(opinion article)

Librarians come to kindergartens

A librarian visits the kindergarten twice a month for 3- and 4-year-olds. Librarians usually choose something interactive so that the children are also involved — jumping, screaming, imitating animal sounds, and being surprised by the characters’ strange questions. Four-year-olds can choose one of the books brought by the librarian and take it home for two weeks.

That is, children whose parents do not take them to the library, and such, probably, are the majority in both the USA and Ukraine, are introduced to the idea of ​​borrowing books and choosing them themselves. This moment — independent choice — is very important. It is not your parents or teachers who choose what to read for you, but you.

Libraries in classrooms

In addition to the school library, each classroom also has its own library, where children take books for daily “free reading,” when everyone sits and reads their own book. Some are about robots, some are about football players, some are about dragons and unicorns. You can find reading for every taste and interest.

Where do the books in the classroom library come from? Some are ordered by the teachers themselves — they have a certain budget per year for each class, some come with orders through the Scholastic book club.

Scholastic is an American publishing and educational company that publishes and distributes books and educational materials.

Book fairs in schools and book distribution

Also, twice a year — in the fall and spring — schools hold book fairs. Each class has its own time when they go in an organized way to look at, choose, and buy books. Before that, they prepare carefully: they watch book trailers, catalogs, and make their lists. Those lists are shown to parents, and the parents decide whether to give money and how much.

The fairs only take place twice a year, and you can order books on the Scholastic website at any time. There are always some promotions there, and if you enter the school and class code, the teacher will receive a book for the class library.

The more children order books, the more books end up on the shelves of the class library. And teachers make sure that their libraries have new books, exactly the books that children love and want to read. Therefore, it often happens that it is in the class libraries that there are books that are not yet in the city libraries.

In my opinion, it would be great to launch a University project where schools could order books from the catalog (like the Scholastic book club mentioned above) — this would support both publishers and make books more accessible to children in villages and towns where there are no bookstores. And everyone would win — publishers, schools, and, most importantly, children would be able to choose books themselves. What do you think about it?