By Amy Mann
Warsaw Community Public Library

The Hospitality Committee of Warsaw Friends of the Library surprised members with treats to enjoy at their annual meeting. FOL is looking forward to another successful year supporting the Warsaw Community Public Library. Pictured is Walt Krygier.

March 8 of this year will be International Women’s Day. Women have been fighting for parity and balance for pretty much all of recorded history in most parts of the world. While we may not all agree how that should look in our society, the majority of people would agree that women have made great contributions to the world, both in the home and in the worlds of work and science.

The Children’s Department of the Warsaw Community Public Library houses stories of women like Marie Curie, a scientist, and Elizabeth Blackwell, a doctor in a time when people could choose only male physicians. We have autobiographies and books written by others on the lives of female Olympians, musicians, and politicians, both from earlier times and of the current age.

Our department has just added a new separate collection consisting of Easy Reader Biographies. These books are leveled from beginning reader levels to second-grade level books. Our Juvenile Biographies are on the wall just east of the Indiana Room and are for readers who can read chapter books on their own.

One of our new series in the Easy Reader area is called “Little People, Big Dreams.” These include books about people like Audrey Hepburn and Amelia Earhart. We also have some “Itty Bitty Biographies” on order. Come in and check them out.

A book that was just processed and put on the shelf in our Juvenile Biography section is “Who Says Women Can’t Be Computer Programmers?” by Tanya Lee Stone, and illustrated by Marjorie Priceman. This picture book tells the story of Ada Byron Lovelace, who lived in a privileged family in England in the early nineteenth century. She imagined computers 100 years before they existed, and today is recognized as the world’s first computer programmer. It is dedicated to “everyone who thinks outside the box”.

Think outside the box! Come in and check out some of our sensational biographies of women and men. Your children (and you) might just learn something that you didn’t know before.

We are located in Warsaw at 310 E. Main St. Contact us at (574) 267-6011, and on the web at warsawlibrary.org. And don’t forget about our Winter Reading Program for adults, teens and children, which ends Feb. 28.