, and friends.”
Back 11 years ago the literacy fest had just 10 or so tables, Joe Conda recalled. And it was all about the printed book.
Under the leadership of Dean Dawn Shinew, of College of Education and Human Development, that focus has broadened. The dean believes, Joe Conda said, that this helps “kids navigate their environment.”
So there were plenty of books, as well as music, and information on food and nature. There was also green goo and fencing, all presented by a variety of campus and community groups.
“This is the reason we choose this as something to foster,” Judith Conda said. “We see more and more people becoming involved in helping and wanting to put activities here.”
This year there were 65 stations, said Tim Murnen, the BGSU professor who directs the event. He said more families registered than last year, so he expects attendance will top 3,000.
Joe Conda said that in their philantrophy whether to BGSU, the Toledo Zoo, the Toledo Museum of Art or the Mazza Museum, they have a few principles.
They like to support programs, not buildings.
They like the kind of accountability that Murnen and Shinew provide with Literacy in the Park.
And they like to promote the collaboration that’s so evident at the BGSU event.
That included Ward’s two visits in the past year to campus to work with students in the children’s literature class who made their own picture books.
The students were on hand to share their books with young readers.
Nick Luttrell, a student from Dayton studying to be an intervention specialist, said he’d never have made a book if he hadn’t taken the class taught by Elizabeth Zemanski.
The class went through the process of making a book step by step. That included a talk by Ward in March.
Luttrell noted that Ward takes about two years to make a book. They had to fit that process into a semester.
It was a lot of hard work, said another student Jessica Greise. “I’m glad I did it.”
She was inspired by Ward’s use of cut paper to use cut tissue, to create different textures.
It was fun to be able to show her book and explain the process to visitors on Saturday.
Addy Cobb, a teacher at Winterfield Venture Academy in Toledo, was there with her daughter Jacki.
“I just love getting to see all the activities we can do with kids,” she said, noting she’s here as both a mother and a teacher.
Lily Ingraham Snyder, the mother of Elijah the young illustrator, said her family and friends come every year. “This is one of the best things for kids in Bowling Green.”
