Belleville Public Library

2023-24 School Year–Week Twenty-Nine

This week, Ladybug solved inequalities with absolute value and radicals in pre-calculus. She finished the chapter on electric potential in physics. In history she read about the House of Visconti and also Antipope Clement VII. She finished learning about the immune system in health. She read “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” by Sir Walter Raleigh in literature.

Chickadee started adding positive and negative numbers in math. She did a study of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Bells” in writing. In science she started a chapter on growth and development. She also learned about Sir Walter Raleigh this week, reading about the early colonization attempts of the British in North America and the lost colony of Roanoke in history.

At the end of the school year, when the weather is nice, I try to make sure we get out of the house one day a week. This week, we went to the St. Louis Zoo. That was fun…the day was beautiful, and we had fun observing the animals (although we didn’t get to see the baby tigers)…but the real highlight of the day was going to lunch at Olympia Kebob House, where not only did we enjoy gyros and chocolate baklava, but we got to see them set cheese on fire…Opa!

The most fun thing we did this week, though, was quite unexpected. When we went on our weekly trip to the library, we participated in a scavenger hunt on the research floor (I assume the point of the activity was to acquaint patrons with the research floor). While we were there, we learned a ton about the collections they have (some dating back over two hundred years!), and even made a second trip to do some local research, which was very enlightening. We’re looking forward to going back soon to delve even deeper into their collections!

I’m hoping for pleasant weather again next week so we can spend some time walking around the Arch grounds for the first time in years!

Fall at the Library

Ginkgo trees are some of my favorites for their unusual, fan-shaped leaves, but I especially love them in the fall, when they turn bright yellow. The carpet of leaves outside our library is especially beautiful!

The Belleville Carnegie Library

The Belleville public library isn’t just a great community location…it’s also one of the original Carnegie libraries!

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The Belleville library had its beginning in 1836, thanks to the “Latin Farmers” that settled in the area. The Carnegie libraries were a group of libraries (over 1,600 in the United States alone!) built around the world with donations from the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in the mid to late 1800s and early 1900s. Those two things joined together to form the public library that Belleville still knows and loves today.

The main Belleville library branch, designed by Otto Rubach, was built in the Beaux Arts style, and completed in 1916. It has been renovated in the last year, but still retains its original style and charm.