In April, we launched an exciting new program, the Grow a Reader Playgroup! This 5 week program met on Thursday mornings starting before library hours at 9:30am and ending at 11:00am, and it took place in the Benham Gallery. You may be familiar with this space from our other programs, but you wouldn't have recognized the space once we had it set up for playgroup!
Graphic novels are becoming increasingly popular with kids, and you may be worried that your littles aren’t getting much out of them. I’m here to ease your worries and make the case for the medium. From the visual art styles to the story lines, graphic novels have more to offer than you may realize.
Summer at the Handley Regional Library System is bursting with color, creativity, and community—and it all starts with our brand-new 2025 Summer Programming & Resource Guide! 🎉
This season, we’re inviting everyone to Color Our World with an exciting lineup of programs, events, and reading challenges for all ages.
Stop paying for ebooks and audiobooks—Libby gives them to you FREE with your library card!
Say hello to Libby, the app that brings the Handley Regional Library System to your phone or tablet. Whether you're relaxing at home, commuting, or heading out on vacation, Libby lets you borrow books anytime, anywhere—with zero late fees and zero cost.
Why Libby is your new go-to:
I’m sure you spend a lot of time reading books with your littles- perhaps the same book several times more than you would like to. Have you ever thought about how many books you will read to your child between birth and the time they go to kindergarten? 100? 500? 1,000? One thousand may seem like a big number, but its completely feasible for you to read that many books with your little (and probably more!) before they start kindergarten. Want to log those books for fun prizes, extra storytimes, and incentives for parents? Well you’ve come to the right place!
If you’ve spent much time at the Handley Library branch lately, you’ve likely seen this logo in a few places when you’re on the children’s floor. This is the logo for our new brand that we are launching this spring: Grow a Reader! This brand is something we have been working on for a long time, and we are so excited to bring it to life starting this month.
The Kanopy database has been upgraded to include 30,000 titles. Kanopy Kids is one of the great features of the database. Kanopy Kids has unlimited viewing! You can access any title on Kanopy Kids without spending any of your monthly tickets. From storybook videos to read-alongs to TV shows and movies, you will find it all on Kanopy Kids.
Great news! We are excited to announce that patrons now have access to all hoopla BingePasses! If you love digital entertainment, learning, and exploring new topics, this is your golden ticket to unlimited access—completely free with your library card.
Have you been a faithful attendant of babytime for many months now, but your little is starting to walk, and the baby time activities just aren't keeping them engaged as much anymore? I’m sure that your little’s readiness to move up has come long before you are emotionally ready to move past babytime, and to admit that perhaps you have a toddler, not a baby anymore! When my own daughter was 16 months, I didn’t feel ready for toddler time, but I knew it was time for us to move up.
STEAM: What Does it Mean?
You’ve heard of STEM, but what is STEAM? It encompasses the same core tenets of science, technology, engineering, and math that STEM does, with the addition of an A for arts! In 2006, researcher Georgette Yakman found that the creativity and design focused thinking of the arts help contextualize STEM programs. Think of the liberal arts addition as the “who and why,” to the “what and how” of STEM.
We are excited to announce a NEW program series for caregivers with kids ages 1-3: Grow a Reader Playgroup. This 5-week interactive playgroup will feature educational components with outside professionals each week that will developmentally support your reader through learning and play. Community professionals based on each week's theme will provide passive education to support caregivers of littles ages 1-3.
Have you always wanted to check out a Youth Services program at Handley Library, but you’d been a little nervous about how to get yourself and all your kids from the car into the building? Maybe you’ve found our plan your visit page, but you still have questions? I get it, it’s a daunting task; street parking, stairs to the entrance, and a difficult to find elevator. Maybe you’ve lugged a car seat up those winding stairs a few times, but never found the elevator!
During my time as a parent patron of storytime programs, I’ll admit; if I walked in to the children’s room, and it was playtime instead of storytime, I was disappointed. Who wouldn’t be? Likely it took a lot of effort to get yourself and your children out the door- maybe there were tantrums, blowouts, and last minute outfit changes. You ran a marathon this morning, and you want one of the rockstars who works in the Youth Services department to entertain you and your kids for 30 minutes!
Are you ready for some thrilling updates? Handley Regional Library System has expanded our streaming video resource offerings, Kanopy, and there’s never been a better time to dive in!
Kanopy now offers access to over 30,000 new titles, including:
NOTE: Registration begins on December 28!
Winter is the perfect season to cozy up with a good book, and the Handley Regional Library System is excited to announce our 2025 Winter Reading Program: Be a Reading Machine! This engaging program runs from January 2 through January 31 and is open to readers of all ages.
Although I am the newest member of the Youth Services team, I have been attending the programs offered by the Children’s Department for over a year as a parent! With a current 19 month old, I have spent the last year exploring the storytime and STEAM programs offered here, so I will be writing a series of posts exploring my transition from Parent Patron to Staff Member.
The Juvenile Read-Along collection boasts more than 600 titles. Recently, many Read-Along chapter books have been added to the catalog, ranging from classics: Ramona the Brave and The Mouse and the Motorcycle to new favorites: The Wild Robot and The Last Kids On Earth. Books from some of your favorite series are now available in Read-Along format, such as Big Nate, and The Adventures of Captain Underpants. Several titles are available in Large Print.
Libby, the popular library reading app from OverDrive, is changing how people connect with books. If you haven’t tried reading with Libby through the Handley Regional Library System, now is the time! Here are 10 reasons why downloading Libby will be your best literary decision yet.
Halloween is a fun holiday for many kids. You can dress up in a fun costume and go trick-or-treating, collecting lots of candy. But what if you had a food allergy, which causes your immune system to overreact to certain food proteins? Trick-or-treating might not feel like a possibility with the high risk of being exposed to an allergen. FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education) decided to help change that with the Teal Pumpkin Project.
Sleep is very important for everyone, especially your developing little’s brain. As soon as you get a routine into action, it often feels like your little starts going through a regression.
Thursday September 12 is Video Game Day and we can help you celebrate.
Our Middle Grade book spotlight this week is focused on graphic novels!!! Graphic novels are incredibly visual stories that can feature pretty much anything fiction and nonfiction. Done in the style of comic books, there is a huge variety of choices; literally something for everyone so even if you have never read one before, you will definitely be able to find something. For our talk this week, we have a great selection of retellings, fantasy, historical, humor, and realistic to get you started. These books and more can be found by searching the catalog using the sea
A major thing that helps us in life is our executive functioning skills. Our executive functioning skills are essentially our ability to do planning, organization, and then follow through with that planning and organization by acting on it.
Get ready to learn all about the environment and how you can do your part with Smokey Bear’s Reading Challenge. Running from August 10th to November 30th, the challenge is available to all ages and accessible on your Beanstack account.
Our middle grade book spotlight this week is taking a look at Mysteries!!! There are so many different types of mystery books available that there is literally something for everyone’s tastes! Some are straight mystery/detective stories while others are more suspenseful and thrilling; mysteries are usually cross genre as well meaning that not only is there a mystery element, but there may also be some fantasy, science fiction, or historical elements as well. We have a great selection this week from realistic to fantasy, murder mysteries and crime solving so you will either
Winchester, VA — The Handley Regional Library System is proud to announce the impressive statistics from the 2023-2024 fiscal year, underscoring its vital role in the community and its ongoing commitment to providing accessible resources and services to patrons of all ages.
Over the past year, the Handley Regional Library System's three locations—Handley Library, Bowman Library, and Clarke County Library—welcomed 365,992 visitors, reflecting the vibrant engagement with our libraries. Key highlights from the year include:
Historical Fiction
Discover quick listen historical fiction favorites that explore the complexity of the human condition, like The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, on @hoopladigital. https://www.hoopladigital.com/collection/5558
Mystery
Check out @hoopladigital's quick-listen mystery, suspense, and thrillers that will keep you on the edge of your seat. https://www.hoopladigital.com/collection/5552
Confidence starts with the caretaker. We are our young's first teacher and mentor. We model behavior and many other things to our children daily. Confidence can be hard even for adults, because of all the different situations we are exposed to--breastfeeding, conflict, new situations, work, etc. And although everyone can't always be confident all the time, we can try to assert ourselves consistently to lay boundaries and advocate for ourselves.
Regulating our emotions can be a very daunting thing. Now imagine being a child and doing it. Our brains are not fully developed until about 25 years old, because our prefrontal cortex is still figuring our the decision making piece, and emotions are heavily tied into that. But much of that is started in the early years. You can help your kiddo figure things out by setting them up for success with emotional intelligence.
Our middle grade book spotlight this week is is on some of our favorite staff pick reads!!! To help us kick off these summer months filled with reading, we are sharing some of our favorite books so you can have some amazing titles to help you get started or to help you get out of a reading slump if that is where you find yourself.
Problem solving is something parents/caregivers are faced with numerous times everyday. Even things as simple as questioning 'what am I cooking for dinner?' 'Do I have all the ingredients?' 'Now what?' Each of these questions from one simple task of cooking a meal to actually feeding our kids (and ourselves) count towards solving problems. All of these questions are part of our organizing and planning, then initiating system--executive functioning.
Are you ready to embark on a summer filled with adventure and discovery? Join us for the Rally for Reading, the exciting kickoff event for our Youth Summer Reading Program, themed “Adventure Begins at Your Library.” This year, we’re thrilled to host our kickoff celebrations at each of our three library branches. Mark your calendars and get ready for a season of fun, learning, and exploration!
Our Middle Grade book spotlight this week is on more amazing nonfiction titles!
Looking for an epic summer adventure? Look no further than your local library! Here are 10 reasons why you should dive into the excitement at our library system this summer:
Youth Summer Reading Program: Join us for a summer of literary exploration with our Youth Summer Reading Program! Dive into captivating stories, embark on thrilling adventures, and earn exciting rewards along the way.
The Handley Regional Library System is excited to announce the "Rally for Reading" kickoff event for the 2024 Summer Reading Program, with the theme "Adventure Begins at Your Library." There are adventures to be had and unique celebrations at all three branches!
Handley Library will kick off the season with its event on Saturday, May 25, from 11 AM to 1 PM, with fun activities in the Reading Garden - Kona ice, a Drew Blue Shoes magic show, and a food drive for Bright Futures.
Persistence, grit, trying again, not giving up. There are many ways to put it and it is not an easy thing to teach to our younglings... but do we give up? No! Instead we keep going to model it and apply our problem solving skills.
Kanopy Kids
What is it? Thousands of streaming videos that are safe, educational, and parent trusted. Focused on children 2-8 years old. No view limits or monthly passes. Free with your library card.
What can you find? Old and new TV shows such as Little Bear, Sesame Street, Max & Ruby, Sarah & Duck, Blippi, T-Rex Ranch, Cocomelon, and Sid the Science Kid. Read along storybooks with new books by Mo Willems and old classics such as Where the Wild Things Are.
Welcome to National Library Week, a time when communities across the nation join hands to celebrate the cornerstone of knowledge, inspiration, and community: libraries. At Handley Regional Library System, we're thrilled to be part of this annual celebration, and we invite you to join us in commemorating the incredible contributions libraries make to our lives. This year's theme, "Ready, Set, Library!" embodies the excitement and readiness to explore the myriad offerings libraries provide. Here are ten ways you can celebrate National Library Week with us:
Our middle grade book spotlight this week is all about books that have been nominated for the Virginia Reader’s Choice (VRC) Middle School award for the 2024-2025 school year!! The VRC award was started back in the 1980s with the goal being that students across
A HUGE part of reading is retention through memory. Are we remembering each letter sound? Can we recall the sound on the spot for both lowercase and uppercase letters?
Handley Library branch has achieved KultureCity® Certification as a Sensory InclusiveTM space. This certification marks a significant step forward in the library's commitment to providing an inclusive environment for all patrons, including those with sensory processing needs.
Have you checked out any of our Juvenile Read-Along books?
Find general information about our Juvenile Read-Along collection HERE on our website.
The library’s collection of bilingual (English/Spanish) picturebook Read-Alongs continues to grow. A quick search of “bilingual read-alongs” in the catalog reveals more than 50 titles. Some favorites are featured below.
Our middle grade book spotlight this week is on books that were published in 2014 and are celebrating their 10th birthday! I do not know what was in the water, air, or universe that year but there were so many amazing titles and authors to come out of that year of publishing that books we read today are still
Did you know that we have 8 senses? We are all taught 5 of them repeatedly growing up, and that is because they help us with our perceptions of the world. Of those most commonly known five senses, though, our children are using them to grow and develop into bright learners ready to take on the challenges life throws at us as adults.
As the cold of winter melts away and the warmth of spring begins to blossom, the Handley Regional Library System is abuzz with excitement for our upcoming theme: "Spring into the Library." With an array of enriching programs and events lined up, there's no better time to embrace the spirit of the season and dive into the world of literature, music, culture, and community. Here are 10 compelling reasons why you should make the library your go-to destination this spring:
Having a family member living with dementia, Alzheimer's Disease, or another form of memory loss can be confusing for children to understand and cope with. Family dynamics may need to change to help care for the family member, and it’s normal for kids to experience a wide array of emotions. Connecting with others who have similar experiences can really help make sense of everything, and books are one of the best ways we can learn more about people and situations we relate to.