Wandering around the City - March 25

Our library is pretty good. I don't know if it is as good as the ones in Dearborn but we really like it and go at least once a week. Lilly and I met Mem Fox back in December and this month we had the opportunity to meet another author, Jeannette Rowe. She put on a presentation that was geared toward young school age children. She mostly did some drawing for them but she did read a few of her books including one that was at the printers getting ready to be released.

I was asked by a friend of mine to help her cousin with her child's school project. They were sending a small stuffed dog, named Freddy, around the world. I have the puppy and have been showing him the sights (which is why you'll see him in the pictures in the next several entries).

Lilly and I took Freddy to the Melbourne Museum for Victoria's largest Playgroup. Basically they just invited everyone that belongs to Playgroup Victoria to come to the museum (you have to join the group in order to join in playgroups around the state, mostly you are paying for insurance, i guess). We got some freebies and played outside for a little while. The picture shows a section of the museum that houses the children's area. It is a giant cube that sits at an angle on one point.

Next we took the tram down to the State Library of Victoria. I have seen advertisements for their children's area. When we got in there I was a little disappointed because it was a mostly empty room. They had two large screen televisions for X-Box and Playstation (I think, I had to keep the kids away) to play games (although one was a footy game!). There were also several groupings of computers which were being used by teenagers to play online games. There were a couple of small shelves for children's books and some puzzles. So we sat and read and then did a couple of puzzles.

Lilly and I took a tour of the library. They did have a pretty cool dome room. I'm sure it had a specific name but I was trying to keep Lilly entertained while we saw everything. They had some very old books as well as interesting history of Victoria and Melbourne. There was a larger exhibit of Ned Kelly. He was an outlaw in Victoria history but has become this legend. Very weird!