Dino O’Dell teaches children at the library to “find their voice” through music and stories about our world

 

[July 21, 2023] 

At Lincoln Public Library’s final program for the summer on July 20, children’s musical entertainer, storyteller and author Dinosaur “Dino” O’Dell led the children in several educational and interactive songs. O’Dell formerly taught elementary school and preschool. The special program was hosted at the Lincoln Christian Church instead of the library’s Annex Building.

Before the program, Youth Services Librarian Donna Cunningham reminded children their book logs are due by Monday, July 24. Children who have turned in book logs all summer will receive free t-shirt sometime in August. Youth Services Program Planner Emily Radespiel said those who turn in book logs will also get certificates for a small Monical’s Pizza and ice cream from McDonald’s.

O’Dell began the program with his Around the World song, which names all the continents. It starts with the continents North America, South America, Europe and Africa and ends with the continents Asia, Australia and Antarctica.

To get the children involved with his song, O’Dell had them clap between the names of each continent. Once the children got the rhythm down, O’Dell played the song faster.

The next time he sang the song, O’Dell asked the children to jump up as they clapped. He sped it up again and had the children try to jump as high as they could. While the children clapped, they counted out seven continents.

The program O’Dell presented was “Find Your Voice: Music and Stories from Around the World,” which fit with the summer program theme “Find Your Voice.” In the show, O’Dell helped the kids travel around planet earth. On a screen, O’Dell had a map showing all the continents and oceans. He reminded everyone the earth is actually a sphere and not flat like the map showed.

After O’Dell said there are five oceans, he asked the children how many continents there are. The children clapped and counted out seven continents as O’Dell sang their names.

In his next song, O’Dell sang about the game basketball, which was invented in North America. He told children basketball started in the winter with people using a soccer ball. The soccer ball was brought inside, but players were told they could not kick the ball inside because it might break a window.

Players ended up finding a basket used to put peaches in during harvest. O’Dell said the peach basket was nailed to the wall and they started shooting the soccer ball into it. However, every time someone threw the ball into the basket, someone would have to go up a ladder to get the ball out and throw it back down. It made the game take a long time.

O’Dell said someone soon suggested cutting a hole in the basket, but the person who owned the basket did not want a hole in his peach basket since he used it in the summer. As a compromise, a small hole was cut in the basket and players would use a broom to get the ball out. Finally, the players decided to cut a bigger hole and promised to buy a new basket for the man who owned it.

As O’Dell sang about basketball, he had the children play “lap drums” by clapping their hands on their legs. When O’Dell said the words “it’s basketball” and “from North America,” he had the audience repeat those words. The rest of the song talked about how basketball was originally played. It mentioned basketball’s inventor James Naismith and said that it was first played in 1891.

The next time through the song, O’Dell asked the children to balance on one foot while clapping their hands above their head. He then had the children “play” the head bongo and belly bongo at the same time with one eye closed as they repeated words like “rebound,” “slam dunk” and “it’s basketball … from North America.” O’Dell kept playing the song faster and faster and the children worked to keep up.

To see if the children knew directions, O’Dell asked which direction North and South are on maps. They told him North is usually up and South is usually down.

The next song took them on a trip to South America with the Amazon River, the biggest in the world. O’Dell shared a story about his grandpa going to the Amazon River to swim. O’Dell told his grandpa the river was not safe because of sharp teethed Piranhas, but O’Dell’s grandpa said he had taken precautions.

In the song, O’Dell sang about how to swim safely in the river. He said you need to wear Army boots and a steel mesh swimming suit [made of metal] because Piranhas will consider you gourmet. O’Dell made a chomping sound as he said gourmet, which the children said was fancy food.

The children wiggled their fingers and clapped their hands as fast as possible to the song, and then O’Dell changed the tempo. First, he sang it in very slow motion, then he sang at “warp speed.” O’Dell reminded everyone safety is always first when swimming.

To teach the children more about the continents, O’Dell talked about what they look like and what they are known for. For example, Antarctica is a white continent and very cold. If you look at maps, many continents are covered in green.

Something Europe is known for is being the place where pizza was introduced. O’Dell had the children repeat P-I-Z-Z-A after him several times and make a motion representing pizza.

In Africa, O’Dell said there is the Sahara Desert, which shows up as light brown on a map. Egypt is also in Africa and the rulers of Egypt were the Pharaohs. O’Dell said the most famous Pharaoh was King Tut.

O’Dell’s song about King Tut referred to his tomb in the Sahara Desert. The tomb had lots and lots of gold, a gold mask. Inside a coffin made of gold was another coffin made of gold which was inside a third coffin made of gold.

There were also lots and lots of clothes like ancient Egyptian flip flops and socks. O’Dell said they wore socks with flip flops. O’Dell asked the children if one should be allowed to wear socks with flip flops and the votes were divided.

The next lines of the song were about King Tut’s underwear. O’Dell told the children they should not laugh when singing about underwear. To avoid laughing, he asked the children to cover their teeth with their lips. When O’Dell sang with his teeth covered, his words sounded different.

The motion used for Africa was their arms bent and their hands pointing out. O’Dell said it was how people were shown in ancient Egyptian drawings.

South America was represented by the children making Piranha motions. For Europe, they made a pizza motion. For the continent Asia, O’Dell had the children lift their hands above their heads and clasp them together to represent Mount Everest, which he told them is the tallest in the world.

To represent Australia, O’Dell had the children hold their hands above their heads like a shark fin. Australia has the Great Barrier Reef, which is the biggest in the world.

Antarctica was represented by children rubbing their arms together as if they were trying to keep warm.

As a way to see how much the children remembered about the continents, O’Dell quizzed them. He asked which one was cold and they responded Antarctica.

When asked which one has the Amazon River, the children said South America. They were able to tell O’Dell one with King Tut’s tomb near the Nile is in Africa. When asked which continent invented basketball, they yelled out North America. For the continent with Mount Everest, the children said Asia. For the Great Barrier Reef, the children told O’Dell it was Australia. As O’Dell asked about the place to get pizza on the Mediterranean Sea, the children said Europe.

Once the children had learned motions for each continent, they performed these motions in front of the stage as O’Dell sang about the continents again. They jumped up and down as they did the motions.

Next, O’Dell told the children a story about playing frisbee with a friend in the park. When O’Dell and his friend heard a strange noise, they looked up and saw a spaceship floating above the tree branches. The spaceship then crash landed behind a tree.

A three eyed green alien with two mouths climbed out of the spaceship and spoke in his space alien language. Fortunately, O’Dell had a friend who studied space alien in college and was able to interpret. The alien said, “hi, my name is Zar. I am an alien from another star. My ship… crashed right over there. I was hoping that you all would help me make some repairs.”

The group was told the repairs could be done by pushing a button. While he chanted the story about the alien, O’Dell talked about what parts of the body the alien had them push the button with. He had children pretend to push the button with their fingers, followed by their feet, then their elbows, their knees, their nose, their bottoms and finally tongues.

The chant about the alien kept getting faster and faster. O’Dell ended the song with Zar being able to get the spaceship repaired after they had pushed the button with various parts of their bodies. Zar waved to everyone and said woooooo.

A story about Zar and the Broken Spaceship is in a book by O’Dell. He said it will soon be available for checkout at the Lincoln Public Library. O’Dell’s songs are available through streaming on YouTube and other platforms.

Before the final song, O’Dell said he was thankful for Lincoln Christian Church allowing him to do the program there and for the library organizing events like this one.

The final song was about community. O’Dell sang about what we can do with our hands like climb the highest mountains or sail across the sea. With these hands we can dig for hidden treasure or build a bridge between you and me. O’Dell had the children do motions for climbing, making waves in the sea, digging and holding out their hands towards one another.

As the song ended, O’Dell had the children put their hands on top of their heads, then behind their backs, and finally over their hearts. They then clapped their hands together twenty times.

After the show, O’Dell gave out free high fives. He also autographed books people bought from him.

O’Dell’s performance was the final show for the summer program. His interactive songs kept children engaged throughout the whole program.

[Angela Reiners]