Following on guest blogger Chris Serres’ evening meal theme three days ago, here’s a fun review of two children’s books “The Runaway Dinner” by Allan Ahlberg and “The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon” by Mini Grey.

I love the description in the second book of the Spoon stumbling across the Dish 25 years after they run away. She is in a junk shop, lonely and bereft. She weeps “Don’t look at me Spoon….I am old and cracked, and my glaze is crazed.”

Anybody read these? Let us know what you think. I’m thinking holiday gifts.

I’ve been a big fan of the new Minneapolis Central Library since it opened this summer. And now, after meeting the two women who stock and run the toddlers’ section, I’m an even bigger fan.

Caitlin Cowan, Early Childhood Literacy Librarian (aka Librarian to the Tots) and Susan Carr Brown, Youth Collections Selector (aka Buyer for the Tots) treated Cribsheet to an insiders’ tour.

Caitlin and Susan aren’t your stereotypical stern librarians: they want little ones to come in and have fun – no shush-ing or frowning in this library. They’ve got computer games for toddlers, DVDs, videos. And they know how to be irreverent: they rolled their eyes at the craze over celebrity children’s book authors (Susan: “Most are very poorly written”) and decried a Library of Congress filing system that puts fairy tales in the non-fiction section (Catilin: “We’re letting the Library of Congress dictate child development to us!”).

When it opened, some wondered if there were enough children living downtown to support a separate section. They needn’t have worried – the place was packed pretty much everyday over the summer. The kids streamed in from the Warehouse and the Mill City districts and as far away as Minnetonka and Woodbury. “I had to do an emergency order of new books,” said Susan. “There was nothing on the shelves.”

Also unexpected: toddlers were climbing all over the wooden boats meant as storage for board books (I have to confess my Zoe was one of them). “We didn’t expect the children to use the boats as a playground,” said Caitlin, but the library soon gave up on trying to police that. 

Here’s Cribsheet’s Library Tips for Babies and Toddlers: 

1) The Tiny Books - Tucked past the boats next to the windows, these were printed before contemporary board books and include Beatrix Potter editions from 1908 and exquisite classics from Maurice Sendak and Ruth Krauss from the mid-century.

2) The Rhyming Picture Books section – Walk straight in and it’s just by the glass doors of the locked Historical Books section. The sing-song rythms are guaranteed to put babies to sleep.

3) The World Languages section, right by the Rhyming Picture Books – With books in more than 30 languages including Urdu, Russian, Somali, Khmer, and soon, Tibetan. Susan says she’s trying to source Indian books for the growing community in the Twin Cities.

4) The Folk and Fairy Tale section, including Mother Goose, tucked deep where you’d never think to look — in Non-Fiction (turn left as you enter the children’s library). You can blame the Library of Congress again. 

5) Books of Songs, from “Lap Time Songs” to Sandra Boynton song books, also in Non-Fiction.

6) Braille Books – Pages with pictures and text are overlaid with clear plastic braille inserts, so blind parents/grandparents can read to sighted children or sighted parents to blind children. The books are reprinted by Minneapolis non-profit Seeing Hands with permission from publishers.

7) The Stacks — If you can’t find a particular book published before 1995, it’s probably in the stacks. The librarians will let you into the locked section and you can browse as long as you want.
The glass elevator — not a book, but lots of fun. My toddler loves riding the elevator and looking out into the wedge-shaped lobby.

Any other library favorites to share? Other baby-friendly libraries in the metro area?

Update on Oct. 20: Read about the cash crunch in the Minneapolis Public Library system in the Strib today. The library board voted Wednesday to make cuts that would close the downtown Central library on Mondays and shut the Roosevelt, Southeast and Webber Park branches. If approved, that could start January 1.

Update on Oct 25: Check out Strib co-blogger Roadguy’s pointers on getting to and around the Minneapolis Central Library.