Youth Services is designed to meet the needs of young people from toddler age through junior high. In addition to a growing book
collection for this age group, the library offers an excellent assortment of children's magazines, recordings, filmstrips and
videos.
Regularly scheduled programming includes "Toddler Time" (stories, songs and fingerlings for children three years old and under), "Preschool Story Time" (slightly longer and more advanced for older preschoolers), and reading programs meant to encourage reading for pleasure.
The Young Adult collection has materials geared toward ages 13 to 17 and is located in the Youth Services area on the first floor. There is a comfortable place for teens to hang out to study or read.
Also, the library has collected together some Internet tips for kids, as well as Internet resources for parents and teachers. In addition, we have put together a list of World Wide Web book selection tools to help parents, teachers and kids find good books for kids to read. You may also want to check out the American Library Association's "Great Web Sites for Kids," which contains lots of links to educational and fun Internet sites for kids. Feel free to take a look if you are interested.
Need a good book to pass the time away? We can help you find one! Check out one of the newest databases on our Online Databases page -- Novelist K-8 to find fiction for kids in kindergarten through 8th grade. You may also want to check out the library's Internet links for bibliophiles or use the resources in the Reader's Corner for still more good reads.
Check out Reading Rants -- Out of the Ordinary Teen Booklists for some
good suggestions -- or take a look at the Children's Literature Web Guide, where you'll find lots of information and resources about reading.
It soon will be time again for the annual Summer Reading Program for kids. Be Creative @ Your Library was last year's theme and this year's theme will be announced soon. The summer reading program is designed to encourage reading for pleasure; it will help young people who are able to read independently retain the valuable reading skills they developed over this past school year. Preschool children too young to read may also participate and will receive credit for the books read to them. Small rewards will be given to each child for reaching specific goals.
Registration will begin again on June 1st at all four Fort Smith Public Library locations. More information will be coming soon.
For more information, please call (479)783-0229.
 Storytime at Windsor Drive Branch Library is held on Mondays at
10:00a.m.
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| Toddler Time is held Tuesdays from 10:00 - 10:45a.m. in the Children's
Department at the Main Library |
| Storytime at Miller Branch Library is held on Tuesdays from 2:00 -
2:45p.m. |
| Storytime at Dallas Branch Library is held on Wednesdays at 10:30am
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| Storytime at the Main Library is held on Thursdays from 10:00 - 11:00am
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The movies have "Oscar," Broadway its "Tony," and the recording industry has the "Grammy," but in the field of children's literature no awards are more prestigious than the Newbery and Caldecott awards. The 2010 awards were given to the children's books published in 2009 that were judged the most distinguished. Often, additional books are designated as Newbery and Caldecott "Honor" Awards.
In addition to these awards for wonderful books for children, the American Library Association also sponsors the Coretta Scott King Awards and and the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Awards for New Talent, for books which promote an understanding and appreciation of the "American Dream". Since 2000, ALA's Young Adult Division has awarded its Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature for young adults.
For more information about the history and mission of these other ALA children's book awards, as well as previous winners, visit the Awards Page for the Association for Library Service to Children.
2010 Newbery Honor Award books include Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose (Melanie Kroupa/FSG); The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly (Holt/Macmillan); Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin (Little, Brown); and The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick (Blue Sky/Scholastic).
2010 Caldecott Honor Award went to illustrators Maria Frazee for All the World, written by Liz Garton Scanlon (Beach Lane/S&S); and to Pamela Zagarenski for Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors, written by Joyce Sidman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
The Coretta Scott King Awards honor African American authors and illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults. This year, its 40th anniversary, we are especially excited that Vaunda Micheaux Nelson (Carolrhoda/Lerner) has won the Coretta Scott King Author Award for her book Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal, about one of Fort Smith's local heroes.
Charles R. Smith, Jr. (Ginee Seo/Atheneum) won the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for My People, written by Langston Hughes.
Mare's War by Tanita S. Davis (Knopf/Random House) was named a Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book; and The Negro Speaks of Rivers, illustrated by E.B. Lewis, written by Langston Hughes (Jump at the Sun/Disney) was a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book.
Walter Dean Myers won the inaugural Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. Myers is the author of five CSK Author Awards: Monster (1999), Slam (1997), Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary (1994), Somewhere in the Darkness (1993), and Fallen Angels (1989).
The 2010 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award award was presented to Kekla Magoon (S&S/Aladdin) for The Rock and the River.
Four Printz Honor Awards were given this year to: Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman (Holt/Macmillan), which was also a National Book Award finalist and the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award winner; The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey (S&S); Punkzilla by Adam Rapp (Candlewick); and Tales from the Madman Underground: An Historical Romance, 1973 by John Barnes (Viking/Penguin).
| This Page Last updated: 22 January 2010 |