A Guy and a Guitar at the Cape May County Library

My family and I went to the Lower branch of the Cape May County Library on July 22nd (as we do once a week, a new part of our routine that we’re all really enjoying). The first leg of our trip there was same as it is each week. Upon entering the building we made a bee line for the Kiddie Room. My soon-to-be three year old son led the way as he’s getting more and more familiar with the building with each visit. He then spent five minutes looking for all the “really best books” for us to read. I spent that time trying to distract my 16 month old from ripping every single book off every single shelf. We ended up with a book about Santa, a book about trucks, a Winnie the Pooh book and a book about spiders with pictures of real spiders. Talk about eclectic taste.

We generally read 10-15 books, choose our favorite five to bring home and hit the DVD section before we check out. It’s then that I try to persuade my son from bringing home the same miserable dinosaur movie we’ve already borrowed 247,000 times since May.

On this day we only had time to read the Santa book and the spider book and bypassed (by some miracle) the movies all together.

We had a performance to attend, back in the conference room, as part of the library’s Summer Reading Club. We had heard week before that this “Erik Simonsen person” would be coming to sing for the kids. “Cool.”, I thought, “A guy with a guitar, my boys love music, they’ll get a kick out of it!”

I thought we sit through a little “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”, maybe some “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and we’d be on our way. I expected my kids would have a good time…but I never thought that I’d actually be truly entertained myself.

Erik Simonsen was much more than just a guy with a guitar. His entire performance, which was about an hour long, was interactive. The kids were able to be a part of each song, not just by singing along, but with the use of the many props and instruments he brought along for them. Even as young as my boys are, they were both still able to participate.

I found myself a little sad when the show was over. I’m always impressed by the events at the Cape may County Library and by the enthusiasm and dedication of the children’s librarians, but this I have to say, was my family’s favorite event of the summer thus far. We’ll be keeping an eye out to see when Erik will be performing his children’s songs again and will definitely pass the details on to you.

I did a little Google-ing and found that he has a CD for children, “E is for Erik – Fun Songs for Young Folks” which is available for purchase for $10.00 by sending a check or money order to Erik Simonsen, Twelve:01, P.O. Box 1214, North Cape May, NJ 08204  We’ll be sending for our copy soon.

For more information on upcoming events at the Cape May County Library, visit http://www.cmclibrary.org

Erin McFeeters is a Cape May County Mom to two boys under the age of three. She blogs at pass-the-prozac .