On April 2, kids and adults can enjoy vegan food along with speakers and kid-friendly activities during Valley Vegfest.
The green and leafy event happens from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at JFK Middle School, Northampton.
It’s free. Of course, you may well have a kid who doesn’t feel the siren call of the artichoke. Never fear — there’s time to prepare the reluctant broccoli-eater set. On March 26 at 10:30 a.m., the Edwards Library in Southampton offers the free event Small Victories: Getting Kids to Like Vegetables.
Advance registration is required via 570-3061 or earlychildhood@collaborative.org.
Lovers of film will find an abundant roster in coming weeks, as the Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival offers screenings from Springfield to Greenfield and plenty of stops between.
On that extensive roster — you’ll want to pay a visit to pvjff.org to catch the films and locales — is “Belle and Sebastian.” It tells the tale of a boy on the French-Swiss border who befriends a dog suspected of attacking livestock. Things get tricky fast when Nazis arrive in search of members of the French resistance. It happens April 10, at 12:30 p.m. at Wright Hall, Smith College, Northampton. Tickets are $10, and a pizza lunch before the show is included.
Valley stages get a workout in coming days, too.
They’ll take a particular pounding when the percussive group Stomp visits the University of Massachusetts Fine Arts Center to stomp, pummel and whip up an entertaining musical frenzy. It happens April 12-13 at 7:30 p.m., and tickets are $15.
Most of the other offerings don’t pack the same literal punch, but a few are heavyweight contenders in the humor department. Something guffaw-worthy is bound to happen when you combine an audience full of kids, from 5 years old up to 12, with adult improv comedians from the Ha Ha’s and other area troupes. It’s called the Happier Family Comedy Show, and the next installment is April 16, at 4 p.m. at Suite 121 in Easthampton’s Eastworks building.
Tickets start at $5, and top out at $20 for entire families.
Easthampton also hosts Thought Bomb, a funnybone-tickling storytelling show in which stories are followed by live band karaoke. Performers include SJ Son, Ginny Leise and Niki Luparelli.
The free show starts at 8 p.m. on March 25, at Flywheel, in the Old Easthampton Town Hall on Main Street.
At Northampton’s A.P.E April 7 to 9, the humor goes small-screen when the group Xfinity Theater mines NBC’s Today Show for its comedic potential via verbatim scripts, news items, interviews, and even dance. The group’s members, it’s worth noting, met at UMass, when they attended the MFA Program for Poets and Writers. The shows start at 8 p.m., and tickets are $10.
The kid set can enjoy plenty of entertainment aimed directly at them. Puppetry is on the menu at the Jones Library in Amherst, when the Children’s Music Series features the Tanglewood Marionettes, who’ll perform “Hansel and Gretel.” That one is April 2 at 10:30 a.m. and it’s free.
Puppets go international at Smith College, when families can enjoy the art of Wayang Kulit, Balinese shadow puppetry.
The show includes Balinese musical instruments, and offers stories from two Hindu epics, the Mahabharata and Ramayana.
Attendees can observe the puppets from behind or in front of the screen. The free event happens April 10 at 3 p.m. at Earle Recital Hall in Sage Hall, Smith College.
Lastly, a big one: the annual Meltdown Family Music and Book Fest brings writers, musicians, and general mayhem to Smith Vocational-Agricultural High School in Northampton on March 26 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free.
— James Heflin