Kelli Callahan

How Anne Carroll Moore Created Libraries for Children

Written by Jan Pinborough Illustrated by Debby Atwell

Anne Moore should be a hero to children and parents everywhere, in a time before women had the right to vote, she became the first to bring children into libraries. If libraries had books for children they were kept in locked cabinets, and hidden in hard to find places. Children werent trusted to take care of the books. Anne Moore changed all of that. First she got one of the first degrees in Library Science, then she went about making books easily accessible to all children.

Anne Moores effort and hard work landed her a job with the New York Public Library. When they began constructing a grand branch on Fifth Avenue, Ms. Moore made sure there was plenty of place for the children to read comfortably, that it was beautifully decorated and books were available in all languages. You never knew what would happen in the Childrens room of the NY Public library, you could hear