If you are casting about for activities for the kids this summer, I have the perfect resource. From designing a marble track from straws, to making a triangular truss bridge from lasagna noodles, Steven Caney’s Ultimate Building Book has it all, with instruction and commentary on how and especially why these structures can work. Read More..
We are surely lucky to have all the rest of us around to learn from. Children don’t experience the discomfort that adults feel when confronted with a person who looks different and makes unintelligible sounds that clearly have meaning. Kids don’t care if they don’t understand, it’s just par for the course. Read More..
May is the month that the Children’s team takes time off from the ongoing storytimes, to prepare for summer. The exception is the Thursday night storytime for 3 and ups, which will soldier right on. Please come to the library anyway, but be aware your storytime may not be happening. The regular schedule resumes Read More..
Eyewitness books were a leap in design for children’s nonfiction books. They still stand out, even though their clean image-on-white style is often imitated. They were first published in England by Dorling Kindersley in 1988. When they started publishing in the U.S. in 1991 I remember thinking they were a wonderful surprise. Read More..
“Working together, hunter and horse raced to cut the bull from the herd and galloped close up on its left side. As his mount matched the bull stride for stride, the hunter pulled an arrow from his quiver and notched it on his bow. His horse needed no guidance now –it galloped steadily at the buffalo’s side, just in back of the head, so the hunter could aim for the crucial spot Read More..
It’s nearly spring, the birds are calling their spring calls already, getting ready for the baby-making season. I imagine that crocodilians, marsupials and insects have some analogous sounds or gestures that they do in preparation for parenting. Just in time, we have some important books in the Library to guide the new parents. Read More..
There’s a hum of voices punctuated by laughter, the rumble of wheels, the thump of books landing on carts, the rustling of lists. It’s the library moving a collection of 230,000 items and all the stuff that goes with that and a staff of 80.
All this past week we have been loading books onto big wheeled plywood-shelved carts, carefully in order, Read More..
Back in the day, people went out on ships, made scientific discoveries and had adventures. They must be doing it now, but sometimes it feels like the really big questions have been answered, and the minutiae, although very important, just don’t have that romance for the general public. 2009 was the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, whose adventures have had an enduring effect on the world. Since then, Read More..
As a child I longed for snow every winter about this time: the magic of quiet flakes falling, the muted squishes of passersby, slowed traffic, and ditches filled with drifted snow. Wasn’t there more snow when I was a kid? This year I wanted to start my winter thinking with snow, not holidays, so I started collecting books about snow Read More..
In a children’s “realistic fiction” world of broken homes, absent parents and classroom angst, every once in a while you come across a story uncluttered by the need to show young readers that they too can survive their 11th or 12th year even if life is miserable. Have you, like me, been looking for a book about three seventh grade girls in a Catholic school in Manhattan (New York), who like boys and are good at math and music, have great parents and solve mysteries? Read More..