Multilingual Storytimes

About the Program

Category: Libraries (Best in Category)

Year: 2020

Librarians at Henrico County Public Library (HCPL) leveraged personal experience, professional expertise, and a commitment to inclusive services to create storytimes for English Language Learners that meet community needs and can be conducted by staff with or without special language skills. Using rhymes and songs from his childhood, and building upon his existing knowledge through research of Pura Belpré and José-Luis Orozco, one HCPL librarian began hosting a Spanish-English bilingual storytime, Cuentos Bilingües, in 2017. Inspired by the success of Cuentos Bilingües, a librarian at HCPL’s Tuckahoe Library created a multilingual storytime, Hello!, for English Language Learning families who speak a variety of languages, though she herself is only fluent in English. Languages represented in Henrico County Public Library storytimes now reflect the diversity of the County’s residents, and multilingual storytimes have proven popular, with strong attendance and positive feedback.