“When my first son was born, we were at the Fort hospital here. We got a little book from the library in our bag to take home. It was a copy of Old McDonald Had a Farm in Spanish and it said, “Read to your baby every day.” And I said, “OK. I will.” I live a couple blocks away, so I put him in the stroller and I walked over to the library. On my third visit to the library, I ran into Ms. Minetta, the librarian and she said, “You should come to storytime.” I said, “Well, he’s only a couple days old.” She said, “That’s fine. They’re never too young.” So he went to his first storytime when he was 10 days old. That was already his fourth visit to the library. After the Toddler Time class would end, a bunch of us moms would just hang out. We would just be moms together, let our kids play, and just learn from each other. It was very valuable. So the friendships that were forged were gigantic. It was a wonderful community. Ms. Minetta really fostered that environment by encouraging people to come and stay.”
