Rep. Ed Towns was no meatball for a bunch of kids this Friday.
Small rain clouds of confusion rolled over the Brooklyn Children’s Museum in Crown Heights on Aug. 13 when the 27-year congressional incumbent’s promised reading of the children’s book, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” took an unexpected turn.
First, the 76-year-old Towns (D-Fort Greene), guessed correctly that young kids are terrible with telling time, so he showed up nearly 40 minutes late.
Then he read a different book, Lois Elhert’s “Growing Vegetable Soup.” No, it wasn’t, despite the title, a suggestion of what should be done with our Albany legislators but a step-by-step guide on how one can grow vegetables and then cook them all up in a pot — a tale that got Towns’s mouth watering.
“I’m getting hungry just thinking about it,” he told about a dozen children and their families, as he read through the book a second time.
The children enjoyed the book, though they frequently accused Towns of the worst form of campaign violation: not sharing.
“Can we see the pictures?” asked little Maria-Jose Tisoc, the second person to remind the legislator that he was reading to a crowd, not just for his own enjoyment.
Towns’s visit — a nice break from his oftentimes volatile campaign against challenger Kevin Powell — was part of the museum’s W.O.R.D. UP! series, where dignitaries, authors and celebrities come to the Brooklyn Children’s Museum to read to children.
Next up on the kid’s size W.O.R.D. UP! hot seat is Grammy-nominated artist Ky-Mani Marley, the son of music legend Bob Marley, who will be reading “My Little Island” by Frane Lessac on Aug. 20.
W.O.R.D. UP! at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum [145 Brooklyn Avenue between St. Marks Avenue and Prospect Place in Crown Heights, (718) 735-4400]. For a list of readings, visit www.brooklynkids.org.
