31 Will & Ariel Durant Branch Library

31 Durant

On Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, is library branch #31/72, the Will & Ariel Durant Branch Library. It is near the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Hollywood High School— not too far from Pink’s Hot Dogs. It was renamed from West Hollywood Branch to Will & Ariel Durant Branch in 1981.

Riley enjoyed the play kitchen in the children’s section and some other toys that were out on the carpet. She even recruited her Gramma G to join her on the floor.

We only got four books, due to Riley’s epic meltdown . . . maybe the fact that she’s now 2 years old (it was her birthday this week!) and did not want her diaper changed … and that she was going to let everyone in the library know about it. Sorry, folks! We did get to meet a few librarians, security guard and a police officer who happened to be there, thanks to her yelling. Ahahaha, it was just a regular day for a toddler. Ah, parenting.

Though our visit did not last long (although we were told to stay, mommy couldn’t deal with the tantrum — it had been a long day) we managed to grab a few good books!

We got Animals Born Alive and Well by Ruth Heller. This is a book that was part of my childhood library. . .

We got The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Sandat. It won the Caldecott Medal in 2015.

When’s My Birthday? by Julie Fogliano and illustrated by Christian Robinson – a perfect find for her 2nd birthday. Riley says, “happy” a lot.

Ones and Twos by Marthe Jocelyn and Nell Jocelyn was another well-timed find, due to the fact that she went from being a one-year-old to being a two-year-old this week. Riley even holds up her two pointer fingers and says, “one, two”.

I hope you join us in celebrating Riley Bean’s birthday week by visiting your local library in person — or by taking advantage of the numerous resources online – you can start by reading Strong Female Protagonist: Women in Comics Part 2 . . . or checking out other women’s stories.

I am so happy that my daughter has been to 35 libraries over the past year (including detours to libraries outside of LAPL). We started this journey when she was 12 months old, and she’s now 24 months old. We are so grateful to all the people we’ve met along the way, and all of the amazing books we’ve been discovering. She has learned how to crawl and start to talk while in libraries. Here’s to the next year of connections and discoveries (and to her saying the final /k/ in ‘book’ ahahaha)!