Publications & Sites 
Library invites patrons to explore Europe
Molly McNeil, 2 1/2, Shorewood, gently touches her decorated egg. The Indian Prairie Public Library hosted a Pysansky egg decorating class Monday afternoon. | Jon Langham~for Sun-Times Media
Explore Europe at the library
Finding Grandma’s Ancestors in Easter Europe
1 p.m. Jan. 24
Chicago Cossacks music and dance
2 p.m. Jan. 27
Treasure of the State Hermitage
7 p.m. Jan. 31
Article Extras
Updated: March 25, 2013 1:19AM
DARIEN — At the Indian Prairie Public Library, patrons can get away without a plane ticket or passport.
“This whole month is our Eastern European Culture celebration,” said Kelly VonZee, early literacy librarian.
As part of that celebration, children and their families were invited to spend part of their Martin Luther King holiday making their own version of Pysanky eggs.
An Easter tradition in the Ukraine, the meticulously decorated eggs are created through a painstaking process that includes hot wax, dyes and tiny tools called kistkas.
“We can’t do the real ones,” VonZee said, so with the help of members of the library’s Teen Advisory Board, youngsters were offered three ways to make paper versions of the eggs.
Children could choose to make all three, but 8-year-old Anthony Valenti chose to spend his time making a single carefully decorated egg. Using markers, he created his own detaied pattern on a cardboard egg.
Meanwhile, his sister Jolie, 6, had finished covering her cardboard egg with colors and sparkles and had moved on to another project — this one decorated with a hand-drawn butterfly.
“Butterflies are beautiful,” Jolie said.
Mom Elke Valenti said learning a tradition of another culture is an appropriate way to spend Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“I learned there are different ways (of making Easter eggs),” Jolie said~.
