Altadena Library to Add Area for Young Children

officials are in the process of building a family area for children aged 3 and younger.

The area will have furniture sized for younger children and age appropriate toys and books. 

Librarians are already assembling the new area in the existing children's reading room, according to Cassandra Stearns, a senior librarian.  It will continue to be expanded over time, but is already open to parents and children.

The money comes from a $15,000 grant from the California State Library and will also go towards implementing a five-week workshop for parents and young children that will teach about early literacy, child development, nutrition and other topics.

The program is part of a statewide initiative called the Family Place Program.

The idea behind the program is for the library to begin catering to early age children in the way that it has not in the past, Stearns said.  Many other libraries in the nation are doing the same thing, she added.

"It's a growing trend as there is more research on brain development in infants and children of that age," Stearns said.

The workshops will be informal, with parents playing with children in the area as a local trained resource professional goes from parent to parent and discusses the topic of the week.

The program will be able to accommodate about 20 to 25 parents and their children and will begin in April, she said.  Registration is not yet open, but the library will have more information to release on that soon.

The workshop is intended to bring in families from under-served communities or who are not that familiar with library programs, Stearns added.