Wellfleet Public Library

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Welcome

The Wellfleet Public Library Children's and Teen Rooms serve children, teens, parents, caregivers, educators and others working with children and children's and young adult literature.
Children may have a library card of their very own as soon as they can sign their name or they turn five years old - whichever comes first. A parent's signature and verification of address are required.
Books, audio books, graphic novels, movies, and magazines may be checked out.
All are welcome to read and play.

“The mole waggled his toes from sheer happiness, spread his chest with a sigh of full contentment, and leaned back blissfully into the soft cushions. ‘What a day I’m having!’ he said. ‘Let’s start at once.’”
– Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
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New Books!

Two Books of the Week:
Tried and True
Click on a cover to request

Lord, John Vernon; with verse by Janet Burroway. The Giant Jam Sandwich. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1971. The wasps, the wasps are everywhere! What’s a town to do? Make a giant jam sandwich to catch them, of course. Wouldn’t you? The rhyming couplets make for a great read-aloud, and the shades of brown in the deftly detailed illustrations give hints of angst one moment and hands-in-the-dirt effort the next. Make a giant loaf of bread! Make tons of jam! This town is not going down.

The Best of What's New

Sarcone-Roach, Julia. The Bear Ate Your Sandwich. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015. Look at that face! Look at those eyes! And listen to the first lines: “By now I think you know what happened to your sandwich… It all started with the bear.” Really? A bear? The bear of the bright painted illustrations, the bear of the earnest ears and eyes who is desperately running and twitching about the countryside? Really? Well then who, exactly, is the oh-so-very unreliable narrator? Could it be the dog? Hmmm. We’ll never really know for sure what happened to the sandwich, will we? Poor bear. His story is so disastrous and his body language so sympathetically rendered in warm shades of earth and sun that we can’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, the dog did it. What do you think? Read it again to be sure. And pack an extra sandwich too, just in case.

Recently Archived:
Two Books of the Week-
(click on a cover to request)

In honor of Wellfleet Elementary School’s “One Book, One School, ” program – this year reading the 2013 Newbery Award winner The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate - this week I am thinking about all things gorilla. There can never be enough gorillas, just like there can never be enough really good children’s books. Thankfully, there are also some extremely talented and hardworking children’s literature artists and writers who feel the same way.

Here's two Tried and True

Browne, Anthony. Gorilla. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2002 (1983).
Browne was the Children’s Laureate of the United Kingdom from 2009 – 2001. Author and illustrator of over 40 books, gorillas are a frequent subject. “I am fascinated by them [gorillas] and the contrast they represent – their huge strength and gentleness. They're thought of as being very fierce creatures and they're not.” His watercolors are realistic in detail with a touch of the surreal. In Gorilla he tells the story of young girl Hannah who “loves gorillas” but has never seen a real one because her father “didn’t have time for anything.” Browne’s slashes and tightly scribbled shapes and crosshatches of grey show her loneliness and depression, until she receives a toy gorilla the night before her birthday, and the colors turn to broad portraits of various shades of banana. As it’s not a real gorilla, she initially throws him off her giant bed and goes back to sleep. But then, “In the night something amazing happened.” And in the morning, something even better. Be sure to also read Voices in the Park (1998), Little Beauty (2008), and One Gorilla: A Counting Book (2012), all published by Candlewick Press.

Rathman, Peggy. Good Night, Gorilla. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994.
Though Rathman didn’t win the Caldecott Medal until 1996 for Officer Buckle and Gloria, it is this almost wordless gorilla tale that has many of us coming back again and again. It’s bedtime at the zoo, and the zookeeper visits each animal, saying “good night.” Except mischievous little gorilla is following with the keys and letting each animal out to follow the zookeeper home and say tuck in there. Fortunately or unfortunately the zookeeper’s wife is paying attention and walks them all back, wearing her nightgown and matching nightcap and slippers and holding little gorilla’s hand. The illustrations are affectionate and clever, resembling cartoons that come with a sly and silly and giggly wink. Good night, gorilla!

Tried and True

Chaud, Benjamin. The Bear’s Song. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2011.
French import. Just before hibernation, Little Bear sees a bee and chases it, “caught up in honey thoughts.” Papa Bear “dashes” after him through forest and city and even an opera house, “looking rather dapper indeed.” Good vocabulary words, grand adventure, and fantastic fun to follow each page in search of sightings of Little Bear. Add some honey of your own, and it’s a perfect book to pore over and share.

The Best of What's New

Chaud, Benjamin. The Bear’s Sea Escape. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2014.
Little Bear and Papa Bear are back! Hurrah! This time, a little human boy at the opera house decides he must have Little Bear as his very own. Can you imagine? The chase is on. Papa Bear borrows a scooter, catches a train, and boards a big ocean liner. Playful text – impeccably translated to catch rhyme and meter - and marvelously detailed illustrations. Can you find Little Bear? Where can he be? Enjoy the search.

Tried and True

Cole, Babette. Prince Cinders. NY: Putnam, 1987.
We can always count on Cole to fracture a fairytale with style and zip. In this classic, Cinderella is Prince Cinders, a skinny and spotty and scruffy little bugger with three big and hairy bully brothers. His fairy has a wee bit of trouble with spells and turns him into a big and hairy monkey. He can’t go to the disco like that, now can he? So off to the bus stop he goes, where the rich and beautiful Princess Lovelypenny is waiting – of course! The illustrations provide perplexed personality and pop.

The Best of What's New

Campbell, KG. The Mermaid and the Shoe. Tonawanda, NY: Kids Can Press Ltd., 2014.
King Neptune has fifty daughters, each one more remarkable and useful than the last, except for the last daughter – Minnow. All she does is ask questions. And more questions. And still more questions. Which might be the most remarkable and useful talent of all. And which doesn’t, incidentally, mean she wants to be anything other than herself. She’ll keep her voice and her tail, thank you very much, and stay a little mermaid. The watercolor and pencil color illustrations add delicate depth and a light-filled approach to what otherwise could be deemed a didactic fracture. Instead, the wonder of questioning and learning and exploring and knowing is all there, in the blue of the water and the browns of the wide-open eyes, and even the red of that something called a shoe.