This birthday requires 110 ‘celebrity’ readers

To celebrate its 110th birthday, the Schenectady Day Nursery on Lafayette Street is inviting 110 different members of the community to come and read to its children.

On Monday, the reader was magician Jim Snack of Averill Park. He read “The Rainbow Crow,” a Native American myth retold by Nancy Van Laan, and he also performed a few magic tricks.

“I did a few tricks, read ‘The Rainbow Crow,’ and then we made a rainbow appear,” said Snack. “I think the teachers enjoyed the magic more than the students.”

Nursery director Diane Fisher said that it was fun to watch how excited the children became. “[Snack’s] moving this ball between two boxes, making it appear in one and disappear in the other, asking the children which box he should open next — and they start shouting ‘Open them both!’ He opened them both and the ball was gone, nowhere to be seen, and the kids were astonished. The rainbow he made was gigantic, too.”

To which Snack replied, “Well, I didn’t do that — the children did that. They said the magic word.”

Snack is used to entertaining and educating children — he used to work as a public speaker at local high schools, in a program he led called “Reading is Magic” — but

the 110 readers come from all walks of life. Police officers, firefighters, business people, and readers from the Schenectady Temple Gates of Heaven have all read to the children at the nursery.

Spokeswoman Joanne DeVoe and Fisher said that the 110 Birthday Readers program is a way to encourage children to find joy in reading, and is also a great way to introduce children to people from different walks of life. Readers include former mayor of Schenectady Karen Johnson and Jane Golub, Price Chopper’s director of in-store marketing programs and Day Nursery board member.

Nursery Board Treasurer Tim Reynolds of Clifton Park said that the 110 Birthday Readers program is a good way for the community and the nursery to bond closer together.

“It’s important to get people in and participating from the community. The community supports the nursery, I think, and the nursery fills a community need.”

The nursery has been in operation since 1902, when it was established by a group of community women who were concerned that many local children were either locked away in tenement apartments or left to roam the streets while their parents were at work. According to DeVoe, the nursery used to be a licensed medical dispensary, and small medical operations used to be performed there.