Library and cocoa date: they pick books for you both
Most library trips are errands. This one is a date: sit with something warm and read each other the first pages.
- Time
- 90 min
- Cost
- About $5
- Ages
- 4 to 9
- Where
- Library, then a café or your kitchen
What you need
- Your library cards
- A tote bag for the books
- Cocoa or a snack after, out or at home
- A strip of card stock and a marker for a bookmark
Before you go
- Pick a meeting spot inside, like the front desk. Keep younger kids in sight; ask the desk about rules for kids on their own.
- Cool the cocoa first. Add a splash of cold milk and test a sip yourself before you hand it over.
- Phone away. AAP says to put devices away during one-on-one time and really focus on each other.
Steps
- Hand over the invite. Give the invite a day ahead and tell them they're choosing your book.
- They pick for you. Tell them two things you like, follow them around, and accept the book they choose.
- Then they pick for them. They choose their own book; ask a librarian together if they're stuck.
- Cocoa and first pages. Over cocoa, each read the first pages out loud and guess what happens next.
- Make the bookmark. Write the date and both titles on a bookmark that stays in your book.
If it stalls
- If they pick you a book that's way too young, read it anyway, all of it, and tell them your favorite part.
- If they wander off the job, shrink it: pull five books off one shelf and say, "Pick mine from these."
Cut out: the invite
Library date, Saturday at 10. You pick a book for me and one for you. Cocoa after.
— Dad
Ask on the date
- Why did you pick this book for me?
- Which character would you want as a friend?
- If you could live inside any book, which one?
- What's a book you'd read again and again?
- If you wrote a book, what would it be about?
Keep it
Write the date and both titles on a homemade bookmark; keep the bookmarks in a box.
We went on Next time: Date