What's growing in the garden?

Sunny days are gracing us now and again. If you're thinking of starting a garden with your kids, stop in to the library to check out some books. The Dewey number for gardening is 635, so you'll find great books upstairs for grownups and downstairs for kiddos. Here are a few of my favorite kid titles.

Kids' Container Gardening by Cindy Krezel. Garden all year round with projects for inside and outside plants.

Mini Scientist: In the Garden by Lisa Burke. Gardens are great places to learn. Try out these experiments in your own yard.

Ready Set Grow! This DK publication has step by step instructions, fantastic pictures and fun projects.

Yucky Worms by Vivian French. Worms are wiggly and slimy and great for the garden. This fun picture book shows you how.

Share a Tale

Looking for a good story to share? Did you know that in addition to our great picture book collection, we also have a large section of folktales and fairy tales from around the world? Yep. They can be found in the Juvenile Non-Fiction collection under the J 398s. Whether you'd like to read the different Cinderella stories from around the world or you'd like to brush up on your fables, you'll find plenty of stories to explore. Here are some of my favorites.

Yummy by Lucy Cousins. Yes, the creator of the Maisy books has a fantastic collection of your favorite stories, complete with her illustrations. A great introduction for younger ones to some of these tales.

Borreguita and the Coyote by Verna Aardema. This tale from Mexico follows a clever little sheep as she tries to elude the coyote intent to have her for dinner.

Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China by Ed Young. When Mom goes to visit Grandma, a hungry wolf pretends to be the Grandma to trick the three little girls left behind. 

Food, Wonderful Food!

Tis the season for cooking...and baking....and candy making. Cooking as a family can be a lot of fun. It's also a great literacy skill. Not only do you have to read what to do, but you also need to understand how the numbers work with the recipe. We have lots of cookbooks for kids in our Juvenile Non Fiction section, J 641.5, with recipes from around the country and the world.

Cook It Together by Annabel Karmel. Yummy recipes with great pictures showing most of the steps.

Emeril's There's a Chef in My World by Emeril Lagasse. For a family looking for a culinary adventure, you could try some of the recipes from this book.

Ratatouille What's Cooking? A Cookbook for Kids. Everyone's favorite cooking rat presents some tasty French treats. Happy cooking!

Cooking with Your Kids

Now that fall has come, you may be looking for more indoor activities to do with your kids. How about cooking? I bet you didn't know that we have quite a collection of cookbooks for kids. The Dewey Decimal Number for cooking is 641.5. Check out all our cooking stuff in Juvenile Non-Fiction and get ready for some fun with your kids!

Poetry for Kids

One of my favorite collections to purchase books for is poetry for kids. There is such diversity among the subjects - math, monsters, weather, school or geography. April is National Poetry Month, so celebrate with some poetry.

Gotta Book is a blog with ambitious aim of posting 30 previously unpublished children's poems in 30 days. Not just any old poems, but poetry from such greats as Nikki Grimes, Jack Prelutsky, Jane Yolen, and Jon Scieszka.

On display now in the Children's Room...poetry, of course! Stop by the Juvenile Non-Fiction section (J 811) and browse for some poetry. Check it out with your child and get some inspiration for some fun family writing of your own!

Dewey Who?

You've probably heard of the Dewey Decimal system, one way to group items together often used in libraries. The Dewey himself, Melvin Dewey, created the system in 1876 with the idea that all items could be seperated into ten distinct categories (and then further divided and further divided and..well, you get the idea).

With school starting *gasp* next week, check out our back to school displays of picture books and parenting books about school. Your Dewey number for the week - J 372 - for more books for kids about going to school.