Kids begin weekend with a book, seriously

Friday afternoons have long been known as a time when children put their books away, not to revisit them again until Monday. Maybe all they wanted was to take a break and have someone else do the reading for them, because they have been filling up a local bookstore for story time every Friday afternoon for the last five weeks.

Topsail High School Senior Jeffrey Williams has been making appearances at Quarter Moon Books and Gifts in Topsail Beach to read books to the children; and he comes dressed as, well, anything but Jeffrey Williams! His costumed theatrics add an element to the reading that area children just love.

The day I attended story time, Williams dressed as a character he created known as "Captain Patrick O'Shanahan." Along with the cartoon-like sea outfit, Captain Patrick also has a resonating and quivering voice that almost becomes frightening, but instead makes the children laugh. The origins of the character are not what you might expect.

"He's a crazy old man who breaks into your house and tries to steal the women and takes them away on his boat. He was conceived for more of a mature audiences, but for the purposes of today he's been changed to a children's character," said Williams.

As children arrive through the front door of the bookstore to find a good seat at the reading, they can usually find Williams in costume, at the door waiting to greet them. They mostly love the characters, but occasionally the younger ones get confused, until their mothers explain to them that the strange man they are looking at is really just their friend Jeffrey in stage make-up.

"All of my characters stem from ridiculous personal experience. You can be walking down the street one day and hear someone and say, ‘there's no way that's a real person' and you start copying them," laughed Williams. "I'm trained in my own make up skills, which means I'm self-taught. Today things went a little longer than planned - things went awry. It usually takes me less than thirty minutes. Today it took an hour. I spilled the spirit gum; I got make-up all over the place. I tried to take a class once and was like, ‘uhh, maybe I'll just try this myself,' but I'm really against wigs. If I can, I use a hat."

Williams always reads one book and, if time permits, two. He often reads a selection that is available at the store, but he struck a devious grin when he admitted that occasionally he reads a book that he brought from home.

On this day, Williams read something the children can find at Quarter Moon.

"Today I'm reading ‘Stanley at the Sea' by Linda Bailey. It's about a happy little dog looking for food with his friends. He gets lost at sea. Oh, it's terrible at first," said Williams.

Friday readings are not the only times Williams gets into character. He has been involved in the performing arts for nearly five years and plans to make a career out of it.

"I've been doing theatre since eighth grade. Right now we're adapting a work of James Thurber into a theatre piece for a competition called "A Catbird Seat." There's no prize; well, the prize is you get recognition! You get to say ‘I won!' It's bragging rights. You get to say, ‘I'm better than all you guys,'" laughed Williams. "I'm a senior at Topsail High School. I plan on attending UNC-Asheville to study directing and acting. I've been plugging this everywhere. Topsail High School will soon be doing the first real big production in their new theatre. We'll be doing Little Shop of Horrors. I'll be playing Orin Scrivello."

Williams' drama teacher Rochelle Whiteside had this to say before the reading, "Jeffrey's our guy. He's gonna go somewhere. If you can do comedy, you can do anything."

A misprint in another publication almost put an end to the large crowds at the bookstore readings just as they were becoming successful.

"I read that this was my last week doing this. It's not. I'll be doing this until I run out of costumes, or at least until the end of the school year. Last week I was ‘Serious Cowboy;' today I‘m the Captain. Who knows what I‘ll be next week? But I‘ll be something," said Williams.

Quarter Moon Bookstore will be hosting Friday afternoon story time at 4:30. Jeffrey Williams will be telling stories that will appeal to 4 to 8-year-olds, but since he comes all dressed up in wonderful costumes, it's fun for all ages.