America's Library
By Kathy Ishizuka -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2005
With offerings entitled “Jeffersoni Macaroni” and “One-Armed Cartwheels!” America’s Library sure seems like a fun site for kids. That’s precisely the objective of its creator, the Library of Congress (LOC), which says in the site’s stated mission that it “wants kids to have fun with history while learning at the same time.”
As part of a recent overhaul of its public Web sites, LOC developed this version of its award-winning site for children, America’s Library, specifically for the child-safe Web domain kids.us, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The revised online resource adds audio narration and animation to tell the history of America through a series of interesting, if somewhat offbeat stories. Here you’ll learn the cultural significance of one-armed cartwheels. And who knew the life of bowling great Don Carter could be so fascinating? In addition, a series of games lets kids have a little interactive fun, animating a cartoon, designing their own car, or playing a word-search game based on Thomas Jefferson’s drawing of a macaroni-making machine.
