An Old Institution
My 3-year-old is a lover of books and her personal book collection is threatening to drawf mine. A week ago I decided it was time to take action so I took her to the local library. I have been kicking myself ever since that I had not thought of this before!
I had completely forgotten about public libraries. I vaguely remember going with my mom when I was a kid, but the thing I remember most is the musty smell of old, humid books in a scary Victorian building. My more recent memory of a library was a place to whisper sweet nothings and flirt at university; not much book reading was done.
Our local library here in Paris is a very distant and very modern cousin of the libraries of my childhood. Clean, bright and organised, there is a huge children’s section with little tables to sit at. All the books are kept at ground level so kids can browse through them all by themselves. I didn’t realise how much my daughter would love it — she was in heaven, discovering old favourites and new treasures. There is even a small international book section with English children’s books. Membership is free for anyone, so my daughter is now the proud owner of her first library card.
There was a faint echo of my university library days though, when I noticed her shimmying up to a little boy and having a giggle and a bond over a book. Oh well, I guess some things will never change; flirting will always be part of the library experience…
- Emilie
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Which public library in Paris has an English children’s section? I would love to read to my newborn in both English and French during wee morning breastfeeding hours (which will keep us both awake!). Thanks in advance for the information Emilie.
We go to the one on Parmentier but I have heard that the one on Faidherbe has an even bigger English section, it even has a whole floor completely dedicated to kids I think most of them do. If you look at the link in the post it gives you the list of all the libraries…. I do hope you don’t have to read to your little one too much and get some sleep
my big beef with libraries for kids is the computers. the new library in amsterdam (and even the smaller local ones) have all got kids’ sections and low lying computers. i really never see kids looking at books – all they do is have fun on the photo booth software. it’s so annoying. i can’t get my kid to even look at a book whenever i take him there – it’s up and down the escalators, coffee in the cafe, 30 minutes of train spotting (huge windows look out onto the tracks) and an hour on the computers. aghhhhh!
That does sound frustrating. They don’t have those computer in the libraries over here, but I can guarantee that if they did, all the kids would be on them…