Wednesday Wanderings – Sierra Vista Public Library

Story time was a bust... that is, it didn’t happen. Which was odd, because a lot of families were there. Next week I’ll call on Monday and double check.

The library is really pretty, and larger than I expected for such a small town, but I imagine that it serves all the surrounding, smaller towns as well.

The children’s section is nice, with puzzles, fun couches, and “audio book listening area” with tape/CD players and headphones, and several rows of children’s books. We didn’t stay long, because there were so many people there and no story time happening that Vince got a little rowdy. But we did check out a few fun books:

The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson about a little mouse who “makes up” this scary sounding monster called a “Gruffalo” in order to scare off all the other animals who might want to eat him (a fox, and owl, and a snake) then finds out that the Gruffalo is real, and his favorite food is mice. You’ll have to grab the book to find out how it ends (I promise, it’s a happy ending – totally G rated – no mice are eaten by anything). It’s really cute, and the rhyming is really good. An interesting tidbit is that the author originally intended the Gruffalo character to be a tiger, but when tiger didn’t fit in with the rhyme, she made up this Gruffalo creature to be the title character. I have to admit – it is a really funny story. You’ll get a kick out of it.

 

Children’s Classics to Read Aloud selected by Edward Bishen. It has excerpts from lots of different classics – The Hobbit, Charlotte’s Web, The Emporer’s New Clothes, among others. They are a little above Vincente’s level of attention, but we’re reading them anyway. He actually did okay sitting through a story about Mr. Toad, and he was okay listening to Charlotte’s Web. I figure it’s a good way to start introducing him to really good literature. And an alternative to picture books and movies all the time. There are pictures (a single picture) included with most of the stories, so that’s nice when he starts loosing interest. I hope to start reading the classics aloud as a family when we move to our new house and have all our books again.

We also checked out a book about dinosaurs, a fun one with a Bear in a Square, and a few board books for Joseline. It feels weird not to have all our books with us – and we haven’t been reading a lot lately because of our lack of literature! But the library will keep us in books for the next few weeks until we can open up our boxes and boxes of books at home in Utah!! It’s seriously going to be like Christmas!!

Now, for the ratings:

Ratings:

Value – five stars because, well, it’s free! And you can get a card with an active duty military ID, even if you don’t have proof of residency (although we had proof of residency). It’s a really nice facility, and there is a little cafe in the front (which we didn’t check out, but maybe will one day).

 

Location – four stars because it’s kind of out on the outskirts of town, and in my opinion, a library should be smack in the middle of town. Okay, so it’s not a big deal because the city is only about 4 square miles anyway – but still. It should be in the middle of those 4 square miles.

 

Fun Factor – four stars because kids hate being quiet (although that’s the nature of a library) but four instead of less because there are lots of fun “quiet” activities provided for the kids over in the children’s section. Not to mention the very large selection of children’s literature (including an entire wall full of board books – and when I say wall, I mean, like a 15 ft long section of wall, 5 or 6 shelves full of board books).