Telling Tales

The staff of the children’s book section at Borders Books in Thousand Oaks refers to the event as “pajamamania.”

And any casual book browser who wanders near the store’s children’s section on Saturday evening might well wonder exactly what’s going on.

Anywhere from 20 to 200 kids, infants and preschoolers--plus parents and sometimes grandparents--can be seen sprawled on the carpet. All of them are there to watch a storyteller, who sometimes also wears pajamas and sometimes has to stand on a bench to be seen above the crowd, animatedly reading from a book.

Frequently there is singing, such as “The Icky Sticky Song,” a composition about bubble gum, which the store’s staff refers to as “the house song” because it’s so often requested by story-time visitors.

The storytelling itself lasts 30 minutes and is followed by a 30-minute arts-and-crafts activity. Admission is free.

Many of the kids arrive in pajamas but none goes to sleep there. No way. They don’t want to miss anything.

Last Saturday, Andra Cogley, a Thousand Oaks hospice nurse, was there. “I come here with Joseph,” she said, pointing to her 5-year-old, who was on the other side of the room looking at a book while waiting for story time to begin. Overhearing the conversation, he strode over, placed his hands on his hips and announced to anyone who cared to hear, “He (meaning himself) loves story time!”

Indeed. “He has to earn it,” his mother explained, “by getting a smiley-face sticker from his preschool teacher for good behavior or me because he picked up his toys.” She confessed that she had broken the rules that evening because Joseph hadn’t made his quota. “So he cried quite a bit until I agreed to bring him here anyway.”

The Zimmerman family of Thousand Oaks thinks of Saturday evenings as “Borders night.”

“We’ve been regulars for months,” said Elisa Zimmerman, who shows up with Zach, 6, Dylan, 4, and Shane, 3 months--and husband John.

These parents sort of stumbled upon pajamamania one night when they were shopping for books. They still shop--while one or the other stays with the kids during story time. “We trade off. He (John) looks at the current issues of the magazines while I’m here now,” Elisa said.

Also that night, grandparents Sylvia Armitta and Tom McElnone brought Jessica, 4, and Hunter, 8 months, to hear storyteller Maire Marran transform a story-and-song session based on “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” into an astronomy lesson.

“We alternate visits here with (visits to) Barnes & Noble in Westlake,” said Armitta. “The 4-year-old knows the way here so well that she says, ‘Turn left here, turn right there . . .’ as we drive.”

Story times at bookstores seem to be an expanding phenomenon. Jessica Wilson, who originated the event at Borders in Thousand Oaks, says she sometimes gets 200 attendees. She and fellow “kids’ clerks” at Borders have added an 11 a.m. session Tuesdays for preschoolers, an after-school pen-pal club on the last Thursday of each month, special Sunday programs during December, and are planning a regular Friday-evening event devoted to children’s videos.

Wilson, who is also a student majoring in child development at Moorpark College, said she and her colleagues choose the stories for these events based on personal taste. Asked what sort of books she is recommending for children these days--possibly for holiday gifts--she instantly produced a list.

She is so serious about getting the word out on good, new children’s titles that “If we’re out of a book, we refer people to independents (local bookstores) Adventures for Kids, Pages, Lakeshore or New Horizons.”

Currently, “Jessica’s Top 5,” as she calls them, are “Milo and the Magical Stones” by Marcus Pfister, “Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse” by Kevin Henkes, “Olive, the Other Reindeer” by J.O. Seibold, “The Hat” by Jan Brett and “Bunny Money” by Rosemary Wells.

The “pajamamania” event at Borders this Saturday will include an appearance by a “costume character” named Miss Spider. She’s the protagonist of a series of books by David Kirk, and on this occasion, “Miss Spider’s New Car” will be read. For the after-story activity, kids will dip toy cars in paint and “drive” them around on construction paper to make art.

For the preschool pajama set, it doesn’t get much better than this.

BE THERE

“Pajamamania,” preschoolers’ pajama party and story time, every Saturday, 7:30-8:30 p.m., Borders Books, 125 W. Thousand Oaks Blvd., free, (805) 497-8159.