The Explorer

We’ve added two new digital material choices to the Youth Services collection especially for our littlest library users and their middle school siblings.

Our new Leapster games are on the Console Games shelf alongside the PlayStation, Wii, and XBox games. Skokie Public Library cardholders can check out a Leapster game for 1-week and can also place a reserve on games that are already checked out. These games are for play on Leapster Explorer and Leapster LeapPad systems.

By popular demand, we’ve reloaded two of our Youth eReaders with titles for younger kids. We call these our “Middle School eReaders” to help you (and us!) tell them apart from our Junior High eReaders. The Middle School eReaders include titles selected especially for kids in grades 3 to 5, plus a few favorites borrowed from the Junior High eBook collection.

Stop in, say hello, and check out some our new tech for tots to teenagers!

Hey! Guess what? We’ve just added Disney Digital Downloads to our eBook collection! Now you can enjoy more than 650 books on your home computer with just a few clicks of the mouse. Series titles include Look-and-Listen, Storybook Favorites, Treasury, Wizards of Waverly Place, Little Golden book, and many more.  The Disney Digital Downloads are always available, which means you’ll never have to get on the waiting list for a favorite book. Download what you want, when you want it… anytime!

To get started, jump to http://nsdc.lib.overdrive.com and click on Mickey’s ears.

LOOK AT THIS!!

Sesame Workshop has started issuing FREE e-books of their Sesame Street books! I wish they would’ve done this in time for the Sesame Street program! Anyways, they have hundreds of books in the collection, but will only be showcasing five books a week. Some even feature audio and highlight the text for read-along format. This week’s top audio pic is one of MY faves: The Monster at the End of this Book (narrated by Grover). Check it out here.

If you use Google today, March 2, you’ll see that the Google logo is made up of Dr. Seuss characters. When I clicked on the logo, I learned that today is Dr. Seuss’s birthday!

Dr. Seuss, who’s real name is Theodor (“Ted”) Seuss Geisel, was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts. For the past 12 years, Dr. Seuss’s birthday has been celebrated with Read Across America, a nationwide reading program of the National Education Association (also called “the NEA”). Read Across America is designed especially for kids to help them master basic reading skills.

The NEA celebrates Dr. Seuss’s birthday and Read Across America all year long with a special gift to all pre-school, kindergarten, elementary and junior-high school teachers and librarians. What’s the gift? Well, I’d spoil the surprise if I told you… so I won’t. But you’ll have to look fast, because the Read Across America gift changes every month.

Oh… one more thing: Can you name all of the Dr. Seuss characters in the Google logo? If you can, feel free to list them here. And if you need some clues, take a look through the Dr. Seuss books available for checkout at your library!