Murphy – There is another important election this week, and for this one only kids get to decide who should be president and vice president.
Nantahala Regional Library is hosting a Kids’ Book Character Election, in which Piggie and Gerald the elephant are running against Pete the Cat and Mr. Panda. The first two are characters from the Elephant and Piggie book series by Mo Willems, Pete the Cat has a series by Eric Litwin and James Dean, and Mr. Panda has his own series by Steve Antony.
Youth Services Librarian Bridget Wilson picked the candidates.
“They’re all characters I like,” Wilson said. “Elephant & Piggie are a great team. Piggie makes the obvious choice for president over Gerald because she’s much more assertive than Gerald. Pete the Cat offers calm serenity (‘It’s all good’) and Mr. Panda balances that out by being grumpy.”
Voting has begun, and will continue through Friday. Wilson provided a link to a Google Form for voting on Facebook. The form was set up all children in a family or all students in a classroom can vote at the same time.
“In other words, a family only has to fill out the form once even if they have five kids,” Wilson said.
Wilson emailed teachers of pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, first-grade and second-grade classes the form and information on voting.
All the libraries in the system – Andrews, Hayesville, Murphy and Robbinsville – also have Character Activity Packets available for kids. The packets contain a puppet kit, coloring sheets and drawing sheets.
Wilson said an election based on storybook characters is something she has seen done at other libraries in the past. She even hosted a Book Bear election locally in 2012.
If she could vote in this election, Wilson has an idea of who she would vote for.
“Probably Piggie,” Wilson said. “I like her more than Pete, but she has 20 books and I really got to know her.”