El día de los niños, el día de los libros

Saturday is the 10th anniversary of Children's Day, Book Day -- a day promoting books and literacy across cultures. A children's author in Texas heard about El Día Del Niño, or Day of the Child, a Mexican tradition dating back to 1925 that emphasized the importance of kids in society. She and a librarian at the San Antonio Library decided to expand on this concept and emphasize literacy, and thus, a pseudoholiday was born.

This year, the Corvallis Multicultural Literacy Center will be bringing this idea to town with the help of the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library and ArtCentric. Kids can drag their parents to each of these facilities to participate in activities such as making books, reading to therapy dogs and viewing the multicultural art display at ArtCentric. Kids will actually receive a little passport that can be stamped at each place.

All of these places are downtown, easily within walking distance from the Saturday Farmer's Market and the Riverwalk. Corvallis is a great place to find freebie events such as this, despite the lamentations of the teenagers and college students who believe there is just nothing to do in town. But the college students really seem to mean there aren't enough venues for underage drinking, and the teenagers... who can please them anyway?

Another great event for older kids is the Teen Game Night sponsored by the library a couple times each month. For a couple hours, kids from 12 to 18 get together and play board games and computer games at the library. The most popular event seems to be Dance Dance Revolution on the giant projection screen. The next one of these will be held May 8th from 5 to 7 p.m.