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Opinion: Among Our Gifts to the Young, the Gift of Libraries

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By Bill Finger
Sentinel Contributor

My wife and I recently had the pleasure of babysitting our two grandchildren, a 20-month-old and a five-month-old. Unfortunately, our babysitting stint coincided with the coldest days of the winter. The frigid weather precluded us from visiting the playground or taking a walk around Tod’s Point or Cos Cob Park, all of which we have done in the past with our older grandchild. 

After a day and a half of exploring every possible nook and cranny of our home, we felt our granddaughter needed a change of scenery. The question was, where does one take a 20-month-old when wind chills are in single digits? She wasn’t quite ready for the Maritime Aquarium and the mall was too “commercial,” so I opted for Greenwich Library.

My wife and I are frequent users of Greenwich Library. It is one of the town’s true treasures. But truth be told, the last time I had been to the children’s section was when my grown kids were in elementary school—and that was the early 1990’s.

My granddaughter and I found our way to the children’s Room. She immediately raced to the far end of the room, where she saw two stuffed Elmo dolls, each easily as big as she is small. After some Elmo time she moved on to the children’s puzzles, and then literally climbed into the box of Legos to build her favorite Lego structure, a “tower.”  We then picked out several books for me to read to her. As I read, her attention was distracted each time another young child wandered into the room. Although every other child was several years older than she, my granddaughter was determined to make a new friend. 

Later, as I sat on a bench along the windowed wall watching her explore the aisles of books while also attempting to make new friends, I was struck by how many other adults had also chosen to take young kids to the library on that very cold day. While each child took time to play with Legos or puzzles, every one of them ultimately found his or her way to the aisles of books. Each child wanted to find a book to read or to be read to them. 

Having young children exposed to books outside of a school classroom is something I suspect many Greenwich parents and grandparents often take for granted. When I was in my early teens my mother, an elementary school teacher, was asked by the superintendent of the school district to begin a pilot a kindergarten library program at the district’s kindergarten-only school. Apparently this was a novel idea at the time. My mother spent an entire summer combing through children’s book catalogues looking for books to stock her new kindergarten library classroom.

When the program was launched, several days a week each kindergarten class spent a portion of its school day going to the library to be read to by my mother; and then she would help each child find a book to check out and bring home. The socio-economic and racial make up of the school district was such that it was unlikely many of those kindergartners had age-appropriate books in their homes. My mother and the school district made a concerted effort to see to it that each child had an opportunity to be read to and at least begin to develop an appreciation, and hopefully a love, for books.

Between children’s books inherited from our parents and those we have accumulated on our own, my wife and I have a mini-library of children books to draw upon when our grandkids visit. During our recent babysitting weekend, I must have read my grandchildren half a dozen books each early morning (and I do mean early: their mornings begin well before sunrise) and another half a dozen books each night before they went to bed. In Greenwich, having your own personal library of children’s books is not a prerequisite for being able to read to your children or grandchildren. Greenwich is fortunate to have four outstanding public libraries: Greenwich, Cos Cob, Byram Shubert and Perrot, each free, each easily accessible to all and with a regular series of children’s programs. 

So next time you are thinking of an activity for your child or grandchild, consider a trip to one of our libraries and let them experience being surrounded by books, and having you read to them.  To quote from Carl Sagan, “One of the greatest gifts adults can give—to their offspring and to society—is to read to children.” 

Bill Finger, a former five-term member of the Board of Estimate and Taxation and a current member of the Greenwich United Way’s board of directors, is a real estate developer and investor.

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