The Children's (CH) Library provides educational, recreational, and cultural resources for children ages 6 to 11. It aims at opening a window for Egyptian children to the world, preparing a generation to face the challenges imposed by the digital age. The main objective of the CH Library are develop the children's reading, research, and and creativity skills through different programs and activities. The CH Library contains a collection of more than 15,000 volumes. This collection includes picture books, easy-to-read books, reference materials, and multimedia items. The collection is available in many languages, covering a wealth of different and intellectually stimulating subjects. A computer lab, monitored by the CH library's staff, offers a safe environment for children to explore the many exciting websites and to learn how to do research in a library.

"Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children"

Walt Disney
Founder of the Walt Disney Corporation

• Staff members enjoy reading exciting books to the children.
• Some librarians can tell stories and sing.
• Children's authors and known personalities are invited to read to the children and apply different methodologies to attract them to reading.
• Librarians perform puppet shows personifying characters and role-play among children.
• Children are invited to fashion their own creative performances.
• An arts and crafts corner will enable children to prepare research assignments or just have fun with colors, paper, and more.

My Book Digital and Printed project is an original BA program where children can read digitized books on the internet or print them out, bind them, and take them home (http://archive.bibalex.org/mybook/fp/).

Summer programs are available each year allowing children to explore art and science. Subjects such as Arabic calligraphy and the environment are just a few of the topics to be covered. Programs are held for three months, from June through August.

The Information for All program teaches children the techniques of effective research using periodicals, books, e-resources, and the internet. Children then learn how to collect the discovered information and how to refer to the sources they used. Finally, they are taught how to present the retrieved information in both print and non-print form.

The CH Library Reading Competition targets the competitiveness of young library users, while developing their reading and writing skills. Children are invited to choose books to read and then asked to submit book reports for review. At the end of each month all reviews will be collected and evaluated in order to choose the best ones and publish them on the Children's library website.

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