A light blue, purple, and green header with snowflakes falling on a blue background. It reads The Curiosity Chronicle: A Library Newsletter for Youth and their Caregivers.
Winter 2026 |  Volume 1 Issue 1

A Note From Our Editors
 
Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Curiosity Chronicle!  These pages will be lovingly filled with news, advice, stories, and tips from your local Pierce County Library staff. We’re excited to collect and share all that our area offers for families and children and look forward to hearing from you! You can share feedback and suggestions at our dedicated email address: ysnlteam@piercecountylibrary.org
 
In our first issue we are kicking off with introductions to local community partners that can support families when things are rough, fun activities you can enjoy anytime, a peek behind the library curtain, and a selection of some of our favorite picture book reads!
 
Sensory balls in a plastic basket, one of them with a smiling face.
Play Time Is Popping!
 
Have you been to one of our new Play Time events? Available throughout the county, these casual drop-in programs are designed to engage families in open-ended free play using a variety of materials and activities. We aim to engage fine and gross motor movement while sparking imaginative play using things like blocks and building materials, sand and water, scarves and stuffies, and balance beams and stepping stones. Play is the work of the child, and it can be fun for the grown-ups too!
 
Click here for our calendar and find the next Play Time at your library! 
 
Pierce County Family Resource Centers Are For You
 
Pierce County maintains a network of 10 Family Resource Centers throughout the county that support our families’ basic health and safety needs. They offer services like a free 3-day supply of diapers and wipes every month and can sign you up for Basic Food benefits. They can help you connect with a variety of health services and many offer family-friendly programming including the free Positive Parenting Program!
 
Each center works to fill the needs of their specific community, ensuring resources are available where they’re most needed. Check out the Family Resource Center near you to learn about all the great programs available! 
 
Clean-Up Time
 
While attendees get to see the polished versions of our public offerings, weA gray bussing bin with filmy water and swirls of fuchsia, yellow, turquoise, and blue. very rarely share the dark underbelly of library programming: clean up. From Story Time to Play Time to art nights and more, cleaning up after a program is often the most daunting part of our jobs. And yet, it can also be the most fun. Here, you can see the rainbow swirls left in a bussing bin after a Bubble Painting event. They were beautiful enough to pause cleaning efforts. Shown are also spiders entrapped after a spider-themed story time; freeing them from the webbing was grueling, but meditative.  
 
 Plastic bin that fits under a bed sitting outside on a stoop; inside are plastic spiders of all sizes trapped in fake webbing.
 
And we in the Youth & Family Services (YFS) department are the most likely to endorse the use of glitter -- so, really, one could make the argument that we do this to ourselves. 
 
Of course, clean up for our programs is frequently supported by the kids, families, and friends in attendance. "It's so helpful to have families engage their kids in cleaning up," said Anna Stapley, YFS Specialist at the Buckley branch. "It teaches them to be responsible for their spaces -- and it helps save our backs a little bit!" The moment cleaning up after Story or Play Time becomes routine is a cherished one for many library staff; it makes the room feel like a community with those who have attended before helping newcomers learn the procedure. 
 
So, the next time you attend a library program, feel free to ask, "How can we make clean up time more fun?" You might just find yourself handed a jar of glitter and told to go wild!
 
Multicolored metallic glitter
 
Search for Shapes!

Learning to recognize shapes is an important skill for young children. Children who can recognize shapes have an easier time recognizing letters and learning to read. Make learning shapes a fun, family game with our winter-themed shape scavenger hunt printable activity page. Click the image below to be taken to a full-size version of the hunt!
 
An image linked to the full scavenger hunt; in bold lettering at the top, it reads SHAPES SCAVENGER HUNT.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Early Learning Tip: How you read is as important as what you read. Pause to ask questions, make guesses about what will happen next, and talk about the pictures!
A mom on a gray couch reading to a young boy and toddler girl. Mom is reading dramatically with a big facial expression while both kids are active and reacting.Relax and enjoy reading time together. This will encourage children to view reading as an enjoyable activity now and, hopefully, as they continue to age. If you do not get through the entire story, that is okay. The quality of your time spent together reading is more important than the amount of time you spend reading together. 
 
Bring Color to Your World!
 
Brighten up the cold grey days of January with these colorful books on our “100 Books to Enjoy Together” Booklist!  The complete list (and more!) can be found here!
 
Dog's colorful day : a messy story about colors and counting by Emma Dodd. A white dog near a multicolored bone on a yellow and blue background
Not a Monster by Claudia Guadalupe Martinez. The upper 3/4ths of an axolotl's face in a dark blue-gray on a lighter blue background with red lettering.
Dog's Colorful Day
by Emma Dodd
 
Dog starts out the day a white dog with one black spot.  But at the end of a day full of adventures, he finds himself covered in colorful spots! With bonus counting! 
 
Not a Monster
by Claudia Guadalupe Martinez
 
For some colorful non-fiction, try this book filled with facts about the adorable axolotl! And learn some Spanish words for colors while you’re there! 
 
The many colors of Harpreet Singh by Supriya Kelkar. A cartoon child in red-and-white polka dot pajamas and a red patka rests on a bed with a multi-colored quilt and a moon-engraved headboard. A bird is in a tree out a nearby window.
Every color soup by Jorey Hurley. An illustrated image of lettuce, carrots, eggplant, and tomatoes.
The Many Colors of Harpreet Singh
by Supriya Kelkar

Harpreet expresses his feelings and moods through the colors he wears. When his family moves to a white, snowy, colorless land, will he ever want to wear colors again?
Every Color Soup
by Jorey Hurley
 
Here is a great book for the very youngest. After identifying all the colors of the ingredients, it comes with a recipe for colorful soup perfect for a winter day! 
 

Pierce County Library System
3005 112th St. E, Tacoma, Washington 98446
253-548-3300
mypcls.org