Book club tempts kids with shuffled fairy tales

The secret to being a successful storyteller lies in simply keeping one’s story straight. Start mixing things up and the tale unravels faster than a Monday morning alibi.

Unless, of course, rearranging the story is the whole point.

Hastings Summer Book Club goes for a fast shuffle when it presents Happily Ever After, the Art of Rearranged Fairy Tales today at 3 p.m. at the Veradale store, 15312 E. Sprague Ave.

The idea comes from book manager Larry O’Neal.

“He’s done this before and it was a lot of fun,” book associate Dani Thompson said. “He has pages of the fairy tales written out, and they shuffle them. We have costumes and things so the kids can play dress up and act them out.

“Later on they can mix-and-match and write their own fairy tales.”

So don’t be surprised to hear a story involving the Big Bad Wolf wearing Rapunzel’s long hair, Sleeping Beauty trying on a glass slipper, Cinderella troubled by a pea-sized mattress problem or the Seven Dwarfs spinning straw into gold.

The program is scheduled to run an hour, but don’t be surprised if it runs long, Thompson said.

“The last time Larry did this it ran about three hours,” she laughed.

The July event was a Pirates of the Caribbean party where the kids dressed up in costumes and searched the store for buried treasure.

“These things are a lot of fun. I think I have about as much fun with them as the kids do,” Thompson said.

The Hastings Summer Book Club is free for any youngster, and the book store plans special events every month, year around.

“During the summer we really try to get the kids to come in and get them into reading when they have all this free time,” Thompson said. “We put a lot of effort into getting treats for the kids as well as prizes and giveaways. This week we’re giving 20 percent off all kids books. It’s to encourage parents to get their kids to read and to monitor the kinds of things they do read.”

There are weekly drawings for prizes for the Summer Readers Group, and by reading books, kids qualify for a chance to win a computer.