Tenafly — If you walked into the McCandless Room next to Tenafly Library Aug. 7, you would have been surrounded by tigers, butterflies and princesses – all of which donned the faces of young children attending the annual Circus Day festivities.
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JOE CAMPOREALE/SUBURBANITE
Ellie Wodeslavsky and her daughter Kasia enjoy face painting by Colors the Clown at Circus Day.
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For the ninth year, children’s librarian Latricia Markle planned the day as an event for young children to attend. When the event first began, Markle said she didn’t expect it to become a "huge annual thing."
"It started out as just in the summer, I wanted to do kind’ve an official story time for the younger kids because I didn’t have a summer reading club for them at that point," she said. "We started out and we read three to four stories about the circus…we had one of the little cotton candy machines that you can buy for your house and we blew up balloons."
By the second year, Markle added balloon animals and by the third, face painting by Colors the clown.
Because the event continued to grow each year, Markle decided to make it into an all-afternoon event with two or three entertainers, snacks and face painting.
Markle said there were approximately 100 children present throughout the three-hour event.
This year, musician Kurt Gallagher joined the day, singing songs like, "The Littlest Worm" and "There Ain’t No Flys on Me" which had children cheering, singing along and playing with bubbles floating through the air.
Gallagher came as a recommendation and Markle was delighted by his performance.
"I thought he was incredible," she said. "The kids enjoyed it, the kids were all up and dancing and moving around."
Next year, Markle hopes to be able to add an animal act to the show.
"I’d love to find something, even if it was dogs that did acrobatic stuff or circus-trained dogs," she said.
Six-year-old Sierra Sainte-Rose said she was having a good time and got to sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" on the microphone in front of all of the children.
"This place is the bomb," she said.
E-mail: andrews@northjersey.com or call 201-894-6723
