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Ivy and Bean, Beanbags and Books
- jpmaffett
- Jul 21
- 2 min read
103 Old Pine Hill Rd.
(207)-698-5737
Summer in Maine is so packed with visitors to Vacationland that trips of our own are harder to schedule. But by mid-July, we had a day to ourselves. Inspired by Matraca Bellegarde's county-by-county approach for her family, we visited the nearby Berwick library on July 21.
Although it is relatively new (the current building having opened in 2005 on land donated by the Philbrick Family with funds from a bequest of GE stock from Richard W. Stillings), it has a warm, older feeling to it. The library is easily accessible, with a special ramp for persons with disabilities. Once inside, it’s welcoming and comfortable. Straight to the children’s area for us, where once again we loved the bean bags and began reading instantly. Berwick has reciprocal arrangements with some area libraries, but not with York so we decided to read a few books while we were on site.
Hattie found a book from the Ivy and Bean series (12 books) that she says she’s long been looking for everywhere, Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go.
Bea also found books that interested her right away, most notably Bruce McMillan’s The Remarkable Riderless Runaway Tricycle. Although this McMillan book was published in 1985, we’d somehow managed to miss it until now. It's set in Kennebunkport, making it even more interesting to us because we'd been to some of the places shown in the photographs.
We are McMillan fans. He photographs and writes about subjects we especially like: Pufflings, Penguins, Weather, and Beachballs. As we were looking these up and revisiting some we’ve read many times, we found a few more that we are about to borrow, including one that looks like our wordplay favorites—riddles and puns—Puniddles.
Besides its kids’ books, the Berwick library offers a variety of inviting activities. We were glad to see the program for connecting young readers with area nursing homes. Kids were invited to make a card and leave it in the yellow mailbox to be delivered by the library. Hat and Bea both made cards, though Bea decided to take hers home for Mom.
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