$25 K Sponsorship Provides Adapted Books for Children at Millennium Library

PHOTO: In February, 2010, Mayor Sam Katz, joined by Susana Scott, founder and President of Brematson & Associates, husband Jim and daughter Victoria, announced a Sponsor Winnipeg contribution of $25,000 to build a collection of adapted and talking books for the Millennium Library’s Children’s and Teen Services Area.

Adapted using the Picture Communication Symbols™ of Boardmaker™ software, these books allow children and teens who have no speech or whose speech is not readily understood by others to share and enjoy stories and information with their families and friends.

Each word in the original text of a book is represented by a picture symbol added to the page.

For younger children, there are favourite picture book titles such as Where the Wild Things Are and Goodnight Moon. Teens can enjoy books about animals, life skills and biographies of Wayne Gretzky, Jane Goodall and others.

Download Guide for using Adapted Books with Children and Adults

The Adapted Books collection is located at the Millennium Library. To see a list of all 75 titles, type "adapted books" in the "Main Words in Subject" search field in our catalogue. (See here.)

Customers may place requests via the online catalogue to have the books sent to other branches.

The Adapted Books project was a joint initiative between the Rehabilitation Centre for Children, the Winnipeg Public Library Foundation and the Winnipeg Public Library. Funding was provided by a grant from the Literacy for Life Fund held at The Winnipeg Foundation in addition to significant in-kind contributions by the Rehabilitation Centre for Children and the Winnipeg Public Library.

PHOTO: Sandy Hyman, a director of the Winnipeg Public Library Foundation, and library user Tiago enjoy the celebration of new adapted books in the library.

Collection for young children launched -- October 2008
Collection for older children and teens launched -- October 2009