The Bay School Celebrates Book Character Day with Local Author Jane O’Hara

By Katie McFadden

There were lots of costumed characters out and about on Halloween, but at P.S./M.S. 105 The Bay School, it was all about promoting literacy with Book Character Day. To celebrate, students were encouraged to dress up as their favorite characters from books, and to make the day extra special, the 3K-third Grade students were treated to a visit from a local author herself—Jane O’Hara, who read her brand new children’s book, “A Thanksgiving Birthday.”

Where’s Waldos, Cats in their Hats, Rainbow Fish, Very Hungry Caterpillars, Good Eggs, Mice and their Cookies and more all paraded in front of the school on Beach 51st Street as proud parents watched on. And inside, students gathered in the school auditorium as each 3K-third Grade class got on stage and spoke about the book-inspired looks. Meanwhile, students in fourth through eighth grade got to partake in a Zoom session with some published authors.

The Lorax, or rather, P.S./M.S. 105 Principal Kathryn O’Brien, appropriately dressed in orange and styling a comically large yellow mustache and eyebrows, spoke about why the school opted to take part in Book Character Day on Wednesday, October 31. “Rather than celebrate Halloween, because some don’t celebrate Halloween, we’re celebrating literacy and promoting a love for literacy and helping kids to understand that they can bring the characters they read about to life and that helps support our literacy goals,” Principal O’Brien said. “When we read about a character and we understand who they are inside and outside and they’re able to dress up as that, you have to really use those reading skills to portray what you read about. We’re showing kids that books can come to life and be exciting and we should love reading.”

After the younger kids were done showing off their literary looks, class by class, they met in the school library, where they got a special visit from newly published author, Jane O’Hara of Breezy Point. On Wednesday, she read her brand new book, “A Thanksgiving Birthday.” O’Hara’s story is a special rhyming tale for children whose birthdays might fall on Thanksgiving, and how having a birthday on a holiday can be cause for extra joy and celebration, even if it might look a little different than other birthdays.

“A Thanksgiving Birthday,” which came out in late September, is the first of many holiday and special occasion birthday books O’Hara has planned. The inspiration came from her own family. “My son was born on Christmas Eve, my husband’s birthday is Halloween and my birthday is the day after St. Patrick’s Day, so it’s always been a thing for us that our birthdays are holidays,” O’Hara said. “It was around Thanksgiving two years ago and I was sitting on the bus commuting to the city, and I started thinking about making this idea into a book and I thought it was really cute.”

O’Hara, whose day job is data management in IT, started putting her ideas to paper and began the process of getting it published with the help of Page Publishing. As the timing for Thanksgiving worked out best, it was the first one she went with, but O’Hara already has a Christmas and a summertime birthday book in the works.

She was thrilled when a longtime friend, Mary Kate Barron, a teacher at P.S./M.S. 105, asked if she would want to read her new book to the students. “It’s so exciting,” O’Hara said. “I can’t believe how amazing Rockaway and Breezy have been. Everyone is so supportive and it’s so fun. For Mary Kate to invite me here was so exciting. Of course I had to do it.”

Before and after each reading, O’Hara interacted with the curious students in each class, and even gifted them some birthday-themed stickers as a Halloween treat.

Principal O’Brien was thrilled to have authors inspire her students on Book Character Day. “It means a lot to have an author here because I want my kids to be inspired and the whole point of school, especially in a 3k-8 building, is to see that you’ve gotten them ready for the real world, so if we can have experiences and opportunities for them to each year build on what they know and get them ready when they leave eighth grade to really know what the world has to offer and where they might want to go, that’s our goal. Having an author here presents them with one of the options that are possible for them. It shows them that we can all be authors.”

O’Hara’s book, “A Thanksgiving Birthday,” can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and some local shops. For more updates on her books, follow @janeoharabirthdaybooks on Instagram. For more updates on P.S./M.S. 105, follow @thebayschoolsharks.