Features
Early Childhood Services at the Public Library of Steubenville
Babies are blooming in Jefferson County!
Little Heights: A Literacy Playroom
At the library, playing is learning!
Children and The Talking Book Program
Helping children explore their world.
The Department of Jobs and Family Services
Helping Ohioans be healthy and safe.
Children and Youth Services
Everyone knows that our children are our future. But how can we encourage that outcome? How can we help children grow into the future leaders that we need them to be?
As we discover more about how children learn, our libraries can help play a special role in their development. Children's programming has already enabled libraries to expand their services to children and encourage literacy readiness at a younger age. These efforts, combined with working partnerships with parents and caregivers, are tools that can be used to help young people process, explore, and grow within and outside of the library environment.
Highlighted in this issue are a variety of services some libraries offer to children and their caregivers in an effort to promote childhood learning.
State Librarian’s Report
This is The Magic librarians are freely giving to all by opening up the world of discovery.
My children come by their love of reading honestly: from parents, from attending library storytimes and from one another. One of my favorite pictures of them was taken when Anna was 4 and Lisa was 18 months. They are seated on a couch and Anna is reading Lisa her favorite picture book, The Night Before Christmas.
So it was no wonder that Lisa looked forward to going to the "real school" because she saw how much her sister enjoyed going there. She left me at the door of her kindergarten classroom, excited and happy. But when I picked her up 3 hours later, she was crestfallen. Over lunch, she explained, "They didn't give me The Magic."
By this time she was able to read picture books on her own but what she really wanted was the ability to pick up a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book (does anyone out there remember those?) and to be gone on an adventure on her own. Who can deny that this is truly The Magic?
This is The Magic librarians are freely giving to all by opening up the world of discovery. It does not matter where a person finds information and escape – print or electronic, inside the library, in a game, on the Web – the key is the ability to read, to decipher the magic and make it real.
I was reminded of this when I read an article in the Columbus Dispatch this morning, May 21st. Third–grader Chasrah Williams took part in a weeklong celebration of reading last week by releasing a biodegradable balloon from her German Village school. Inside was a note naming a book she enjoyed reading and asking whoever found her balloon to let her know what his or her favorite book was. The response came in the form of a three page letter from a gentleman in North Carolina. He encouraged Chasrah to continue reading, saying, "Reading can bring the world to your front steps. It broadens and strengthens your mind ... " Having the world brought to your front steps is magic indeed!
Congratulations to all librarians, and especially to Carol Pugh who is Chasrah's school librarian, on a job well done – on passing on The Magic.
