Babies in the Library!

June 1, 2003
Marino presents clear and convincing arguments for holding library programs specifically geared toward babies. Organizing and presenting her ideas in a thoughtful and philosophical manner, she addresses many relevant topics: making babies feel comfortable in the library, creating programs for prewalkers and walkers, handling registration, and offering suggestions for planning and executing programs. She also includes various activities that introduce books, rhymes, puppets, and other tools that enhance language skills. This book resembles the author's Mother Goose Time: Library Programs for Babies and Their Caregivers (H.W. Wilson, 1992) in format but focuses more on the stages of baby development. In both the earlier text and this one, Marino includes a wealth of fingerplays, which are grouped by everyday experiences such as tub and changing rhymes, food rhymes, and lullabies. In the earlier text, Marino's lists of recommended books were broken into categories such as display books, picture-book titles for Mother Goose time, and resource books. Here, the author includes a more in-depth and categorized list of books, recordings, videos, and other sources useful to librarians and parents. Librarians will welcome this resource from a veteran of children's librarianship, and a valued expert in the field.-Leslie Barban, Richland County Public Library, Columbia, SC

Copyright 2003 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2008
Marino has put together a wonderful handbook for childrens librarians who want to do programming for their youngest patrons, those she refers to as prewalkers and walkers. She has provided five programs for each group, with rhymes, songs, and books. In some cases the words for thesongs and rhymesareoriginal;others she has adapted. She gives suggestions and rationales for use, along with directions for movement. The books listed include bibliographic information and annotations. One chaptersuggests rhymes for parents and caregivers to use at home, and anothersuggests rhymes to use with puppets. A list of resources includes rhyme and song collections, picture and board books, music recordings, videos, professional books, and early childhood literacy programs and organizations. This is a book that will not be far from the librarians side, both for the programs and Marinos excellent advice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)