Infant and Toddler Storytime and Playgroup

Infant and Toddler Storytime and Playgroup is back at the Fumo Family Library on Friday, October 23, from 10 AM to 11 AM. It's part of a long run that's been going since September 4, with sessions every Friday morning through November 20. If you've got a baby or a toddler, this is one of those easy, low-stakes ways to get them out of the house and around other kids.

Mr. John leads the session, and it follows a pretty set pattern: stories, songs, and fingerplays to start, followed by a playgroup for the little ones to just be little. It's designed for babies and toddlers with an adult caregiver, and siblings are welcome, so you don't have to leave an older child at home if that's your situation.

The library itself has a bit of a story. The Fumo Family Library sits in a bright yellow building on South Broad Street, right next to the South Philadelphia Charter School for the Performing Arts. It opened in its current spot in 1999, but it's been around in different forms for over a century. It started as a brick Carnegie library that opened as the South Philadelphia Branch on November 24, 1914, then became the Ritner Children's Library—the only library exclusively for children—before finally taking the Fumo family name. The ground it sits on was once small farms and marshlands, and one of those farms had been owned by the same Swedish family for more than 200 years. If you're standing by the circulation desk, look up: there's a mural by Marie Garafano called Waiting for the Train hanging there.

It's a Friday morning thing, 10 AM to 11 AM, at 2437 South Broad Street (Porter and Broad), Philadelphia, PA 19148. If you can't make this one, the series keeps going with sessions on October 30, November 6, 13, and 20.