N is for "North Haven Memorial Library"

"N is for the North Haven Memorial Library"

The North Haven Memorial Library

Today we went to the North Haven Memorial Library in North Haven, CT. It is a great library and had an awesome children's section. There were 4 floors. The basement was the children's section, the main floor had books you could buy, the second had the teen section and the adult non-fiction books, and the third floor had adult fiction, movies, and magazines.

This library outside has it's own "Reading Garden", a gated off area outside with benches, statues and plants contained in it. This is the first library we've visited that has had this. It's a great place for outdoor programs, and even tutoring sessions!

The reading garden entrance.

One of the statues inside the reading garden.

This library had THE best children's summer reading programs we've seen so far. There was a cute little scenario of a writer named Mr. E (ha ha!-if you're not sure why this is funny, say "Mr. E" out loud really quickly- "mystery"!) who had writer's block and the children needed to help him by going trough the secret door ( a room in the children's section) and completing the spaces inside. Each day any child ages 4-14 who was signed up would need to read at least 15 minutes and circle a day on their chart. After about a week or so they would bring the chart back to the library and go in the secret room and complete an activity and read a summary on a particular book for each of the days they read. All together there was 40 days you had to complete. 

The secret door.

Mr. E!!!!

A sample passage, the volunteers or the children read!

The activity to go along with the Half Magic summary above.

All throughout the program, kids earn tickets which they can then put towards special prizes such as pencil sharpeners, or little plastic animals.
The North Haven Library also had a great teen program that had different raffle prizes such as gift cards to Sports Authority. For every 30 minutes you read a day every signed up teen would get a raffle ticket to put in the drawing.

The teen section nicknamed Teen Haven.

The teen section was pretty average. There were really cool rocking chairs though.....

The North Haven Library had a book sale called the Best Friends Bookstore with a lot of cool books on sale. They also accept donations from the public.
The North Haven Library was great and we can't wait to go to Old Saybrook!