The Tired Parent’s Guide to Storytime

I am here to lay some truth on you about how a tired parent reads to her child at the end of a long day. Sometimes when your day is 8 hours of work, meal prep x 3, drinking 64 ounces of water, and attempting those recommended 10,000 steps, you have nothing left in you except lots of water. The library has two library digital resources, Hoopla Digital and BookFlix, that will help you reclaim your time and supplement your bedtime ritual with an entertaining story.

Hoopla Digital offers Children’s titles under their movie section that are an animation of some of your favorite children’s books. Each patron account is allowed 5 checkout credits per month that are refreshed on the first day of each month. Movies are available for 48 to 72 hours from checkout. To learn more about setting up your Hoopla account watch this video.

To find the Children’s titles, go to Browse and select Movies.

Then fill in the Children's Titles Only check box and click on Categories.

Under Top Categories, click on Children's. 

After the results load, select Picture Books on Video. 

This will return a number of animated picture books.  The videos have an average run time of 6 to 8 minutes. 

If you are looking for a more interactive option, Book Flix pairs a fiction and non-fiction titles to engage young readers.There are a number of categories with fun pairings where you can watch the animated story and read a related non-fiction book. Reading comprehension and vocabulary are reviewed in the Puzzles portion. Children also have an opportunity to study a subject further through the Dive Deeper section. This is appropriate for pre-school to early elementary aged students and a nice, fun refresher that is educational but still entertaining!

Both resources are accessible through the library website.  Accessing both will require your library card number and password. To setup a library card, please visit our online registration page. These instructions will help you to reset your password for existing accounts. 

Hopefully, these options will give you an extra moment to share some time with your child and not feel the pressure of having to put on your storytime voice or decide which book to read tonight. Hang in there, parents, we got this.