Books & More

The West Bend Library provides a wide variety of materials for children of all ages. You'll find events, fiction and nonfiction books, audio books, movies, music, comics, kits, and more geared toward children from birth through elementary school on the south side of the library's first floor. In library lingo, we refer to these as "juvenile" items. Juvenile audio and visual materials have distinctive red labels to distinguish them from adult or children's items. Library users under the age of 18 require parental consent to check out R-rated movies, to use the public internet computers on the second floor, and to use the Digital Creation Lab upstairs. Learn more about our juvenile materials below.

Audiovisual

Under the "Recorded Books" sign, you'll find a wide variety of audiovisual materials. Audiobooks on CD and playaway, fiction and nonfiction DVDs, and both educational and entertainment games on CD-ROM.

Magazines

Juvenile magazines are located toward the back of the juvenile fiction section. Current issues are displayed face-out and do not circulate. If you would like to take a magazine home, just lift the shelf to see the back issues!

Kits

The library offers a variety of educational and entertainments kits for checkout. There are novelty bags, bags containing books and audio CDs of the same stories so kids can follow along, STEAM kits, and storytime-to-go kits. To learn more about our kits, click here.

Books

Board Books

Our children's activity area contains a bin with all our board books. The librarians organize the board books by author; the target audience tends to arrange them however they see fit.

Picture Books

Our picture books are located near the children's activity area. There are a few different picture book sections. 

General Picture Books

Picture books are generally located on the shelves, with call numbers that look like E [first few letters of the author's last name]. So, a picture book by Mo Willems (hello, Piggie and Elephant!) will be under E WIL. On these shelves are a few special sections, so it's easy to locate look-and-find books (E SPY), potty training books (E POT), or Disney books (E DIS). 

Holiday Picture Books

Looking for picture books related to an upcoming holiday? Check out our holiday picture books section! These are organized by holiday, and then by author's last name, near the Information Desk and the children's activity area. In the catalog, they will have call numbers that look like E [holiday] [first few letters of the author's last name OR special section]. So, Pete the Cat: Valentine's Day is Cool can be found under E VALENTINES PET (for Pete the Cat). We have holiday sections for Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas.

Picture Book Subject Bins

Additionally, we have several bins in the children's activity area, organized by subject, to make it easier for kids to find picture books relevant to their interests. These books have the subject bin name right in the call number, so if you're looking in the catalog and see E FARM or E ROYALTY, you know where to go. Other subject bins include Cats and Dogs, Zoo, Farm, Learning Concepts (such as numbers, shapes, the alphabet, etc.), Sports, Siblings and Babies, Nursery Rhymes and Songs, Things that Go, and Dinosaurs.

Big Books

Thanks to the Kiwanis Early Risers, the library has a collection of enormous books. These are great for reading in front of a classroom, since the pictures and text are visible from a distance. Click here to see our Big Book selection.

Caldecott Medal Winners

Atop one of the general picture book shelves, you'll find our collection of Caldecott Medal winning books. The Caldecott is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children. To learn more about the Caldecott Medal, click here. 

Leveled Readers

As children's literacy skills continue to grow, we have a variety of leveled readers available. These are located on tall shelves behind the Information Desk. The easiest are the beginning readers (call numbers begin with BR). Books with a call number of R1 are a bit more challenging, and R2 is the next level up. 

Young Fiction (YF) books - not to be confused with Young Adult (YA) books - are a good section for kids looking for their first chapter books. 

Fiction

Juvenile fiction items have call numbers of J FIC [author's last name]. We have classics and current titles of all genres for elementary and middle school audiences.

Paperbacks

Don't forget to check our paperback section! Paperbacks are located at the rear of the juvenile fiction section. If they are organized by author's last name, these books will have a call number that starts with JPB (juvenile paperback). If they are organized by series, such as Geronimo Stilton, Nancy Drew, or Who Was/What Was?, the call number will begin with JSPB (juvenile series paperback).

Graphic Novels

Graphic novels for an elementary audience have a call number of J GN. These books have a red cover over the spine label to make them easily distinguishable from young adult graphic novels (YAGN, with yellow labels) and adult graphic novels (GN, with purple labels). This section is located toward the back of the juvenile fiction section, across the aisle from the paperbacks.

Spanish

The library's collection of juvenile materials in Spanish, both fiction and nonfiction, is located right in the aisle between the juvenile fiction and juvenile nonfiction sections. Native speakers and Spanish language learners alike get a lot of use out of this collection.

Nonfiction

The library's juvenile nonfiction collection contains all sorts of informational books. From books of world records, to encyclopedias (which you can check out and take home), books of fairy tales, science experiments, pet ownership, cookbooks, craft books, poetry, plays, video game manuals, books about sports and athletes, and books about just about every country you can think of, the nonfiction section has it all. These books are located beyond the juvenile fiction, and are organized by subject according to the Dewey Decimal System. 

Biographies

Elementary and middle school students are often assigned biographical research projects for school. To make biographies easier to find, we have them in a separate section - there are two shorter shelves in the juvenile nonfiction area, and some are full of biographies. These books have call numbers that start with J BIO and are organized by the last name of the person the book is about. So, a fiction book written by Brett Favre would be under J FIC FAV, but a book about The Gunslinger would be under J BIO FAV.