Many thanks to Samantha Carpenter from the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library in Eau Claire for this guest post about boosting your non-fiction collection for young children.
One of the joys of working with kids at the library is feeding a passionate interest. It’s truly fun to help that 5-year-old find the one dinosaur book they haven’t checked out yet! We have lots of regular visitors to certain nonfiction sections.
We do, however, also have lots of patrons—especially those with young children—who rarely visit the nonfiction section and even tell their children: “Those books are for big kids.” Perhaps they don’t realize how many fascinating and beautifully illustrated nonfiction books we have that are perfect for toddlers and preschoolers?
In an effort to bring these books to families’ attention, we put together some “fact packs”—book bundles full of nonfiction geared toward 2- to 5-year-olds. We put them on top of our picture book shelves, which are close to our story time program room and the “pretty” picture books that circulate very well.
 |
| Fact-packs |
We also put different classes of the Dewey Decimal system on our “prize” wheel to challenge kids and families to explore new subjects. One spin of the wheel and you are in the 630s, finding out what it would be like to grow up on a farm. Fun, right?
We think so.
