The Kids’ Library of the Elmhurst Public Library serves children from birth through 8th grade, and the people who teach and care for them. The Kids’ Library is the place to come for books, audiobooks, music, movies, CDs, CD-ROMs, magazines and other materials that can help children develop reading skills, as well as a lifelong love of reading and learning.

THE HELP DESK: Please stop by and say hello! We want you to feel comfortable coming to us with questions. Librarians are always available to help you find information, as well as locate a good book to read.

BOARD BOOKS: Start early to nurture a love of reading. Board books are perfect for introducing babies and young toddlers to books. Little ones are encouraged to manipulate these sturdy books and point to the pictures, while parents read and talk about what is on the page.

PICTURE BOOKS: A successful picture book is one in which pictures and text work together to tell a story. Our collection contains nearly 15,000 titles. Caregivers can encourage active learning by asking children open-ended questions during the reading of the story. Ask about the illustrations and photos in picture books, about what children think might happen next, or how they think the characters are feeling. “Reading time” is also a great time to talk!

BEGINNING READERS: Beginning readers use controlled vocabulary, fewer words per page, and large print—just what children need to learn to read. Our easiest beginning readers are marked with bright green tape on the spine.

TOYS: The Kids’ Library has a large collection of educational toys and games, including puppets, puzzles, and learning games available for checkout.

STORYTIME ROOM: From the clouds on the ceiling to the carved frogs and cattails on the walls, the Storytime Room reflects the beauty of Wilder Park, which surrounds the library. Local artists donated their time to paint two lovely murals—one with a fairy tale theme and one of Wilder Park in the 1930’s, featuring Illinois animals.

COMPUTERS: Whether you are typing a report, searching the Internet, or using CD-ROM games to develop reading, math and thinking skills, our computer area is the place to be. The Internet stations in the Kids’ Library are filtered, and educational games are preloaded for your convenience.

HOMEWORK SHELF: These shelves are located in the reference area, close to the Help Desk. When a teacher requests that books be pulled for a class assignment, the books are placed on the Homework Shelf and are either available for checkout or labeled “for library use only,” depending upon availability.

CD-ROMs: Over 600 educational CD-ROMs are available for checkout in the Kid’s Library. This collection includes the Jumpstart series, many of the Living Books, as well as games to reinforce phonics, reading, spelling, math and science skills. CD-ROMs can be checked out for 3 weeks

LARGE-TYPE BOOKS: A small collection of fiction books in large-type format are available for checkout. Titles in this collection are usually classics or bestselling children’s books.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE MATERIALS: A number of books, DVDs, videos and CD-ROMs are available in bilingual format, or in languages other than English. Spanish is the predominant foreign language represented, but a limited collection of materials in other languages is also on hand. Bilingual board books and picture books are available for our youngest patrons. Instructional materials for learning a foreign language are also available, including the popular “Muzzy” kits published by the BBC.

SIGNED ENGLISH, BRAILLE: The Kids’ Library has a limited collection of Braille and signed English titles.

MAGAZINES: Periodicals for children are located at the east end of the Kids Library. The library keeps issues of children’s magazines for 2 years, and all but the most current month’s issue may be checked out for one week. In addition, you can also access “e-zines”—online issues of popular magazines—at home or here in the library. These online magazines will keep you up-to-date on the latest news in sports, entertainment, national and world events, science, literature and more! Many of these e-zines also include games, contests and other fun activities. To see the e-zines available on our site, click here.  e-zines

DISPLAY SHELVES: On the west wall of the Kids Library, behind the reference collection, there are:

• Rebecca Caudill nominee books
• Suggested fiction titles for each grade level, 1 through 8
• New fiction and new nonfiction titles (the call number will say “new”)

PARENT TEACHER SHELVES: This collection provides books for parents, teachers, and adults working with children. Among the available resources are books with games to play with toddlers, guides to encourage young readers, and parenting books with tips for solving common child rearing problems, such as getting a child to sleep. Teachers needing fresh ideas for using literature in their classrooms will want to check out the tools in this collection.

THE REFERENCE COLLECTION
The reference collection is a collection of hundreds of books, on a wide range of subjects, that are for in-library use only. There are science sets such as The International Wildlife Encyclopedia, many biography resources, such as The Encyclopedia of Artists, and sports reference books, such as the Pro Football Guide. There are geography resources, such as the Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Cities, The Blackbirch Kid’s Visual Reference of the United States, and World Book’s Encyclopedia of Flags. The collection also includes many guides to good books, such as Popular Series Fiction for K-6 Readers: A Reading and Selection Guide. Though these wonderful resources must remain in the library for everyone to use, you can always make photocopies of selected pages.

Click here to Take a virtual tour of the library.