HPL Kids
The Kidzone has programs galore as well as books, movies, and other cool stuff. Read our blog below for more information and check out our upcoming events to get an idea of what's happening at the Kidzone! Our main phone number is 205.444.7830.
Kidzone Blog
Virtual Field Trip: Botanical Gardens
Looking for a way to beat the winter blahs? Take a virtual stroll through some beautiful botanical gardens!
New York Botanical Garden
This giant urban retreat in the Bronx encompasses 50 specialty gardens and contains more than one million plants. A new content hub, "NYBG at Home," invites online visitors to embark on a number of virtual tours and digital experiences.
The U.S. Botanical Garden
Located in Washington, DC, near the Capitol Building, this is the country's oldest garden, currently celebrating its 200th anniversary. The garden has created an interactive virtual tour with the help of Google Street View, providing 360-degree imagery of its outdoor plants and inside its 30,000 square foot conservatory.
Portland Japanese Garden
This peaceful refuge in Portland, OR, has eight separate gardens, each inspired by Japanese gardening traditions.
Missouri Botanical Garden
Located in St. Louis, this 80-acre park is home to an extensive collection of rare orchids and features the Climatron, the first geodesic dome to be used as a conservatory, and Seiwa-en, one of the largest Japanese Gardens in North America at 14 acres.
Longwood Gardens
This expansive garden in Kennett Square, PA, has more than 1,000 acres of forests, meadows, and greenhouses.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
This large oasis in Brooklyn is well known for its cherry blossoms.
Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden
This 50-acre park in Richmond, VA, has a more than a dozen themed gardens, including a rose garden, a native plant area, and a cherry tree walk.
Keukenhof Tulip Gardens in Holland
I was lucky enough to visit this amazing place while I was living in Germany in elementary school. There are a variety of 800 different tulips spread across 80 acres -- more than 7 mllion flowers!
Don't forget about local possibilities, like Birmingham Botanical Gardens and Aldridge Gardens! And don't forget to grab these books from Hoover Public Library!
The Big Book of Blooms by Yuval Zommer (2020)
Botanicum by Kathy Willis & Katie Scott (2017)
Drawn from Nature by Helen Ahpornsiri (2018)
Flower Talk: How Plants Use Color to Communicate by Sara Levine (2019-ebook & audiobook on Hoopla)
Flowers by Gail Gibbons (2019)
Flowers by Grace Hansen (2016-ebook on Hoopla)
Flowers by Rebecca Pettiford (2015-ebook on Hoopla)
Flowers Are Calling by Rita Gray (2015)
Plants Can't Sit Still by Rebecca E. Hirsch (2016-ebook on Hoopla)
Trees, Leaves, Flowers & Seeds: A Visual Encyclopedia of the Plant Kingdom by Sarah Jose (2019)
Gone to the Woods with Gary Paulsen
Gary Paulsen is a living literary legend, and his middle grade memoir gives readers a new perspective on the origins of his famed survival stories.
Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood by Gary Paulsen (01/12/21)
His name is synonymous with high-stakes wilderness survival stories. Now, beloved author Gary Paulsen portrays a series of life-altering moments from his turbulent childhood as his own original survival story. If not for his summer escape from a shockingly neglectful Chicago upbringing to a North Woods homestead at age five, there never would have been a Hatchet. Without the encouragement of the librarian who handed him his first book at age thirteen, he may never have become a reader. And without his desperate teenage enlistment in the Army, he would not have discovered his true calling as a storyteller.
