Prospect Heights Library debuts monthly Ukrainian storytime for kids
As part of an effort to be a source of solace and culture for a community displaced from a war-torn homeland, the Prospect Heights Public Library has launched a monthly Ukrainian storytime for young children.
A dozen kids and their parents attended the initial session Wednesday, with hope that word of mouth would draw more attendees and inspire other libraries in the region to try something similar, Youth Services Librarian Terri Murphy said.
Hailing from a Polish family hurt by Germany’s 1939 invasion, Murphy said she felt a kinship with the new immigrant families that have been become patrons of the library in the past couple years.
“I do a Polish storytime too,” Murphy said. “I patterned this on that. I felt a lot of emotions when Ukraine got attacked.”
The early evening program was held in a room decorated with a Ukrainian flag and featuring an exhibit by artist Masha Vyshedska telling the stories of individual Ukrainians’ experience of the Russian invasion.
But for the kids ranging in age from 3 to 7, the session led by reader Diana Zagarii was only about fun and joy.
She guided them through a picture book by Emilia Dziubak, translated as “A Year in the Forest,” showing the changing month-by-month fortunes of a variety of animals living in a four-season wilderness.
She then read an illustrated folk tale — “The Ear of Wheat” — in which an industrious rooster and some playful mice take part in a story reminiscent of Aesop’s fable of “The Ant and the Grasshopper” about the value of work.
The kids then played a picture game identifying which familiar food items are made from wheat, competed in a round of picture Bingo, and made 3D art projects by coloring and decorating with folded ribbons a drawing of an ear of wheat.
Parents said they’d learned about the program in a variety of ways, from their existing patronage of the Prospect Heights Library to hearing about it from friends whose children attend Prospect Heights Elementary District 23.
“I sometimes visit this library,” said Hanna Kritsak of Arlington Heights, who moved from Ukraine a year and a half ago. “This library is the best library. I visit a lot of them.”
She said she and her two children — 7-year-old Yaryna and 2½-year-old Denys — gave rave reviews to the first Ukrainian storytime.
“They liked it and I like it,” she said.
Tanya Grechanyuk of Buffalo Grove moved to Chicago from Ukraine 12 years ago, relocating to Buffalo Grove three years ago. Her reasons for bringing her 5-year-old son Zachary were perhaps a little different than those of more recent immigrants.
Though Zachary was born in the United States, it’s important to her that he not lose touch with the Ukrainian language and culture.
“He likes the stories and he likes the chance to meet friends,” Grechanyuk said.
Murphy said the library has been trying to adapt to the needs of new Ukrainian patrons for some time. She bought $1,200 worth of Ukrainian and dual-language materials from a shop in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village for the collection, and the library hosted a larger-scale Ukrainian art exhibition last August.
Beginning in October 2022, there were about 200 Venezuelan asylum-seekers being housed for several months at a hotel in Prospect Heights, with the children bused to schools in Wheeling Township Elementary District 21 and Northwest Suburban High School District 214.
But the Ukrainian immigrants arriving by plane have tended to find family and choose this area more deliberately and long-term, equipped with better access to transportation that allows them to visit the library, Murphy said.
Hoping to expand the library’s outreach through a new Facebook page, Ukrainian Friends of the Prospect Heights Public Library, Ukrainian storytime is scheduled from 6:30 to 7:15 p.m. on the fourth Wednesday of each month at 12 N. Elm St. in Prospect Heights.
“I hope that it just grows from here,” Murphy said.