Mother Goose

In Baltimore CountyChildren's author O'Malley to speak at book drive eventSTEVENSON -- Children's author and illustrator Kevin O'Malley will discuss his work Wednesday evening at Villa Julie College's new theater in an event that will help collect books for a children's center.O'Malley's books include "Who Killed Cock Robin" and "Roller Coaster," a winner of Parenting magazine's Reading Magic award. He will sign copies of his books from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the theater lobby and speak at 7 p.m.The lecture is sponsored by Villa Julie's Psi Omicron Chapter of the Kappa Delta Pi education honor society.

A child's book is something uniquely rewarding and pleasurable. It is never too soon to introduce children to books. Here are some basic points about specific age groups to keep in mind when you are choosing a child's book.Babies and toddlers* Very young children are attracted by brightly colored pictures of simple objects.* They are listeners, and respond well to books with simple texts and good rhythms.* Wordless books stimulate them both visually and mentally, and encourage them to create their own stories.

Barely minutes into John "The Kinderman" Taylor's show at Baltimore County's Catonsville library branch, children in the audience are under his spell. They sway to the rhythm, clap to the beat, sing along and repeat the rhymes, and imitate his movements.The more inhibited adults are hard pressed to keep still in another successful performance by one of Baltimore's most popular children's entertainers.Parents who wonder if the reading they do with their children has any long-term effects only have to hear Kinderman's story.

The brutally competitive world of children's entertainment is no fairy tale. Just ask the owners of the Enchanted Forest, the 40-year-old Ellicott City amusement park that failed to reopen Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of its summer season.In an era when amusement parks tout "thrill-packed joy rides," it isn't easy to stay ahead of the curve. Establishments such as Chuck E. Cheese and Discovery Zone have also jumped into the amusement market to provide an array of high-energy rides and games.

The brutally competitive world of children's entertainment is no fairy tale. Just ask the owners of the Enchanted Forest, the 40-year-old Ellicott City amusement park that failed to reopen Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of its summer season.In an era when amusement parks tout "thrill-packed joy rides," it isn't easy to stay ahead of the curve. Establishments such as Chuck E. Cheese and Discovery Zone have also jumped into the amusement market to provide an array of high-energy rides and games.

NEW YORK -- Serena's Song, the filly star of the D. Wayne Lukas barn, will give her next performance en route to the filly championship when she runs today as the prohibitive favorite in the Coaching Club American Oaks at Belmont Park.She has won seven straight races against fillies, a streak that was interrupted when she ran 16th against the colts in the Kentucky Derby.But two weeks later, Serena's Song bounced back from that defeat to win the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico by nine lengths, and three weeks after that to capture the Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont by three lengths.

Barbara Patterson is the new site manager at the Forest Ridge Elementary School center run by the Department of Parks and Recreation, and she's busy organizing the perennially popular Baby Bazaar -- a flea market devoted to the needs of the preschool set.Parents swamped by bath toys, high chairs, strollers, crib liners, swing chairs and all the other paraphernalia of infancy sell them off at good prices to parents of younger children. Then they spend the loot received buying play houses and tricycles better suited to toddlers.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- When the 3-year-old filly Lakeway raced to a 4 1/2 -length victory over Cinnamon Sugar in the $200,000 Mother Goose Stakes yesterday at Belmont Park, she shattered a 16-year-old stakes mark set by the Maryland-based filly Caesar's Wish in 1978.Not only did Lakeway, a daughter of 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew, break the five-race win streak of the Ogden Phipps filly, Inside Information, but she also ran the 1 1/8 miles in 1 minute, 46 2/5 seconds, 1 1/5 seconds faster than Caesar's Wish, who was trained at Pimlico Race Course by Dick Small.

Dorothy Hall was 5 the last time she visited the Enchanted Forest theme park in Ellicott City.Youngsters would enter the park through a white castle with a drawbridge, hop aboard a swan for a magical ride and pose for pictures with Little Bo Peep.Twenty-four years later, the fairy-tale theme park on U.S. 40 continues to enchant the Ellicott City woman."It's still fun," she said as she watched her 2 1/2 -year-old son, Tyler, ring a bell atop the Little Red Schoolhouse.After a seven-year hiatus, the 6-acre park reopened last week.

Pianist Caleb Tsai gives concert at Peabody ConservatoryIn a city filled with fine pianists, Caleb Tsai is one of the best. It will be awhile before any one who heard it will forget his prize-winning performance of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 in the William Kapell Competition a few years back. Today at 4 p.m. in Friedberg Hall at the Peabody Conservatory, Tsai will give a benefit concert for the American Cancer Society. His program will include preludes by Schubert and Rachmaninoff, two masterpieces by Schumann ("Kinderszenen")

Track and field Baltimore Olympian Carter retires during nationals event James Carter has reached the finish line of his track and field career. At 31, the veteran 400-meter hurdler out of Mervo and Hampton University, a two-time Olympian and three-time U.S. national champion, announced his retirement Sunday after failing to complete his event at the USA Championships at Hayward Field, Eugene, Ore. After hitting several hurdles in the final of the...

Martha Clark had just finished digging a hole outside the store at her Ellicott City petting farm when 10 people came trudging out of the nearby woods carrying a giant, rust-covered metal candy cane on their shoulders. The group made its way up the hill and carefully lowered the end of the cane into the hole. After several shovels full of dirt - along with a pause to scoop a wayward toad out of the way - another piece of the former Enchanted Forest amusement park had reached its new home.

After spending years in limbo, Mother Goose, Papa Bear and Cinderella's mice finally got their happy ending yesterday along with several other fairy-tale figures. Left over from the long-closed Enchanted Forest theme park, the wooden and fiberglass characters had languished behind a chain-link fence in Ellicott City, beaten by the weather and vandals. This week, the company that owns the land announced it would donate the park's fairy-tale figures so they could entertain children at a nearby farm.

California's countryside is known for its vineyards, but another fruit -- the olive -- is moving in on the grape's territory, and Sonoma Valley is giving it its due this year with an Olive Festival. Starting next month and running through February, the first annual festival highlights olive season in Sonoma, from harvest to press, beginning with a blessing of the olives Dec. 8 at the historic Mission San Francisco de Solano. The kickoff weekend continues with olive press demonstrations, a tasting bar for olives and olive oils, a culinary trip through local restaurants and wineries, and a Martini Madness contest, where bartenders will vie for the title of most olive-worthy martini maker.

Garland Hanson, an 18-month- old bearing a striking resemblance to Pebbles Flintstone - barefoot, wearing an orange dress with pink flowers, her hair pulled in a sprout atop her head - squeals as 20 people read aloud from the children's book Goodnight Moon. As she hears the story and watches as the pages are turned, she giggles and claps her hands. With all the noise, it's hard to believe this is taking place in the Enoch Pratt Free Library on Cathedral Street in Baltimore. But Garland is participating in Mother Goose on the Loose in the library's Day Room, part of the Meyerhoff Children's Garden.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Even as Marylanders lament the loss of stakes races in their state, two Maryland horses vanned to New York and swept the stakes yesterday at Belmont Park. Stabled at Tapeta Farm in Cecil County, Fleet Renee reaffirmed her status as one of the country's leading 3-year-old fillies with a near-record performance in the Grade I, $250,000 Mother Goose Stakes. Her time of 1 minute, 47.19 seconds for 1 1/8 miles was the second fastest in 45 runnings of the race. Michael Dickinson trains the daughter of Seattle Slew at his farm near North East.

Editor's note: A determined bovine makes her dreams of reaching for the stars come true. Mother Goose ... what a bag of feathers she is. She makes it sound so easy. Nine hundred forty-one pounds of cow meat, not counting the udder, catapults 240,000 miles to jump over the moon -- and what does that old goose woman write? One lousy line -- not even a whole poem. First of all, you may not know this, but we horses jump over the moon on a regular basis. We begin training from a very early age. Which is just what we were doing when this cow started hanging around.

THE GLAD cries of "snow day!" are countered by some disappointment at Laurel Woods Elementary. Reading teacher Nancy Gifford has heard complaints from disappointed children in the Mother Goose class. The children aren't learning nursery rhymes. These sophisticated kindergartners and first-graders are participants in "Mother Goose Asks Why" -- a five-session, weekly after-school program teaching parents about science in classic children's literature. The program "teaches parents how to look at books to teach scientific concepts and habits, to look at the ideas in the books," Gifford said.

A child's book is something uniquely rewarding and pleasurable. It is never too soon to introduce children to books. Here are some basic points about specific age groups to keep in mind when you are choosing a child's book.Babies and toddlers* Very young children are attracted by brightly colored pictures of simple objects.* They are listeners, and respond well to books with simple texts and good rhythms.* Wordless books stimulate them both visually and mentally, and encourage them to create their own stories.

In Baltimore CountyChildren's author O'Malley to speak at book drive eventSTEVENSON -- Children's author and illustrator Kevin O'Malley will discuss his work Wednesday evening at Villa Julie College's new theater in an event that will help collect books for a children's center.O'Malley's books include "Who Killed Cock Robin" and "Roller Coaster," a winner of Parenting magazine's Reading Magic award. He will sign copies of his books from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the theater lobby and speak at 7 p.m.The lecture is sponsored by Villa Julie's Psi Omicron Chapter of the Kappa Delta Pi education honor society.