About the Children's Department

The Children's Room, on the second floor of the library, has separate collections for preschoolers, children, parents and guardians.

Both fiction and nonfiction are available, as well as reference materials, audio books and videos.

We offer a variety of special computers:

• AWE Workstations with fun and educational games
• Library catalog computers for looking up books, videos, and more
• Public Internet access computers

Crafts, Story Time, & Other Events

We offer a variety of entertaining and educational progams for children, from infants to age 11.

Our Youth Services Department also holds fun and interesting events for young adults and teens.

We offer an extensive variety of events for children and young adults every summer in support of the New York State Reading Program. Additional programs and events for children are planned throughout the year.

The following rules pertain to programs in the Children's Department:

• Parents must stay in the Children's Department while the program is in progress.
• Registration in person only. No telephone registration. Adult must present a valid library card.
• Each parent or caregiver must register their child for a program.
• Storyhours are limited to 8 children
• No make-up sessions for any library closings

Special group visits to the library can be arranged by calling the Children's Department. To learn what programs are upcoming or already in session, please call 1-845-341-5470 or follow this link for our calendar of events.

About Our Services for Young Adults & Teens

Materials for middle school and high school students have always be an important part of Middletown Thrall Library's collection, and we encourage this age group to select and use the materials and resources found on both floors of our library. However, we also have a special area in the library developed expressly for teens and young adults.

The Young Adult section of the library is located on the 1st floor to the right of the entrance just past the elevator. Here teens can find fiction books, a computer with word processing and reference software, magazines, and graphic novels as well as special displays and reading lists. All of these materials have been selected especially for teens/young adults.

In the "New Books for Teens" section, located next to the adult express books, teens will find a selection of the latest, most popular fiction and non-fiction titles for young adults.

All other young adult non-fiction materials, which include biography and reference books, are interfiled with the adult collection. Interfiling of these materials provides a greater opportunity for students to browse and become acquainted with the broad variety of titles and resources for school assignments or recreational interests located throughout the library.

Materials that have been purchased especially for teens have a bright yellow sticker with a red "YA" on the spine of the item. This sticker is intended only to be helpful and does not suggest that these materials are limited to teen use.

We strive to keep regular contact with teachers in our local middle schools and high schools in order to have information and resources available for school assignments. We also keep on file required summer reading lists from various schools. Please visit or contact our Reference Department for more information on that.

Computers & Electronic Research Services

To further serve our community's reference needs we have several computers with encyclopedias, Internet access, and many other fun and educational programs and an electronic library catalog where you may search for books.

If you have an Internet connection and an e-mail account, you can ask our librarians a question right through our website and receive an answer usually within a day (during normal business hours).

Thrall patrons can access full text articles online as well as locate and request items (books, videos, and more) from Thrall and other RCLS libraries through our online library catalog.

Several computers have been made available to us and our patrons through The Friends of Middletown Thrall Library.

There are dozens of programs to choose from on our AWE PCs. We invite you to bring your child and check in at the Children's Department desk for free access to these wonderful electronic services and entertaining programs.

Children must have a parental permission form signed before accessing the Internet and present their library cards before using library computers (with the exception of the library catalog/database computer).

Developmental Disabilities Materials

Our DVDM special needs collection includes books on:

• Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• Down's Syndrome
• Dyslexia
• Learning Disabilities
• Tourette's Syndrome