Kids & Families

  • Playing With Your Words

    Patient parents, have you put up with perpetual puns and palindromes? Troubled teachers, are you tired of tolerating tongue twisters?  Sometimes growing literacy skills and an emerging sense of humor collide in a dazzling display of fondness for word play.  It’s a good thing!  It means that the left and right brain hemispheres are communicating. … Continue reading

  • Talkin’ Turkey

    What do you call it when it rains turkeys?  Fowl Weather (of course!) Most times, these ungainly strutting birds get no respect, not even as dinner’s main course. Take the Butterball Turkey Helpline—most new cooks are baffled by such a huge rotund bird for which large roasting pans and big ovens are required—as their many… Continue reading

  • Tears and Fears: Making Sense of Emotions with Kids

    Helping your little one recognize and respond to the tumult of emotions they may be experiencing at any given time is no easy task, especially during the full wrath of a grocery-store tantrum! Taking time to name your child’s feelings or, better yet, providing them the space to name their feelings themselves, is just one… Continue reading

  • Solar Eclipse 2017: Reading for all ages

    Whether you’re reading in advance of the solar eclipse on August 21, or stockpiling suggestions to read afterward, here are a selection of books for readers of all ages; check out the full list in our catalog. Continue reading

  • Seek the Story

    Edward Hopper’s paintings were inspired as well as inspiring. Who could view his moody and spare piece, “Nighthawks,” and not look for a story therein? A recent short story collection, edited by Lawrence Block, called In Sunlight or in Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper, makes that point. In the foreword, Block writes:  “Hopper… Continue reading

  • Cultivating a Love of Nature with Children

    The clouds are disappearing and the temperatures are warming, which means the summer months are just within reach in the Pacific Northwest! Take a book or two along as you and your kiddos head to the park or the beach. You’ll satisfy the curiosity of those little scientists and enhance your family’s appreciation for our… Continue reading

  • Gene Luen Yang: National Storyteller

    If we were to conjure a favorite high school teacher, one who’s smart, funny, innovative, caring, honest, and ever so talented, Gene Luen Yang would fit to a T. So personable a speaker, he can reach you through his website videos. Most writers share their deepest thoughts and ideas through their books, but to also… Continue reading

  • Ralph Steadman: Evocative Frenzy

    I am unceasingly inspired by the artistic wizardry of Ralph Steadman, particularly his knack for evocative frenzy. Though clearly an expert draughtsman, he’s made a career out of twisting conventional imagery with a demented cartoon sensibility. What appears at first in his work to be frayed and chaotic ends up revealing character with a greater… Continue reading

  • Children’s Literature Saves Lives

    After the raucousness of politics last fall, I overheard a woman say that she had been binge watching Hallmark Channel love stories. I could certainly relate as I retreated for weeks on end to exclusively reading children’s fiction, where issues are surmountable and endings often good. Truth be told, the writing and illustrating for children… Continue reading

  • Immigration and the Refugee Experience Presented in Comics for Kids and Young Adults

    Comics can be an effective gateway toward empathy and understanding. Both fiction and non-fiction comics can help the reader visualize and develop context for a wide variety of human experience. Here are a few comics which may help younger readers learn about the lives and experiences of refugees and immigrants. Continue reading

  • Black Lives Matter At The Library

    Today across the city, many Seattle Public School teachers and staff are wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts and stickers, holding rallies before school, and teaching lessons on Black history and institutionalized racism in a district-wide action, #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool. Here is more information about the action. To support these very important conversations happening throughout our city with… Continue reading

  • Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month Through Reading – With Kids!

    Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15th – October 15th, honors the histories, cultures and contributions of Americans with ancestry in Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. Children’s librarians from the Central Library’s Children’s Center have compiled a list of favorites for children to help you and your children celebrate the month through reading! Here… Continue reading

  • Welcome to Awards Season

    Can you feel it in the air? Have you seen the announcements? Literary awards season* is upon us again! On September 9th, the shortlist for the Man Booker prize was announced. On September 15th, the National Book Foundation finished announcing the 40 longlisted titles for the National Book Award in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young people’s… Continue reading

  • Nightstand Reads: Seattle author Sharon H. Chang shares from her bookpile(s)

    Our guest blogger today is Sharon H. Chang, author of Raising Mixed Race: Multiracial Asian Children in a Post-Racial World. Sharon H. Chang is a writer, scholar and activist who focuses on racism, social justice and the Asian American diaspora with a feminist lens. She serves as a consultant for Families of Color Seattle and… Continue reading

  • Quick Reads That Make My Queer Heart Skip A Beat

    Introducing Teddy by Jess Walton. I don’t even know where to begin with this sweet and tender children’s book without spoiling it. Jess Walton knocks it out of the park with this one: it’s a children’s book that has a transgender character that isn’t rejected and who doesn’t perpetuate the stereotype that transgender people are… Continue reading

  • The Wondrous World of the Central Library

    Emily Winfield Martin is the writer of the blog The Black Apple that I have been following for eons it seems. She has also written a few children’s books that are beautiful, delightful, and available from the library; one being Oddfellow’s Orphanage. That particular story tells us about Delia, a silent albino girl, who discovers… Continue reading

  • Book Bingo: From your childhood

    Join The Seattle Public Library and Seattle Arts & Lectures for our second annual Summer Book Bingo for adults! Follow us throughout the summer for reading suggestions based on each category. Today, suggestions for your “Read a book from your childhood” square: We all have fond memories of books from our childhoods, but just how well do they hold up? Will you love… Continue reading

  • Summer Time When the Reading is “Natural”

    When Children’s and Teen Librarians visit schools before summer vacation begins, we are often armed with a plethora of “good reads” and entice the kids to come to their local branch to check them out. The Summer of Learning program this year proclaims “Astounding Tales of Nature!”  The “oohs and ahs” that came from the… Continue reading