The Children's Library, Salt Lake City

I promised you a fun ride, so get ready. Above, the entrance. They put the kids on the basement level, which might sound mean except for two things.

1. That means that children are not running up and down the glass staircase, in danger of killing themselves and giving the rest of us palpitations. Now, I admit that Lawrence and I saw two little boys laying flat on the floor of the glass elevator, going up and down while giggling like a pair of zany hyenas. But that's different.

2. The basement isn't exactly...basement-y. It's the ground floor looking up through the gap between the library proper and its glass shell. So they string canvas shades to provide filtered light:

Rather than think of the Children's Library as a basement, then, think of it as the base of a very large, very sunny skylight. Note the trees growing in the basement.

Along the walls are nooks designed for reading and play. The one below is blurry and I apologize. But it's an ice palace, built with a skylight.


Smaller nooks allow kids to duck into the concrete walls for some reading. Note that a book and teddy bear have been provided. Thoughtful, no?

But here's the best. The Best. It's called the attic. And see how it has a spooky, low entrance?


It opens up into this:

Yeah. You can climb up there and read. Or you can huddle in the shady bits and pretend that evil Miss Minchin will come any minute, discover your illicit picnic with Ermengarde, and punish you with no dinner or supper for a week!

There must have been a horror theme the day we visited, because on every shelf stood monsters. Like this one:
Not so cool for kids, I would think, but none seemed to mind. Meanwhile, Lawrence and I walked past a display rack and what was open? Yeah:

There's no escape from the dump trucks. None. Resistance is futile.