Having fun isn't hard...

...when you have a library card!

The other day I took Baby Exile to the Sawyer Free Library, Gloucester's public library, where we spent a rainy morning browsing the young adult and childrens' books. The library has its origins in 1830 with the foundation of the Gloucester Lyceum, an intellectual organization which sponsored lectures and debates and attracted the likes of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Oliver Wendell Holmes in its heyday. The Lyceum eventually begat a library, which was nurtured by local philanthropist Samuel E. Sawyer through expansion, fire, and renovation until it outgrew his trust, becoming a municipally-funded entity in 1938 and moving to a modern facility in 1976. Nowadays the Gloucester Lyceum and Sawyer Free Library is the city's "literary and cultural center," boasting a collection of over 100,000 items and offering all manners of program, events, and activities to the general public in the tradition of the original Lyceum.

Although I was particularly keen on seeing what the library had to offer in publications specific to Cape Ann, my daughter was too enamored with the childrens' collection to let me get more than a cursory gander. While I'm not all that familiar with childrens' libraries, I have to admit that I was impressed with the Sawyer's facilities -- they've dedicated an entire floor to young adult, preschool, and toddler materials and have a dedicated play area, art stations, and even PC computers with programs geared for early learners. They also had several hundred videocassettes and DVDs of the latest childrens' fare -- including Baby Exile's all-time favorite Caillou, which chronicles the daily life of a petulant Canadian boy in a world of mesmerizing primary colors.

So needless to say, we had to check some of this good stuff out. Not only was I able to get a library card (which by virtue of cooperative arrangements is honored not only in Gloucester but in over forty libraries north of Boston as well, including the library at Salem State College!), but the little one was eligible for a card as well! She seemed pretty psyched, although I'm not sure if she completely understood what was going on. We get to pick them up on our next visit...

(Bonus points for recognizing the title, which is actually a song promoting library use that aired on an episode of Arthur, another great cartoon on PBS!)