Hi, friends:
What are you reading these days? If you have kids or grandkids, what are they reading? At my house, books are strewn all over the floor on a daily basis. My five-year-old son is deep into dinosaurs. I don’t remember exactly how his penchant for the prehistoric started, but at a certain point, Kat Janeczek, who works at the children’s desk at Forbes Library, recommended “Edwina: The Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct ” by Mo Willems. My boy loved it, and so did I. I mean, this book features one of the best character names ever: a know-it-all kid named Reginald Von Hoobie-Doobie. My toddler daughter, meanwhile, loves “Pat the Bunny,” the Golden Books classic by Dorothy Kunhardt. She also enjoys looking at other baby faces in board books — and on Pampers diaper boxes.
As a parent, I feel like I’m constantly reading articles about how to get kids reading. The New York Times recently ran a whole guide on how to raise young readers. Among their valuable pieces of advice, in addition to reading out loud and reading during the day (not just at bedtime): Make regular visits to your local library! And let your children become card-carrying members as soon as they’re eligible: “A child’s first library card,” write the authors, “is a rite of passage.”
My son recently got his first library card at Forbes — and it just so happens to have been designed by Mo Willems. (Look to the left.) I feel grateful to live in a community that is so invested in helping me raise my young readers. “Having the opportunity to support and inspire the next generation of readers is one of the great joys of being a librarian,” says Forbes Library director Lisa Downing, who told us about some new developments in the children’s and young-adult department for our cover story. “My first library memory is of walking into my local public library and being overwhelmed by the realization that all those books with all those great stories were available to me. We want every kid in our community to have the ability to have that experience, and it can’t start too early.”
Most people who live here know that the Pioneer Valley is filled with world-class children’s book authors and illustrators – but it’s also home to some of the best children’s librarians around, from the team at Forbes to Kim Evans Perez (aka “Ms. Kim”) at Lilly Library in Florence to the staff at Jones Library in Amherst and many, many more. We rounded up a few kids’ programs to spotlight on our books page, but obviously we’re just scratching the surface here. Which children’s departments and/or librarians do you love, and why?
Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this special issue on kids, libraries and literacy. Gazette intern Rebecca Mullen talked with Ada and Alice Griffin, two voracious readers who happen to be sisters, for “People Watching.” And we asked Eliza Brown, manager of The Carle Bookshop at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, in Amherst, to tell us about five books she has enjoyed recommending this summer.
Finally, Naomi Shulman is back with “Friday Takeaway,” this time writing about her daughter Lila’s desire to get a lip piercing — and how, as a mother, she bit her own tongue. Lila is now 16, but I asked Naomi what Lila liked to read as a little girl. Here’s what she said: “Lila is a huge reader and was always into books, even as a tiny baby. One of the books I loved reading to her when she was a wee thing was ‘Each Peach Pear Plum,’ which I can still recite from memory, all these years later.” Her essay made me tear up. I also plan to buy that book.
Finally, I’ve been wanting to launch a semi-regular feature on kids’ books since I started at the Gazette. Now seems like as good a time as any to announce it. Do you have ideas for new books that should be spotlighted? Do you have suggestions for what the column should be called? Email me at bhauser@gazettenet.com.
— Brooke Hauser