Project Yawesome: Derek and Darla's Summer Road Trip Part 2: Southwestern Suffolk

On Thursday, July 21, Derek and I set off west on that great highway called Sunrise to hit some of the libraries tucked in the Southwestern corner of our lovely county. In this post you'll find: West Islip, Babylon, West Babylon, Copiague and Amityville. It's on the long side, but only because we want the pictures to be nice and big so you can see all the details!

Our first stop was a serendipitous last-minute addition - we got to visit West Islip Public Library to drop off our button maker for their Library Lock-In! And boy were we glad we did, because they have some truly adorable decorations going on in their children's area:

Loving these building-themed endcaps

A construction-themed window treatment that has fooled some patrons

The ever-glorious window fish looking lovely on a sunny day

Construction vehicles: the perennial toddler-pleaser

Next we headed to the beautiful village of Babylon to poke our heads in and see what they had brewing. As always, it was some really great theming, as you can see below! We chatted about their summer programming and fantastic array of raffle baskets, which includes parent baskets - a clever idea that boosts involvement and even gets the kids excited!

Summer Reading prizes greet you in the library lobby

LOVING the I-spy fishtank trend

A Lego-licious themed bulletin board

zoom in on that Lego board detailing

Real building models from the child of a staff member who's
studying to be an architect

Our next stop was West Babylon Public Library. One of the first things we noticed when we went in? A furry friend!! Check out their new library guinea pig, Winston Turbo, meeting with some young admirers:

Currently planning a training to discuss the perfection of the name Winston Turbo

In the main lobby there was another new feature we loved - a Kindness wall wrapping around one of the big columns near the circulation desk. Children, teens and adults add on sticky notes with their ideas of what it means to be kind and how to build a better world with kindness!

We also checked out the teen area, where some fantastic raffle baskets were on display:

Next we stopped in at Lindenhurst, where we committed the reprehensible crime of forgetting to photograph the bearded dragons. I'm upset at myself for this because they were being really adorable spiky scaly friends. Next time I'll take extra dragon photos. Maybe we'll do a whole post just about library pets! Annnyway, we were greeted at the door by some delightful dragons, after which we checked out the newly-rearranged children's area -- looking fantastic!

don't the colors draw you right in?!

Inside there were some fantastic decorations, including a fun gear bulletin board and a construction-themed photo backdrop, which Derek took full advantage of:

this picture makes me really happy

Afterwards we checked out the upstairs teen space, the Teen Zone. They redid it a while back but this was my first time seeing it, and WOW!

librarians in their element

Love those bright bright colors!

Our penultimate stop was at Copiague Memorial Library, and its freshly-painted children's room fits right in with our set of delightful color schemes (not to mention dragons):

LOOK AT THE DRAGONS:

I want my house to look like this

They also have a too-adorable Summer Reading reporting setup, the Book Burrow:

I spy one happy reader

Not only do these lucky kiddos get to chat in a cozy cabin, they also have the opportunity to win the best of prizes, a Number Two Pencil:

GET IT? :)

Our final stop of the day was Amityville, where they've really outdone themselves with decorations! The main part of the building is "Twilight at the Museum" themed. Check this out!!