Caroline Hewins learned to read when she was four years old and soon had her own favorite books which she read to her younger siblings. But she couldn’t go to a library, because in 1850 the very few existing libraries charged a fee, did not let children inside, and had no books for children anyway.

As an adult, Hewins became one of our nation’s first female librarians at a small, private library in Connecticut that charged a fee of $3 per year (a great deal of money, then) to take out one book at a time. Hewins transformed that library into the City of Hartford’s Public Library and gave it one of the nation’s first rooms just for children and children’s books.

Hewins, a Unitarian, published some of the first recommendations of books children would like to read, using a list of suggestions from 50 American and Canadian women members of Unitarian congregations.

Additional Activities

Download the Fall 2013 UUWorld Families Pages (pdf) for more activities.

Originally published in the “Families Weave a Tapestry of Faith” insert in The UUWorld.