The Catskill Chronicle

(LIVINGSTON MANOR, NY (June 15, 2014) – The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation, which fosters children’s love of reading and creative expression in our diverse culture, has awarded mini-grants to 60  educators at public schools and libraries in 27 states across the country. Now in its 26^th year, the Foundation awards each recipient with up to $500 for specific programs.

Five grants were awarded in New York State, one of which was awarded locally to the Livingston Manor Library for the two-week long summer Regards to the Man in the Moon Puppet Program. Ezra Jack Keats (1916-1983) wrote and illustrated Regards to the Man in the Moon in 1981. Program participants in grades 2 to 4 will sew their own puppets and produce their own dramatic interpretation of this imaginative adventure, in which children build a spaceship out of found objects and pretend to fly to the moon. Dollmaker Naomi Hurst will lead the program, which will take place from August 4 to 16. Registration is currently open.

For Keats, the preeminent author-illustrator, whose book The Snowy Day broke the color barrier in mainstream children’s publishing, it was at the public library that he found a haven that introduced him to the wonders of art history. The Foundation fosters children’s love of reading and creative expression by supporting arts and literacy programs in public schools and libraries; cultivating new writers and illustrators of exceptional picture books that reflect the experience of childhood in our diverse culture; and protecting and promoting Keats’ work.

For more information about the Foundation, please visit www.ezra-jack-keats.org. To learn more about the Livingston Manor Library’s Regards to the Man in the Moon Puppet Program, call 439-5440 or go to www.rcls.org/liv.