Duane Herendeen leads a preschool story time at the Warsaw Community Public Library. Photo provided.

By Amy Mann
Professional Assistant
Warsaw Community Public Library

WARSAW — Children’s Book Week, which takes place twice this year, first from May 6-12, then again from Nov. 4-10, is the longest-running national literacy initiative in the United States.

In 1913, Franklin K. Matthews, a librarian for the Boy Scouts of America, promoted the idea of a week to encourage higher standards in children’s books and the potential of books to shape lives. Those who write and publish books, as well as librarians and booksellers, have a responsibility to their readers to bring the very best to their customers and patrons.

A national Good Book Week was sponsored in 1916, a year before the Warsaw Community
Public Library was established. Children’s Book Week began in 1919 and continues to this day. This celebration of books and reading has more than 2,000 participating schools, libraries and bookstores in all 50 states.

I thought it might be interesting to see how many author biographies we have in the children’s section of our library. I came up with 93 titles, although we have multiple books about some of the more popular authors.

We offer biographies and autobiographies that tell about the lives of authors like Charles
Dickens, Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. You can also learn
about the beginnings of writers like Hans Christian Andersen and Dr. Seuss. Would you like to know how Beverly Cleary got started writing and where she got her ideas? What about Ezra Jack Keats, the Jewish writer and artist who immortalized a young black boy in “The Snowy Day”?

Perhaps your children are into books by Dav Pilkey, Jeff Kinney or Kate DiCamillo. We have
volumes full of stories about their growing-up years. Are your youngsters fans of superhero
creator Stan Lee or science fiction novelist Rick Riordan? Are they curious about Maurice
Sendak or J.K. Rowling? We can help. Come in and check out our Easy Reader biographies, written with our littlest readers in mind, or our picture book biographies.

Let’s celebrate Children’s Book Week with a bang. We’ll have coloring sheets and activity pages for you to take home. Check out a few (or many) children’s books and read them with your little ones. For information on our library and its collection, see our website at warsawlibrary.org or visit us at 310 E. Main St. in Warsaw.